Another sign that the growing season is approaching is the increased activity on the neighbouring lettuce farm. There are no signs of actual lettuces yet, but it is a bit early for those, even under fleece. The farm staff have been checking and mending the rabbit fences, banging in any wobbly posts with one of those hollow cylindrical metal wackers with a solid end and a handle on each side. You put the cylinder over the top of the post, and lift and thump it down. It makes a dolorous ringing sound like a King Kong size woodpecker. We just use a sledgehammer at home, but I suppose the chance of a fatal accident is probably less with the cylindrical wacker. Any bits of netting that have come loose from the top wire are being clipped on again, and holes in the netting criss-crossed with wire in a metallic darn. Rabbits are devils. I must have another go at our wire alongside the wood, as they are getting in somewhere. The farm staff have also mended all the farm potholes today, using bags of ready mixed bituminous stuff.
The farm workers are mostly Eastern Europeans, Lithuanians or Latvians to judge from their car number plates. They are unfailingly polite, pulling the farm vehicles over to let the residents' cars pass, and work astonishingly hard come driving rain or heatwave. They live in mobile homes hidden away in the middle of the farm. There was such a hoo-hah when the farmer applied for planning permission for the caravans some years back, you'd have thought the locals were expecting the Eastern Europeans to break into every house in the village, molest all the women and roast family pets on sticks. In fact they keep themselves very much to themselves. I presume they are saving whatever they earn for when they go home.
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