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Friday 6 September 2019

Harvest time


I spent a few days with my sister, who lives in a village just south of Lincoln. It's an agricultural area with a patchwork of large arable fields, where the farmers were busy with the harvest. My uncle, whose business supplies lime to farmers, was saying they have been very concerned by the weather this year (again). The run of wet weather we've had lately has come just at the wrong time, delaying the harvest and lowering the quality of the grain. Mind you, I don't suppose there are many years in our variable climate where the weather patterns really do favour farmers. 


The fields were full of stubble. Once the straw has dried it is baled up, these days into huge cylindrical bales that are lifted by spiked forks on tractors. When I was a young girl, I had a friend who lived on a farm and I used to like going to help with the work. In those days, straw bales were much smaller oblongs that I could just about lift by hand.

Most of the cornfield poppies seemed to be over. I just found a few in the field margins.


8 comments:

  1. I recall the wheat cutting machine used to throw out bundles of straw bound with string. The farm labourers gathered these up and leaned 6 of them vertically together to form a drying "stook". Several days later the bundles were pitch-forked onto trailers and stored in the farm sheds. It was very hard work.

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  2. Yes, the changes of mechanisms for farmers does mean our memories are of days of yore...but at least not quite as far back as a scythe. Gone are the "little boy blue" haytstacks! These are wonderful photos that give me a glimpse of nature - thanks.

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  3. I love your new blog banner, very creative and interesting image.

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  4. Oooo, aarrr....that'll be a funny old place if farmers were allowed to pick the weather! I used to stack those small bales in the barn, we used some 20,000 of them every year when I worked on the farm.

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  5. I'm reminded of scenes of my childhood, since I lived in farm country.

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  6. It's great to see that patchwork of fields with hedgerows and trees, instead of the vast spaces of industrialized farming.

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  7. What a nice place, the poppies really show some colour.

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