Autumn

A solitary robin breaks the heavy silence with his call from the plum tree that overhangs the vegetable shed.  A pause as I open the door and look for him amongst the bare branches. He suddenly darts down onto the ground, hops towards the shed and then he is gone, disappearing across the allotment. Silence. Even the rooks have nothing to complain about this morning.

The air lying in the valley is still, quiet. There is a greyness where the sky blends into the softness of the hills in the distance. Corners are fuzzy and there is a hint of dampness hanging just above the grass. There is a smell of rotting leaves and wet earth. For the last month October has stomped its way across the allotment, dragging wind and rain behind it, stirred up storm after storm, picked up the tail of a hurricane turning the sun blood red and mid-afternoon night, rocked the fruit trees, torn at the polytunnel, rattled the glass in the greenhouses and shaken the roof of the shed.

Today is respite, a lull. Above the grey the sky has lightened and scattered patches of blue are floating across the field. It has been raining leaves all morning. They fall gently, drifting down to nestle on the damp earth, small splashes of yellow, orange and red.

The clocks have changed, autumn is sinking into winter, sunrise and sunset have moved closer together, the days have shortened and the air has lost its warmth. Sadness has crept in.

The shed strikes cold as I enter. I need a cup of tea to get me going this morning. As I switch on the kettle I look out at the fruit trees and across the allotment. Last week we stripped out the remaining beans poles, unravelled the tendrils of the plants and collected the brown shrivelled pods. We dug out the dried stalks of the sweetcorn. The sunflowers were chopped up and carted to the compost heap. The last of the husks of the marrows, emptied by the squirrels, were thrown into the wheel barrow and tipped beside the sunflowers. All that is left behind is heavy, wet, bare brown earth.

The end of the season.

Across the field, beyond the fruit cages I can hear the chickens and the ducks. They too know it is autumn. As the days have shortened they have stopped laying eggs and several of them are moulting; pecking around in the mud looking forlorn and scruffy. Some of the ducks have already been through their moult and they are looking very smart with neat well preened dark brown feathers. As they splash into the pond first thing in the morning I watch the murky green pond water slide off their glistening backs. They are laying well compared with the hens and I just wish I could persuade the family to enjoy their eggs as much as their sisters'.

Back in September I increased the size of the flock by buying in some point of lay hens which I am hoping will come into lay any day now to provide me with enough eggs for the winter while my old girls have a well-deserved rest. They are a mixture of black glossy Copper Maran’s, brown muted Rangers and Black Tails (Rangers in disguise with black feathers in their (you guessed it) tails. They have had a rough ride since they arrived; new kids on the block who have been bullied as a new pecking order has been established. They were not welcome at the feeder or into the coop at night to begin with but things seem to be settling down. Cold war rather than armed hostility. One of the incomers very quickly became adept at dodging aggressive, grumpy old hens, pushing in to get what she wanted and the others are slowly following her example. A chicken to watch!  Cleaning out the coop last week and watching the group of new arrivals scratching around I noticed that the combs on the top of their heads have reddened up, a sign that they are about to start laying. My winter egg supply?

I just need to ensure that the chickens and ducks are safe now that the evenings are drawing in so fast. It is dark before five and as the sky gathers the heavy clouds of night together, creatures of the dark emerge. For the last week there has been a tawny owl calling from the trees on the bank above the shed and an echo across the valley. A haunting welcome sound but last night just as I connected the electric fence around the duck run, the hair on the back of my neck prickled as the eerie cry of a fox drifted out of the gathering gloom at the far end of the field. Winter is coming; a lean time for all, cold, wet, hunger, desperation and only a wire fence and a wooden shed separate predator and prey. As I finish the welcome cup of tea and move outside I make a mental note to check the fence is working as it should.

Clear blue sky appears and there is warmth in the sun on my face as I haul the wheelbarrow out of the field shed towards the dung heap. There is still much to do before I put the allotment to bed for the winter. Those areas I have not managed to sow with green manure, turn with the cultivator or dig can still be mulched with well-rotted horse dung. There is celeriac to lift and the strawberry plants need weeding, the long brown stalks of the asparagus need trimming, raspberries need tying in, and there are brambles along the fence beside the greenhouse that need cutting back.

The end of one season and the beginning of another.