Episode 2.82 - Tinder Fields and Hobby Missiles
Send us Fan Mail On a fiercely hot, windy late-July morning at High Ash Farm, Chris Skinner and Matthew Gudgin stand on one of the highest points of the farm as temperatures push into the 30s and a strong breeze turns the landscape into a tinderbox. Chris recounts a heart-stopping encounter with a group of people barbecuing in Successional Woodland — the smell of cooking meat leading him to intervene and then race to mow nearly 80–100 acres of pollen-and-nectar fields that had just finished flowering. The cut crop, now brittle and dry as hay the moment it hit the ground, will be baled for animal bedding, reducing the risk of a catastrophic fire that could have raced through ancient hedges, oak avenues and the southern half of the farm. As the pair survey the newly opened fields they watch kestrels hovering and dropping on prey, a lightning-fast hobby streaking through the oaks after swallows and house martins, and a hare that would have been invisible only days earlier. They then drive the Teasel Walk, where a hummingbird hawk-moth feeds at close range, painted ladies nectar on thistle, and Chris explains the seeding of perennial sow thistle and creeping thistle — favourite food of goldfinches — alongside emerging sunflowers, flax (a crop his mother remembered from the year he was born in 1949), phacelia and borage. A short journey takes them to the edge of the Roman town of Venta Icenorum and into Caistor St Edmund churchyard. Chris reflects on the quiet importance of churchyards as wildlife refuges — hoary mullein, nettles and wildflowers attracting pollinators — while walking among family graves and sharing memories of a lifetime lived within a few hundred yards of this peaceful spot. Listener letters bring further colour: advice on an unwanted ant hill, a remarkable close encounter with a young badger in Scotland, and a thoughtful discussion of Larson traps and countryside ethics. This episode captures the raw tension of extreme summer heat and the quiet beauty that survives it — ideal for savouring the urgency of fire prevention, the dazzling insect and bird life of the farm, and the deep sense of place that runs through High Ash. Support the show Please email any questions for Chris to answer on the podcast to Chris@highashfarm.com This podcast is brought to you by High Ash Farm. To support our efforts in creating this content, please consider making a small monthly or one-off donation. Your contributions help us with production costs, and after expenses, every penny goes towards conservation and maintaining free public access at High Ash Farm. Support us here: https://donorbox.org/podcast-12 or from the Podcast page here: Podcast | High Ash Farm