For a Fistful of Raindrops

In A Fistful of Dollars, the arrival of a stranger brings with it six-shooter law to the township of San Miguel. Ultimately the dire situation the town found itself in, sandwiched between a feud between two families, is resolved through a gun battle in the parched dusty windblown town square before the 'man with no name' (played by Clint Eastwood in his first role) rides out of town, never to return.

You can feel the heat in this classic and well loved Spaghetti Western. Sweat drips off the foreheads of the main players, the sunlight blindingly intense, the sky is the deepest of blue, dust billows everywhere, energy sapping heat devoid of all rain. 

I was born in 1964. A Fistful of Dollars was released in 1964 and this week the Scottish Environment Protection Agency announced it had had its driest year since 1964. Even in a normally wet Scotland farmers are having to provide water to stock. I don't think there is any connection between these three, or is there?

In this part of Somerset, and across the whole of southern England, this year has been dry, exceptionally dry and warm. I've known dry summers, I've known hot periods. I well remember holidaying in Bournemouth  in 1976 characterised by heat and the scent of heathland fire smoke everywhere. But these were relatively short lived, a number of weeks. With just a few days to go before the end of the metrological summer, the breaking news is that 2025 will undoubtedly be the warmest summer on record due to daily temperatures above the seasonal norm for months. Part of what seems a rising trend, 1976 no longer features in the top 5 list of hot summers. The record-breaking dry year of 1964 with its 79% rainfall now an interesting footnote. 

Despite the wet winter of 2024-2025, Spring arrived abruptly bringing with it drying winds and sunshine. I've been looking at my diary. On the 15th of February we were in Thenford Arboretum in Northamptonshire and 'today's weather was more like mid December - horrible grey, foggy, wet weather'. There seemed to be a lot of cloudy dark days before I then wrote in my diary on February 28th 'Weather has settled in to a dry sunny spell at last'. The following day I wrote 'what a fabulous and beautiful day - not a breath of wind, the sun had heat to it'. I remember the last few weeks at work before I retired on the 19th of March were wonderfully sunny, even warm. Quickly however by mid April I recall being worried about the dry conditions while walking on the Quantock Hills. Again in my diary I wrote on the 11th of April, 'everything is tinder dry on the Quantocks - the soil is either baked solid or blowing away in the quite gentle breeze - I notice farms are supplying water to sheep up here'. But we assumed the rain would come. 

Yet four months later we've had hardly any rain. In Somerset just 1% of the average monthly rainfall for July. Over the summer around a third of the average expected rainfall has fallen. What has fallen, sporadically in hefty showers, evaporated quickly in the warm sunshine. As I write this on the 28th of August many trees and shrubs are showing serious signs of stress, branches being shed, leaves dropping quickly with the landscape looking more October golden than late summer. It won't be until next summer that we'll see the full effect of this dry season on tree health but looking now it's not good to witness and I sadly predict many trees will not survive.

A walk we did over the recent August Bank Holiday weekend has highlighted, and provided the impetus to write a few words, on how significant this dry spell has become. If you will an aide-mémoire to this remarkable year before all too soon the autumnal rains will return, or at least we sincerely hope so.

This walk began in the nearby Somerset village of Winscombe, with a plan to walk to the hamlet of Winterhead and return. All too soon as we left Winscombe the first field was the colour of bleached champagne. Underfoot the soil unyielding, it felt like walking on concrete.  

After a few fields the walk follows a myriad of lanes up towards Sidcot Hill. What struck me was the number of fallen leaves and how, as in this image below, the beech tree leaves are turning orange. I had to remind myself this was August 23rd, not October 23rd.

 

 

Worse was to come. We left the lanes and entered the countryside proper, firstly horse paddocks, which seemed to have virtually no grass left in them. Usually in dry periods the grass yellows but the root systems lie dormant waiting for the the next wet spell. These fields though were showing extensive areas of dusty dirt. What has happened to the grass, have the roots died too? I looked across the fields. Yes trees and hedges were retaining colour but the landscape looks tired, a beige hue of exhaustion, it has looked like this for a long time.

Beyond the paddocks we headed up onto Sidcot Hill on the way to joining the West Mendip Way. In this heat, which has defined the summer of 2025, it was a long slog up onto the hill. The views up here are astonishing, across to Wales, but it was how dry the fields looked that caught my attention. These fields still contained sheep, sheltering in the shadow of a hedge, but fields with little grass growing, though plenty of dock plants or thistles surviving due to their long tap roots.

