WE WERE A COUPLE of days into autumn and it felt, at last, like summer had come. Pigeons drifted low over the wheat, a combine rumbled down the lane, and we sat on the tailgates of our trucks, watching heat rise around the newly-cleared pond. Other than collecting sausage rolls at lunchtime, I’d contributed almost nothing at all.
A man on a tractor with a flail mower had cleared the thorn and bramble in
