Ode to autumn

‘Ode to Autumn’, by John Keats which starts ‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ is one of my favourite poems.

West Wales, a land of rolling hills, purple covered mountains and secret valleys is beautiful in the balmy days of late August and September.  A warm south-westerly breeze greets the early morning and as the sun ascends into a brilliant blue sky it burns off the cotton wool mist that lies along the valleys below us.  They are days to treasure, a happy memory in the gloomy days of winter.

It is a time to enjoy the flaming colours as the sycamores and oaks change, their leaves a crisp and rustling carpet in the woodland glades.  The streams and rivers meander apathetically, waiting for the flush of winter rains. Busy squirrels hide their stores of hazelnuts and beechmast, and bunches of bright orange berries droop from the rowan tree.

Keats carries on – ‘And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core’.  August and September are for blackberries and scratched hands are purple with juice.  The fragrance of homemade bramble jelly is the perfect taste of autumn. September is a time for pickling and jam making and the whole house smells when pickles are simmered for hours in the kitchen.  Eyes stream when shallots are prepared for pickling but there is something very satisfying about rows of home made preserves in the cupboard.  Albeit that with the cost of sugar and ingredients it is probably cheaper to buy in a shop.

’Or on a half-reaped furrow sounded asleep’.  This might have happened in the 19th century but not anymore.  There are too many tractors whizzing around.  Out here in the West Wales hills there is not much barley grown.  The weather is unreliable but our neighbour who likes to be self-sufficient always has a field waiting to be combined and usually manages to get his barley and straw in somehow.

‘And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue’. From August onwards we have the huge straw lorries coming in up the M4 from Gloucester way and the East of England.  Transport costs make it expensive, but it is necessary bedding for the cows and sheep.  There are now massive piles of shiny black or grey plastic wrapped, big bale silage in yards everywhere and a final cut of silage may be taken from the autumn flush of grass.  Unfortunately, shreds of plastic litter the area, festooning hedges and banks.  We cannot go back to the old days of thatched hayricks but they were certainly much pleasanter to look at than these black heaps.  It is good to have a barn full of sweet smelling hay and know there is enough fodder to last until the following May.

‘Then in a mournful choir the small gnats mourn’.  Midges seem to come out any day of the year if there is sufficient warmth in the sun, even on a winter day but flies are less of a bother now for cattle and sheep most of whom have been treated with a pour-on insecticide.

‘And full grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourne’.  The lambs are weaned and lorry loads are sent off to the abattoirs and markets.  The fat lambs that have graded will go straight to slaughter and the ‘store’ lambs that are not up to standard will go to a lowland farmer with better grass and be sold again in the winter. 

Thousands of Welsh Mountain lambs will come down from the hills and be sold off giving the farmers much needed cash to last the winter.  Ewes have a five-month gestation and so the rams will be put in with the ewes for whenever lambing must start for the whole cycle to begin again.

‘While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day’.  Cirrus clouds blow high across a pale blue sky as mist settles over the distant hills where heather and ling bloom with their rich purple and lilac flowers.

Time is spent cleaning and oiling the baler and mower etc., before they are put away for the winter.  An essential part of autumn is hedge trimming and out comes the fiercesome blade, the harbinger of punctures for cycle tyres.  Banks and hedges are ruthlessly trimmed leaving sharp points and debris on the road.  Children come home every time with a flat tyre and spikes of hawthorn through the inner tubes.

‘The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft’.  Whilst painting and catching up on all the jobs the summer days were too short for, a melodious trill sweetens the air and the robins are singing again, more winter friends to brighten the short days.

Keats finishes with – ‘And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.’

These adventurous birds gather on the telephone lines preparing for their flight to a warmer land and it is time to bring the logs in for winter fires.  The equinoctial wind and rains have blasted the leaves off the trees and bare, grey branches bend to the weather.  We have Halloween and fireworks to look forward to and it is then but a short step to Christmas!