Cutting Grass

Every year the grass grows and, every year, hours of human effort are expended in cutting it down again.  For some people, a couple of hours of strimming in the garden may be theraputic - if annoying for the neighbours - but for others, such as this space man, it's a job.  For those of you who don't recognise him, it's Hughie MacLachlan of pig fame wearing a different hat, as the man who has the contract to strim all the verges in the village six times this summer.  This has been done every year in the past, but we've never seen them looking so good.

The Diary has only one beef with Hughie's fine efforts - he's been asked.... no, begged.... not to strim the tops off the many lovely wild orchids that grow along the verges at this time of year.  If anyone sees him doing it, the Diary would like to hear from them.

For others, cutting the grass is a commercial activity of a different sort.  This picture shows the crofters from Millburn Croft turning the crop in one of the Ormsaigbeg fields which they work.  When asked, we were told that it might be made into hay or haylage, a hay/silage cross, depending on the weather.  It promptly rained, and the crop was gathered in 24 hours later, so it probably ended up as haylage.