Mourning the Maize.

I stood out for about fifteen minutes in the growing gloom of a September twilight tonight, watching the harvester and trailers harvesting the maize crop in the field opposite my house. I find watching the process most interesting, but it's tinged with a hint of regret because the sight of a seven-foot-tall forest of maize  is a little spectacular. Mel found it fascinating because it reminded her of the early scenes of Lord of the Rings where it played host to much mischief by the young male characters. Maize is also typically garnered in the autumn, so the harvest is another marker telling us that the summer is definitely over.

For the first ten years of my living here, that field was pasture land on which the farmer's herd of heifers spent the spring, summer, and early autumn, occasionally calling to the young bulls in another field on the opposite side of the lane. But it had been ploughland before then, as evidenced by the clear ridge and furrow pattern on the ground dating at least to mediaeval times. No doubt they would have grown various beans and brassicas back then because the British climate wasn't warm enough for maize. In fact, maize didn't become a major agricultural crop in Britain until the 1970s. Not many people know that (at least I didn't, so I choose to believe that not many other people did either.)