Spring has Sprung Again!!

Yep, correct. Just today. No big surprise.

This morning and throughout the day, my grass got cut (not my grass but my farmer neighbors' pastures. Our house is surrounded on four sides by pastures of grass used for fodder for farmer's cows in the winter. The only exception is the one used for the sheep who are here in the summer ( a lot better to watch than goldfish, as they breed, birth, and grow). That one is out the kitchen window.

Today, from dawn to late dusk, the guys have been cutting the grass. I knew this meant our weather is going to be good for 2-3 days. farmers here are so much better than TV weather guys/girls. They are not pretty but accurate.

Cut grass lies in rain and produces gas. In the open that is no problem, but if it is put in a barn, the gas collects and explodes. Swiss tax people are not so kind to casualty losses, so you can be flat out of financial luck in that venue, when your barn blows up and burns. Grass is cut when a few days of sunshine will follow. The next day, it is flipped over by machine or by hand with rakes. This dries it out, so less gas forms.

The third day is when it gets interesting, and gender comes into play. Custom has it that the men cut the grass, both men and women flip it, and the women collect it with the men. In the old days, that was a hell of a lot of work. Now, mechanization helps. Mowers are driven to cut (some even have air-conditioning in the cabs. Flipping is done with tractor pulled machines, and lastly comes big collector machines. The collected grass is then trucked to the barn for silage to be used in the winter. The most advanced technique is a machine that collects the grass, wraps it in plastic covering and then ;eaves it in the pasture or allows it to be stored on the farm for later use. These huge ball-like shapes can be seen in most barn yards. One year, the breast cancer awareness groups got the farmers to use pink plastic to call awareness to the cancer.

On rare occasions one can still see a grass cutter using a scythe for edging jobs. Old fashioned but precise. Machines and robotics has come to town. Next blog will be on "Eau du Schweiz".