The Wind That Shakes the Barley is an old Irish rebel song. I liked it a lot when I was a teenager much taken by the plentiful canon of such songs, and I even included it in my own repertoire when the gang and I went camping on the banks of some river in rural Wales. It was a bit sad, but I liked it for the sense of place it engendered.
It was quite windy when I went for my walk this morning, and several fields in Church Lane have been sown with barley this year instead of the usual wheat. The crop has grown well and the lightweight fronds, or beards, that grow upwards from the top of the plant are already well formed, but the seed heads are yet to develop. This makes the top of the plant very light so they move easily in the breeze while the stems remain relatively still and upright. The effect of all this is to turn the fields into so many inland seas with gentle, pale green waves constantly rising and falling as the wind moves across them. I find that quite mesmerising.
But on the west side of the Shire a different farmer has sown his fields with an oilseed crop topped with golden yellow flowers, and today I was downwind of them and discovered for the first time that they have a scent. A city dweller once asked me why on earth I would want to live ‘this far out.’ Well, I think the reason should now be obvious.
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