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Between buying the house and moving to Galicia it wasn\u2019t too bad. We weren\u2019t living here to see the unrelenting advance, we usually visited in the summer when there was a slight abatement as the sun and heat took its toll, and we were fortunate to have Carlos\u2019s donkey as \u2018muncher in chief\u2019 turning the good grass into manure.<\/p>\n
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It was only when we renovated the barn, and asked Carlos to vacate his donkey from the premises, that the problem became abundantly noticeable.<\/p>\n
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We\u2019ve since tried horses and donkeys and for a couple of years we had a neighbour from the next village who came along twice a year and cut the grass for winter hay for his cattle. But for the last couple of years we\u2019ve not been able to entice any livestock grass-cutters, and the pasture has grown out control much to our embarrassment and our neighbours disgust.<\/p>\n
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While I could strim the areas immediately around the house and under the fruit trees, this would take five or six hours of blood, sweat and tears and it was like painting the proverbial fourth bridge. The problem was the open pasture and we had to resort to a twice-yearly phone call to a local farmer who would bring his \u2018Heath Robinson\u2019 industrial strimmer, four massive heavy-gauge chain flails attached to a rapidly rotating wheel under a wooden bed on wheels, which he towed backwards and forwards across the land, obliterating everything in its path and throwing the occasional large stone metres into the air. Depending on his mood, and I think the temperature, we were charged anything between \u20ac60 and \u20ac100 for the pleasure of his noisy, and somewhat perilous, company for a couple of hours.<\/p>\n
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But this year is different. This year we\u2019ve got cows. We\u2019d noticed the same five bovines moving around the village from pasture to pasture and made enquiries. The owner lives a few kilometres away and was happy to add our finca into his rotation. He erected an electric fence and a couple of weeks ago they arrived, much to the chagrin of Kit the Kat who hates any other animals on the land except of course the birds, mice, rats, moles and lizards which entertain her for a while before turning into a quick, between meals, snack.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.visitgalicia.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Cows.jpg\")
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I never realised how quickly five cows can munch their way through 7,000m2<\/sup> of thigh high grass, or how much devastation they can do to the now heavily pockmarked meadow. They\u2019ve moved on now, there was nothing left for them to eat, but they will be back once nature has taken its course and the now heavily fertilised grass has grown back to eating height.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If there is one undeniable, relentless, certainty about Galician life, it is that the grass will never stop growing. Sure, it slows down a little in the heat of the summer, and the occasional cold snap in the winter may … Continue reading