Our hay crop was cut on October 13th and rowed up a couple of days later, but in the early hours of the16th someone set light to it, creating this ugly black scar across the field.
Fortunately, nature can prove remarkably resilient, and within ten days fresh grass shoots were emerging from the burnt area. Given that the grass was presumably covered in dew, it is remarkable that it burnt as well as it did, but the wet ground surface would have prevented the heat from penetrating to any depth. In pre-colonial days, Native Americans in North America would set fire to extensive grasslands to encourage fresh growth of sweet grasses for the animals that they hunted. Here on Hambrook Marshes however, it’s yet more mindless vandalism.