Sunday 19 October 2008

Farming

Farmers all over the world face the same hazards - the weather, the failure of crops, disease in their livestock, sudden failure of market for their products. In a way that links us all together. I do think farmers on the whole are stoics - they know about all the vicissitudes of the job and soldier on regardless - they are pragmatic creatures!
Sorting through my old photographs I realised that I had a lot concerned with farming. I must say that wherever we go we tend to be looking at what is growing or walking about in the fields.
So I thought that now and again I would put four photographs on from different parts of the world. My blogging skills are such that I have not yet learned to put them all in one blog - so they have come on as different posts. I hope you find them interesting.

11 comments:

Jannie Funster said...

Very often I think of what farming means to us and how we who don't farm are ulitmately dependant on those who do.

Is there a National Farmers Day? There should be.

I grew up on a farm, hated it. But sure appreciate now what I didn't then. It was a remarkable upbringing.

thousandflower said...

We, too, love to check out farms when we travel. In eastern Washington state a lot of farmer put signs on the road telling you what is growing in the fields. I love that.

The Weaver of Grass said...

I didn't come into farming until I was almost sixty! But I love every minute of it jannie.

The Weaver of Grass said...

What a lovely idea Thousand Flower - putting a list of the crops you are growing - I would think this would only work where the farms were based on horticulture . We are all grassland as the land is not suitable for arable crops. But I grew up in Lincolnshire, where there are lots of smallholdings growing different crops.

HelenMWalters said...

I love the Maltese photo. Reminds me of being there.

Janice Thomson said...

Like Jannie I didn't appreciate the farm until many years later - now I'd give my eye tooth to have my own farm.

Liz said...

Your Photos are beautiful and interesting all at the same time. I'm an editor part time and being in the media I get a constant stream of farming related press releases. One thing as you know we are constantly checking the weather conditions. Not to is a mistake it can make the difference between saving valuable crops and stock or losing everything. Our climate is now changing and now it's so hard to know how each season will turn out to be. Our last winter was one of the worst on records. You are right Weaver we are all linked together and all challenged by the things that change in the world. Good or bad events farmers just somehow seen to just get on with it -I doubt they would have it any other way.

The Weaver of Grass said...

I don't think there is a Farmers' Day, Jannie - not sure that they would like one.

The Weaver of Grass said...

Thanks for all your comments - they have been most interesting.

Rob said...

That is true what you say, when we go away everyone can be looking at a sea view but I'm there checking out an old baler in the corner of a field, and when on the Pennine Way this summer I really had a hard time trying not to count the sheep in the fields I passed through - old habits die hard. Either that or I'm sad! From what I saw when in Malta a lot of the farming there still seems to be done by hand. Bob.

The Weaver of Grass said...

I think most of the farming is done by hand, Bob. When you look at the fields it is almost strip-farming so probably it would be quite difficult to get machinery in there - also one wonders whether the "strips" belong to different farmers.