On my first July day in Zermatt, as I hiked out of the campground (too expensive), I headed up to one of the grazing meadows, where I saw a husband and wife team; he handled the hay cutting in the traditional manner - with a scythe - while she hefted loads of hay up to the storage shacks. Eventually, I found a spot on the edge of the grazing areas to bivy for the next three weeks.
Needless to say, that agrarian era in the alps was dwindling rapidly even then, but by now that era is largely past, as tourism has grown by quantum leaps.
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