What made you sad today

As you know I’m a forager as well as a gardener, I see the landscape like an extended garden except mine is about a 3 mile radius. I know where most things are inside that circle and have been monitoring the elder in a particular hedgerow for two years.

Year 1’s growth is year 2’s flowers and fruit. I gather in different places for different purposes and had left this particular hedge for berries this year as there are about 15 substantial bushes in a hundred yard length, enough to make about 8kg of syrup from.

Someone cut the hedge yesterday stripping it of all the ripening berries back down to bare stumps. 2 years watching and waiting and only 2-3 weeks off picking. This makes me sad, I understand the farmer or contractor is working to a different schedule than mine and that it is their land but, for me it’s like an insect infestation spoiling your crop at the last minute.

This kind of thing happens a lot when you forage, you have to roll with the punches but, the heart still sinks.

But at least they waited until the birds should have finished nesting. Probably a coincidence.