Last Friday our orchard played host to two special visitors, Mary and Chris, who came to scythe the grasses and wild flowers.

So, this is how you scythe...

 Luckily the rain had stayed away and the area was dry and ready to be cut.  They started at 8.30 am and by 9.15 were well in the swing of it all.  By then there were also large swathes of grass which needed lifting and stacking - and this is where Y6 came in.  For the whole day the Y6 children came down in turns to rake, lift and stack the grass into a huge haystack. 

We've made a haystack...hooray!

This proved to be lots of fun, especially when the grass in the haystack needed trampling on to press it down and make it stable.

Mary had also brought along a child sized scythe, and everyone had a go.  It was much more difficult than it looked and the girls proved more adept at it than the boys, who generally thought it was going to be easy and then gave up after a couple of swings!  Harlie (6M) and Emily (6N) proved to be expert mowers and quickly cut their way through a large area.

Harlie in full swing - nearly

Jolene in full swing - definitely!

Lots of wildlife was seen, with a grasshopper and a wasp spider caught for a short time and studied.  A frog was seen hopping away into the long grass left for wildlife cover, and many butterflies were out collecting nectar including the Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria).

By 4.30 the orchard was looking clear and tidy ready for a really good raking before more wildflower seed goes down. 

Teachers can scythe too you know

Raking and preparing the meadow for seeding

Now that's a great day at school