Ashley ploughing near the Dutch barn

I had a free afternoon today and decided to drive up to the local farm shop at the top of the Cotswold hills near Bisley. The weather was beautiful, although exceedingly cold, and I had noticed the forecast is for harder conditions for the next week. I wanted some vegetables for us to eat but also to stock up on good bird food which the farm shop stocks in bulk.

As I approached Stancombe Beech farm I noticed the lovely sight of the freshly ploughed reddish soil, which has a lot of clay content. I asked Sally when she served me in the shop where her brother, and co-owner Ashley was. She said he was out ploughing and I said I'd go looking for him as I thought it would be a good subject for photography.

I drove around the lanes and spotted his tractor in the field near their Dutch barn. I managed to park on the entrance to the old green lane, and ancient trackway that traverses the Cotswold hilltops between Gloucester and Cirencester. I walked a short way up the lane and took a series of pictures from behind the stone wall at the edge of the filed.

Then I walked back and along the road to Birdlip and stopped where Ashley was having to turn the tractor and plough around. the next time Ashley approached me he stopped the tractor and we had a chat for five minutes. It told me that this field would be sown with vegetables for them to sell in the shop and the field beside it which he ploughed yesterday would be sown with spring barley, ready for harvesting in late summer.

The light was glorious as the sun began to set and despite the cold I loved standing there watching such a classic country scene. A buzzard flew low over the tractor at one point and about a dozen wagtails were busily examining the soil, where it had been turned by the plough, at the end of each run across the field.

In the distant field just behind the large marker tree set on the field boundary, you can see the remnants of last year's crop of sunflowers. The birds must have loved them.