We eventually joined the West Mendip Way where by chance we had a long chat to the farmer here, Mark Heal. The track this medium-long distance path follows is usually muddy even in summer. As we chatted by the gate Mark confirmed many of the issues I'd already heard about affecting farming elsewhere. He told us that he has now used up the last of his winter feed as he has been supplementary feeding his organic beef and sheep all summer long. Lambing during the warm weather in April, he added, was something of a treat, but with no rain of note since then all his stock has needed to be fed, when they should of course be feeding naturally on the summer grazing. Economically this is disastrous. Worse still, he continued, every farmer he knows is in the same position and if replacement winter feed can be found it is both scarce and very expensive, a situation which can only be made worse by the poor harvest this year, yields are significantly down with hay and silage crops almost non existent. There will be a fodder shortage this coming winter. For someone who is struggling to keep his animals alive and healthy Mark seemed quite optimistic about the future, as long as it rains that is.

I watched Mark drive off up the dusty track, on his way to check his South Devon Black cattle we'd seen earlier. I was touched by his optimism as we headed off in the opposite direction across what should have been a muddy ford, which today simply featured the well preserved baked hard mountain bike tyre tracks from a previous season.

He's right, we need to be optimistic to the changes in Britain's weather. My own take is that with Climate Change Britain is becoming much more continental in its weather patterns, meaning prolonged spells of the same conditions rather than the hotchpotch of weather changing daily we've all considered the norm for a century or more. Personally I have enjoyed weeks of predictable dry days this summer but I know many, my wife included, have struggled with the prolonged heat day in, day out, dominated by four heatwaves of exceptional temperatures. 

Wildlife has had mixed fortunes too. Dry soils mean earthworms and soil invertebrates have buried down deep, out of the reach of birds, hedgehogs and other animals who rely on these for survival. Slugs and snails have found hidden corners and gone into what is called Aestivation, a form or dormancy that allows them to tick over their metabolism before the rain returns. Our swifts departed about two weeks early, partly a sign of a successful and early season, they arrived a week early. Bats around the house have been very active however due to the abundant insect life which has bucked some of the negative trend with second broods of butterflies doing well in some species for example. Earlier in the summer there was a ladybird population explosion, short lived as the aphid population was supressed. I've seen more harvestmen in the garden than for years.

Now though it has gone on long enough. As I write this  unsettled weather brought to us by ex-hurricane Erin is trying to make inroads but it is not really producing what we need. Yes it is a little cooler, a little more cloud in the sky but the rain of yesterday was in the form of short lived showers and as has been the case all year, rain evaporated in an hour or so leaving the landscape dry once more. What we need is a few weeks of steady medium intensity rain, not heavy downpours, to begin the water cycle again.

We eventually finished our walk last weekend taking in the views and the scenery and finishing at Winscombe Cricket Club where for about an hour we watched Wedmore 2nds playing Winscombe 2nds on a very dry pitch - perfect weather for cricket while watching the wind ruffle the piles of fallen leaves beside us.

I don't think I'll forget this year for a long while. The rain will of course return one day, and, if my predictions are accurate for a continental climate, it will probably rain every day for weeks non stop, if not for months. Then, possibly following the arrival of a stranger riding ahead of a weather front, I'll look back and say, was the hot dry summer of 2025 actually real?

Stogumber Wildflowers : Mid August weekend part 1

 It's been a hectic few weeks and looking back it is almost a month since I posted anything. In that time I've been to Devon to walk alpaca, Somerset to ride on a steam train, Wiltshire Archives to look through some of the Richard Jefferies archive held there. Then trips to London to view two excellent art exhibitions, at Buckingham Palace (Georgian clothing) and the Tate Britain (The Rossetti's), I had new windows installed at home, spent a glorious evening watching nightjar on the Quantocks for the last time this year,  and in-between this tried to hold down a full time job while the rain lashed down every weekend.

Time to put this absence of wordsmithing to one side and recall two lovely events this weekend.

Firstly The Stogumber Wildflower Meadow.

To be truthful and accurate this isn't a wildflower meadow. It is an arable field which has had annual wildflowers like field poppy, cornflower, corn marigold and linseed sown each year, but not this year. More of that later. This sowing began around eight years ago in the corner of a much larger arable field between the villages of Stogumber and Monksilver. I've known about it for a while and tried to visit before but always thwarted by time or an excuse. A friend of Mrs Wessex Reiver visited on the previous Wednesday and sent some images saying it was still beautiful. Checking it was still open this Saturday we made a bee-line to discover for ourselves on its penultimate day of 2023. And what turned out probably to be its final year.  

