Tag: sandhills

January 10th – Over to Burntwood to get some shopping in, I went via the canal and Chasewater. Just at Home Farm, where Brawn’s Wood used to be, I noted a new gap in the hedgerow, stomped down. It didn’t look man-made, and there’s no beneficial human shortcut I can see here; but earlier in the week I noted deer footprints coming off Clayhanger Common near Catshill Junction Bridge and I thing they’re probably coming this way now and on to the fields at Springhill and Sandhills.

Further on, on this clear, hard and windy day, Hammerwich and beyond to Lichfield Cathedral were very visible and made interesting zoom photos. 

How I adore that view, and this stretch of canal.

September 23rd – Labouring up Shire Oak Hill at Sandhills, a familiar crunch crackles under my tyres. The beech mast is thick this year, and it’s been a good year for beech nuts.

The husks are hard, prickly and dry as old bones; the little brown nuts shiny and hard. Some years, the nuts are fatter and more oily than others, and this is part of the growing cycle of the tree, not a factor of the weather. Edible but harsh, they were used as a substitute for coffee in wartime and gave their name to a chewing gum.

I collect a few, split them open with a pocket blade, and suck out the kernel, and chew them determinedly for the remainder of my journey. 

A palatable taste, not unlike a slightly sharp hazelnut. But it’s hard work to get a decent mouthful!

17th August – At Home Farm, Sandhills, the harvest seems complete, and the wheat in the top field has been harvested. The day before, the straw lay in neat rows; today, it had been baled into neat, cylindrical rolls.

I love to see this, it appeals to my urge to grab order from chaos, and always looks dramatic.

And with this, the season’s mechanism advances another notch – it can’t be a coincidence that the weather is now colder and more changeable.

August 7th – Closer to home, across the spread of Springhill and Sandhills, it’s harvest time. At Cartersfield Lane, wheat was ripe, and ready to be harvested, a process already underway at Home Farm, where the combine was sending up a terrifically dramatic cloud of cereal dust as it worked. Also growing on the lower fields of Sandhills, a healthy and verdant maize crop, now quite tall.

This does seem to have been a most favourable summer for the farmers, but I’m sure they’ll find something to complain about before long…

August 3rd – Still laying off the long rides for the sake of my sore foot, I had to run some errands and get some shopping in – so I headed on a sunny, but windy afternoon to Morrisons at Burntwood.

A lovely day, for sure – and the harvest at Home Farm, Sandhills, had started, but the wheat still wasn’t ripe enough. Hopefully, it will be before the next lot of rains midweek…

July 24th – Further on, at Sandhills, a fine crop of maize. Related to sweetcorn, it’s grown mainly for animal feed and seems a bit of a declining crop. That’s sad, really, as it’s fascinating. Already a couple of feet high, this may well grow to 4 feet or more tall, and is lush and green the whole time.

When harvested, a special machine is used that chobbles up the whole crop – seeds, stalks, leaves and cobs – into small pieces, so nothing is really wasted. 

This is one of the latest summer crops, one of the last harvested, and will provide this vivid green right into September.

July 7th – Working late, I returned at sundown and winched my way up Shire Oak Hill from Sandhills. I noticed that lots of trees along here are laden with developing fruits – beach nuts, acorns, pine cones and these, unusually abundant sycamore seeds, or ‘helicopters’ as we used to call them as kids.

They seem to be already ripening – but this is only just the beginning of July. 

Am I imagining it, or are we heading for an early autumn?

June 29th – Also showing well was the landscape. From the view down to Sandhills and Springhill over Home Farm, to the threatening skies over Hammerwich, the countryside looked gorgeous. Everywhere I surveyed was turning colour with ripening crops.

This people, is Brownhills. It has some remarkably beautiful views.

May 24th – There’s probably some fancy photographic name for it, but some days seem naturally high-contrast. Something about the light. I spun around very wet towpaths out of Brownhills to Chasewater, and noted that part of Sandhills was dark, and another part was remaining in light. It really was quite beautiful.

Newtown’s bunny population were out enjoying the lush wet vegetation, and could be barely bothered to run away as I approached, and the view to Hammerwich was as wonderful as ever now it’s wearing it’s summer jacket. At Chasewater, the view from the dam was remarkable, with a rather threatening sky. 

As I headed home, the heavens opened again.

But it’s summer, and warm rain is better than cold…