Spent the day strimming with Gerry in the Pear Orchard.
First I went round cutting off the branches that got in the way of the tractor or hanging too low that it would get damaged by the strimmer. As I had come round a few weeks ago thinning the fruit, it felt like a lot of fruit loss, but one had to bear in mind that fruit trusses that hung down almost vertically, the sugar won't get to the fruit and be as good. Thinning was definitely beneficial, as I had seen overly heavy branches could just result in the branches snapping off in a way that could damage the tree more on the long term. Also as the fruit orchards are almost semi-commercially ran, the wastage is probably negligible to the efficiency of how it was ran as a whole.
The weeds that we were strimming had become tougher and almost sinewy at this time of year, especially the nettles and fat hen.