We arrived the same time as what turned out to be the farmer who began all this (seated in the top image). Chatting to him he said it first came about as slugs devastated a crop he'd sown. So to not leave the field empty he sowed some wildflower seed opened up the field for charity and that first year having been very successful, he had repeated this event every year, raising money for a different charity, until this year. However he has now retired and his nephew runs the farm. His nephew has a different philosophy (the nephew thinks these flowers are weeds the farmer said) and this year ploughed and sowed a single crop of linseed. However what happened was the seedbank in the soil had other ideas and this corner of the field once again erupted into bloom and outcompeted the linseed. However in 2024 the field will be under barley and probably that'll be it. But there's still hope given the 2023 bloom wasn't meant to happen - will the wildflowers return in 2024 anyway.

I absolutely understand both land uses and the changing of the guard. The older farmer said he has received great joy from sowing the seed to opening up the field for visitors, making me think is that an age thing? As we age we look on life in a different way to when we were young. I appreciate too the nephew wanting to farm and maximise his business. All things are born, mature and then wither away, making this experiment and labour of love no different. If this field had been a traditional hay-meadow this would have been a different story. But it is an arable field which through work, time and of course money has been sown and nurtured for nearly a decade. 

And it worked, it was stunning, and has raised money for charity. Not large, maybe a hectare possibly two, but alive with honeybees. The drone-noise of their activity was everywhere. I learnt that there are hives all around that area and the keepers know their bees head for this field. Oddly though I discovered very little other insect life, albeit without really looking. Large white butterflies were everywhere but the farmer said only 6 species of butterfly have been recorded over the years (he didn't name them), a few dragonflies but mainly bees of various forms. The ecologist in me thinking that is probably due to this being a mono-crop of sorts, admittedly a stunning one, but simply a handful of annual flowers.

As I write this the field is now closed to visitors. Chatting to the farmer before we left I asked what happens next. In previous years they've left the seed heads to ripen then cut them down, ploughed and re-sown with fresh seed. This is why the residual seedbank over seven years of sowings has taken over this year. But this autumn the crop will be ploughed in and winter barley sown.  That got me thinking. If it was simply left to grass over, all of these annual arable flowers would die out, though of course they'd be replaced by perennial meadow species. Now that would make an interesting experiment, botanical succession from a ploughed field, through annual botany, then to perennial plants and all that associated species abundance and biodiversity. Could take twenty years maybe?

I'm glad I made the effort to go and visit this field even on a blustery grey moody day in August. A patch of vibrant colour in a beautiful, but predominantly green landscape. And we never know what may happen in 2024.

The Ferguson System

July 30th 2016 will go down as one of my most amazing memories. A cornucopia of Massey Fergusons beneath the Coventry ring-road is most definitely a first and possibly a sight that will never happen again.  I volunteered myself to head off at 5am on a Saturday morning to record a short report for Radio 4's Farming Today (of which I'm still trying to find a farmer who listens at 05.45 each weekday morning). Even though it was a Saturday, as a Massey fan myself it was a simple calculation, to go or not to go. I arrived at 8am.

 

 

The drive up the A46 was the beginning of my own journey, coming up behind a low-loader carrying three vintage Massey's near Evesham, that vision to be replaced by a convoy of 8 Massey's on the three lane highway just south of Coventry, amber flashing warning lights ablaze. Terrific. As was the sight as I peered down from the elevated section of the ring-road. Even as early as 8am, more than 20 Massey's and Fergies were assembling off the back of low loaders, in preparation for today's main event. And that main event was wonderfully named 70 at 70, a celebration the 70th anniversary of the Ferguson TE20 tractor being produced at Coventry's Banner Lane works, once Europe's largest tractor factory. Sadly this closed in 2002, Massey's are now manufactured in Beauvais in France thanks to huge resistance to keep Massey production in the UK by the French government. The site is now a  housing estate.

 

More than half a million Ferguson TE20's were produced over the decade they were in production before their replacement with the Massey Ferguson 35 following the merger of Massey-Harris and Ferguson. Better known as 'The Little Grey Fergie' these machines did arguably more than any other aspect of agriculture to modernise farming and make it more efficient, a dream of their founder Harry Ferguson. Harry Ferguson's dream was to feed the world with efficiently produced food. Beginning in 1919 he worked for over a decade to perfect his 'Ferguson System' which remained in production for decades before being replaced with modern electronics in the 1990's. However even today his 3 point linkage system is used on most tractors to attach mounted implements. It is a remarkable achievement that 70 years later, many of these simple 20hp tractors are still working.

