The rural economy

As I was snapping pictures of the trees in all their autumn glory, I took this one - originally meant to be part of a panorama. However, there are so many better autumnal blips that I decided I wouldn't add my efforts to the pile. Instead I've chosen this picture because it illustrates the topic that I wanted to journal about - the rural bartering system that we've become part of since moving here two and a half years ago.

Our hedge - to the left of the gate in the picture - was only a little higher than the gate when we moved in. In our first year, we tried to trim it by hand, but this was clearly a herculean task and also rather unwise. We asked around, and discovered that most hedges round here get cut by the farmers when they're trimming their own hedges. However, neighbours made it perfectly clear that the farmer would expect some recompense, although they clammed up when we asked what a fair price would be. Money was clearly NOT expected to change hands.

So we experimented - in the first year, one farmer trimmed our hedge in return for letting his wife graze her Shetland ponies in our paddock for a month or so. The next year, another farmer did the job in return for a batch of home-made chocolate brownies.

And there's the problem - there seems to be an unspoken but well-understood exchange rate in operation, but it fluctuates. Us newcomers haven't quite understood how it works, because the grazing and the brownies don't seem to have the same purchasing power as they did before. This year, grazing rights equated to a mega-sized box of chocolates - which were delicious, but didn't help with the triffid-like growth of the hedge. Chocolate brownies resulted in some help with shifting a ton of gravel that got washed down by the floods, but still the hedge went on the rampage.

Our neighbour on the other side of the road has her hedge got cut by the invisible hedge-cutting fairy. She says that she once gave £15 to a man with a tractor several years ago, but has never seen him since. I've tried lying in wait to catch him when he cuts her hedge in order to offer him grazing, brownies, or even £15, but despite practically camping on the verge for two weeks hoping to spot him, he somehow did the work without me noticing, so I'm foiled again for another year.

Meanwhile, the hedge is getting bigger and bigger. Any suggestions for a good bartering offer gratefully received.