Ah, high summer, or what passes for it around here, which means it’s time for the council to start on its annual roadside hedgerow massacree. I passed the tractor on my bike as it made its way along the back roads hacking down the vegetation. I don’t have a problem with them cutting the grass verges because on many roads the verges function as informal passing places and it’s nice to be able to see that the road edge you’re trusting your car to is just grass and not, say, ditch before you end up in it. But this time the lawnmower-onna-stick thing that the tractor was wielding was being applied higher up and further back, right back to the drystone dykes. Never mind the effect on the still-nesting birds, or on wildlife in general – and never mind particularly that they do this right before the blackberries start ripening, but before we get a chance to pick them – the countryside must be neat and tidy! Or at least the bits of it that can be reached by a tractor with a flail. Shame they can’t send a machine round to tidy up the rest of it: although I’m not sure a machine big enough to cut off an ugly bungalow at ground level could get up the worst affected roads. Oh well, maybe this means they’ll do the potholes next.
And speaking of which, and many other road related things, it seems there is an explanation for my rides being always uphill – or the double-ramped hill, as I now know to be the correct technical term. All explained by Bistromathic‘s more practical (and American) cousin, Cyclo-math…
They started around here last week – and many need it doing as they are encroaching on the roads. I got held up in both directions of the dog walk today, but he did pull in at appropriate places to let us past.
We were a little concerned the first year we were up here at the hedge hacking but the hedges seem to thrive on being treated rough.
Over here in the US you don’t want any of the blackberries growing along the roadside anyway. They’re contaminated with with the exhaust of passing traffic, and probably pesticides and other nasties. Better living through chemicals.
Brightside: I’m expecting a bumper crop in my backyard this year where these Satanic bushes are taking over.
Helen – yes, treat ‘em mean and keep ‘em er, bushy
Dame – it’s probably the same over here but I’ve been eating roadside blackberries for years with no ill effects. You pick your risks, I suppose.