 

This event organised by the Coventry Transport Museum was to celebrate the seventy years since the TE20 was produced but tractors from all ages were part of the day, including this flagship of the current range the mighty 400hp MF8737. Yes it is black, and that was a sprayed this colour in celebration of Coventy's bid as a City of Culture, and will remain that colour as it travels about on the exhibition circuit.

 

A huge difference from the oldest machine in the parade this 1947 TE20 driven by the wonderfully jolly Mr Dodds who was second in the convoy after the 8737.



 

So to the parade. At 09.45 we were off (Mr Campbell Scott head of Massey PR on a blue number) I'd been promised a seat on one of the MF's in the parade but as it happened seats were in very short supply, so I bagged a lift in the Coventry Transport Museum's land rover making up the rear. Not as atmospheric, but a lot more comfortable.

 

We chugged through the streets of Coventry, quite slowly, as can be seen from inside the land rover.

 

Before amassing at the Millennium Square for the official presentation and cake cutting. 

 

It was amazing to see so many members of the public taking photographs along the route. As Will my driver from the Museum said, the tractor exhibits at the Museum are a huge hit especially with children, more so than cars apparently.

 

Obviously there for work I did a number of quick interviews with some people there but the most interesting was with a David Walker, the chap in the above image with the baseball cap on. He worked for Massey's for 21 years as a technical writer and was involved with the 100 series right through to the 3900 series.in the late 1980's. Now retired he has written a very readable autobiography of his life. Sometimes these niche autobiographies can be a dry read. Not so Mr Walkers who has the wonderful ability to lift a technical career into a readable gambol through the world of agricultural engineering. He was as entertaining on air too.

 

 

Like all good things the day came to an end, for me at least. Switching off the microphone I metamorphosed into a member of the public for half an hour, strolling around the now static displays.

 

This beautifully preserved and still working MF135 had to be photographed by me as this was the model of tractor I first drove, in fact the first vehicle I ever drove at the age of 14 or so. This model even has the ploughing light on the back which I remember so well. I caught up with its owner later, from Newbury in Berkshire and he explained that it has been restored but like all tractors needs to be worked regularly so continues to do light work around his mostly sheep farm.

 

I took this image inside a cabbed 135, just for nostalgia reasons....its all so familiar even 30 years after I last drove one.

And the harvest comes in

This afternoon Julie and I went for a walk around the lanes and fields of her village. A glorious afternoon walk of about 5 miles made all the better for being adjacent to a field as the combines came in. I love watching combines, takes me back 30 years to when I used to work in the fields at this time, both as a schoolboy and later as an agricultural journeyman.

Wilton Windmill from East Grafton

I didn't have my camera with me but the following images were taken on my Blackberry. I'd never used the black and white or sepia settings before, not bad for a mobile phone. Shame I hadn't my camera though as these would have made super subjects for black and white images.

Up the hill they go

Disgorging their work ready for the mill

Apart from the fact these are modern combines, black and white works for farming shots I feel, makes them seem timeless.

The same in sepia

And 2 colour ones, just for the record.

Wish I could drive one of these, looks like fun.......!!

The Endless Furrow!

Vintage Tractors, Horse Ploughing and sons of the soil, all made for a grand old British event in the Somerset countryside yesterday.

The North Somerset Agricultural Society held yesterday its annual Ploughing Match. I wasn't there last year, but apparently it was a wash out and the day was abandoned. This year warm and sunny weather bathed the gloriously pastoral countryside of North Somerset in a ruddy glow. For those of you thinking, where on earth is North Somerset, well it's the top bit of what was originally Somerset until around 30 odd years ago when politicians decided to create Avon, and now following the disbandment of Unitary Authorities, it has returned to it's Somerset roots, but not quite. And explaining why not is a whole can of worms to be opened.

But this post is about ploughing, which for millennia has been the beginning of the agricultural season. Ploughing in my mind is a real link back to Man's desire to tame the land, grow crops and ultimately this created the British countryside all around us. I've always loved watching ploughing in action, even now when driving about if I see someone ploughing I will often stop and watch for a while. Something primeval is stirred in me as I watch the plough's coulter disc slice through the soil, followed simultaneously by the mouldoard turning that soil over in an almost animated way to leave shiny dark furrows of fresh soil exposed to the air. Watching a field of stubble slowly being brought under the plough is fascinating, I don't think I'll ever tire of that sight. And I wish I'd been taking part yesterday, rather than as a voyeur.

