HUMPING FAGGOTS
I planned to stroll out to the Foyle Hill Rabbit Warren and watch the sun go down. As it was, I turned short of the footpath stile and into the sunken world of Breech Lane.
The top-side hedge has been managed for many years by the same man, a Shastonian and elder statesman of this town. He lays it beautifully every so often and I, amongst others, profit from his labour of love in pea sticks and bean poles. The hedge-layer stacks them in piles of poles or sticks and we help ourselves to what we need. It’s one of those priceless community relationships where no money changes hands.
Across a hay-field is the hedge-layers veg patch, part of a garden formerly attached to where he lived; beyond a stand of slender silver birch, a fir, firey orange-twigged willow and arguably incongruous palm; the other side of a pond, fruit trees and hedge; below a line of massive beech and Scot’s pine.
I spent the final daylight hour of this festive Sunday humping great bundles of hazel faggot on my shoulder up the shallow, undulating rise and stashing them in a place where we may find productive use for them in the season yet to come.
Copyright, Joe Hashman www.dirtynails.co.uk
Tags: bean, beech, birch, breech, december, fir, foyle hill, hazel, hedge, palm, pea, pine, pond, shaftesbury