Mowing the Meadow.

The ranger wanted to mow the wild flower meadow that “The Friends of Roslin Glen” planted a few years ago. It’s a job that needs doing twice a year and, apparently, needs doing with tools known as Austrian scythes, a tractor dragging a lawn mower doesn’t, it seems, cut the mustard. As secretary of “The Friends,” it was my duty to rally the troops to carry out the task; a duty carried out so effectively that I was their only representative.
 
Fortunately, members of Sustrans share a similar responsibility as the meadow is on a joint use path, thus the secretary of the local sustrans group was also there to lend a hand. Perhaps we should have planned to meet at a week-end when more people might have been available; but – then again - it may just that people would rather help by producing tray-bakes for us to sell.
 
There is something strangely satisfying about reducing waist-high docks to a stubble by wielding a primitive tool capable of severing a foot from its leg in one simple movement, it is also amazing how many dogs risk running across just to see what we are doing. In the event, no living fauna were damaged though there was a steady stream of frogs being carried across the path to safety.
 
Now that it is all finished, most of my major muscle groups, and many of the minor ones are strangely stiff.

I have just posted, "Pretty in Pink" from the eleventh.