Ploughing matches however are about winning the competition and therefore not very relaxed for the competitors as continuous minute adjustments take place to ensure the perfect furrow is ploughed straight and true, with no trash (surface plant material) remaining visible. Seeing a perfect ploughed field is very satisfying as this chap below demonstrates, notice how contented he is with his work..... mind you he had just had his tummy tickled.

Yesterday 3 teams of horses were ploughing, always a great draw for the crowds. Numerous vintage tractors buzzed across the countryside like ants foraging for food, and worryingly tractors which are now seen as collectors items, but in reality are the ones which I drove as nowt-but-a-lad. Tempest fugit has a lot to answer for! And then there are the big modern semi-mounted 9 plough land grabbing monsters which can plough a field before breakfast.

In attendance also were country girls to watch the show, as this pole dancing friend of mine who I went with demonstrates. Shocking.

Enough, show us the horses I can hear you say. So ever to oblige here we go, the horses.

Sadly I can't remember the names of the horses as Olwen, the pole dancing country plough-girl, was talking to the owners and got some info on each team. Being a man and only interested in engines, I've forgotten what these two are called.

These two were called Sam and Poppet, I know that because they have name tags on. Thanks lads, that's helps an old man with a failing memory.

Time for a rest !

And they're off, sheer rippling muscle power. It is just stunning to see a man control two power horses like these and also the gentle nature of these gentle giants when at rest. Jethro Tull, that iconic folk-progressive-rock band fronted by a man playing a flute, wrote a wonderful song about heavy horses in 1978, containing a smatering of profound lines given what is happening these days with global warming and dwindling oil supplies.

"And one day when the oil barons have all dripped dry and the nights are seen to draw colder

They'll beg for your strength, your gentle power your noble grace and your bearing

And you'll strain once again to the sound of the gulls in the wake of the deep plough, sharing."

But let us not forget the tractor.

Bliss sheer bliss, nice Massey and trailing 2 plough.

The kit and caboodle of a match plough. A tape measure is also a must to make sure the distances between ploughed and un-ploughed land are not too far apart to get a perfect finish.

Although this was a ploughing match, a small village show was to be found in an adjacent field, usual produce, crafts and entries, but this one intrigued me. 'Produce in a Basket'. All three entries won first prize. Which is a first for me.

Eventually all this frenetic activity needs to be rewarded, after all, points mean prizes. We decided to watch the ceremony. Time was 4.15pm and the awards were due at about 5pm. So we found a sunny spot and sat and waited in the warm sun. By 5.30pm despite frantic tooings and froings behind the union flag nothing stirred. At 5.35, a microphone sprang into life informing the massed throng of boiler suits, grubby jeans and flat caps (and that's just the women) that in 5 minutes the awards will begin. At 5.55 pm, we were off....! I like being in the country, a country mile is about 3 days walk, and a country 5 minutes is at least 20 minutes.

The microphone crackled into life and the first awards were unleashed, complete with brown envelopes of prize money, silverware flashing in the evening sunlight, and a round of applause. However it seemed those at the back couldn't hear so the crowd were asked to step forward, plenty of room up here. This brought a surreal moment as on mass a silhouetted (we were sitting facing the sun) group of ploughmen shuffled forward inch by inch; individually not wishing to get too close, but as a group being lured by invitation closer by the chap in charge. And it reminded me of a Monty Python sketch, where inch by inch the attacking soldiers dared to get close enough to fight, but always with a worry on their face.

And for both Olwen and I, the awards ceremony, was the pinnacle of the day. It summed up Britain, village shows, meeting up with old friends, sitting in the sun, drinking cider, chatting, followed by watching ploughmen, there were women there but none ploughing, men who keep this country fed walking towards to table to get their prize. We could have been at any agricultural show anywhere in middle England, these modest men walked forward, many with limps or bent backs, faces red after decades of exposure to wind and sun, but all displaying a pride in what they do without having to shout about it as is the modern celebrity craze; it was unspoken, there behind their eyes just by looking at their faces. People to be honoured I feel.

And so the day came to an end and as we walked back to the car a book I read years ago came into my mind. "The Endless Furrow" by A.G.Street was first published in 1949 and is a fictional account of a "townsman's" drive and desire to own a piece of English land as a farmer, and the joy he felt when he finally got there and walked his fields.

Sums up perfectly what today was really all about - in my mind at least.