You 'pays your money and takes your pick' as they say. But last evening I watched Michael Portillo (he of the fancy trouser/jacket combinations) as he watched the cranberry harvest in Wisconsin on one of his rail journeys in America. (Bright yellow jacket/bright blue trousers ). As an aside - he never carries anything but a rail guide when he steps on or off the train - he must have a gang of bearers and surely his own private dry cleaning firm, How many times can he wear that yellow jacket without it being dry cleaned (or does he have half a dozen jackets in each colour)?
But: down to business. Harvest. Now well underway if not finished. My farmer friend told me yesterday that he has finished third silage (what? in this weather). I suppose one has to measure the amount of rain to make the grass grow like Billy - o (spelling?) against the amount and heat of the sun to dry the field enough to stand the weight of silaging equipment.
I watched the giant cranberry harvester harvesting millions of individual cranberries in water almost thigh deep from the giant Mississippi. Wisconsin is the largest producer of the fruit in the US and it has to be in and ready for Thanksgiving. And it was fascinating to watch but it took me back to the god/bad old days.
I am still a Lincolnshire lass inside and harvesting/caring for the crop as it grew and harvesting it at the right time was almost the sole topic of conversation in our village, where few were well-off and probably a third of the men worked in the fields ninety years ago.
Each county will stir up different memories -corn growing areas, grass lands - and in my case good fenland soil.
Loads of potatoes. No fancy potato harvester. Us kids on Saturday mornings and/or school hols got paid so much for doing it. I was desperate to go and my Dad kept telling me it would kill me - but eventually gave in and let me go for a Saturday morning. One morning was enough. Can't remember how much I got paid - pence probably (remember this was still in the days of farthings) but I can certainly remember my bad back which lasted for days afterwards.
Plenty of corn - not sure what but it is wheat I remember. Would the farmers sell it or would it be part of animal diet on the farm? No idea but I do remember gleaning. Another back breaker but everyone used to wander the fields after they had been cut and gather up the corn lying on the ground. What did we do with it? Can't remember. We could have fed it to our hens, or perhaps the farmers bought it off us for pence. But that was a time we looked forward to. The village turned out in force - reminds me now of hop-picking when whole families used to go and view the whole thing as their family holiday. Do they still do it or has it too surrendered to some giant machine. Anybody reading this live down the Kent way?
Hay - when the grass fields (in those days when I guess 'muck' - that good old-fashioned fertiliser was all that went on the crop) were thick with poppies, cornflowers, wild pansies, ox-eye daisies and many more wild flowers, the farmer would come with the hay cutter behind his Fergie - or maybe a good old farm horse - and we would see the grass lying in the sun ready to be gathered, tied into bundles and stooked. Then was the time we went round the fields - and especially the hedge bottoms- raking out every last stalk of grass that had been and adding it to the stooks. Every single bundle made a differenc, especially in a bad winter.
Now I see these giant machines - computerised, constantly being updated with the latest technology, costing heaven knows how much - certainly a quarter of a million at least I would guess. Money the small farmer can't afford - so bring in the contractors. Milions change hands every harvest but hardly a man is needed and there are few laid flat with back-ache.
The only job round here which still seems to be done the 'old way' is the dry-stone walling. One of our best known dry stone wallers (Fez) has just recently died at the age of 71. No machine ever surpassed him. My garden ends with a dry stone wall. I love it and so far it has stood the test of time. Perhaps it will need rebuilding in my life time in which case I shall have to ask around for someone to rebuild it. Fez will no longer be on the end of a phone.
.JPG)
36 comments:
Anybody remember the good old-fashioned orange binder-twine. Can you still buy it?
Like almost every kind of work (our whole lives, actually), farming has changed almost beyond recognition. Were it not for the fact that a good harvest still has a lot to do with the right amount of rain and sun at the right time, and farmers of livestock still have to deal with illness or accident among their animals, farming "then" and "now" would have nothing in common anymore.
At O.K.'s village, many farm fields, orchards or vineyards on top of an office (or other) job; few still live entirly of farming. Usually, several families chip in to buy a tractor or other machinery, and then use it in turn, or one of them learns how to operate it and works the fields for the other farmers, too.
When my Mum was a school girl, kids went to pick the remaining potatoes after the proper harvest had been done. She was born in 1944, so during those first 10 years or so after the war, people were grateful for even the smallest potato or other food they could "find". Anyone who had a square inch of soil near their house would try and cultivate something edible on it, and if you won a rabbit or a hen at the carnival/funfair, you'd feel like a king, able to feed your family a feast with proper meat.
It, or a blue version, are still common place around here on farms.
One combine driver and a couple of guys towing trailers are pretty much all that are needed for modern day harvesting, as opposed to the large number of village people that got employment and wages in the old days.
I can remember the orange binder twine. It came on the small square hay bales for my horse, and as you lugged the bales around the twine would cut into your fingers. But the sweet smell of hay was an intoxicant. The scent is called coumarin, and probably was the result of a meadow with wild plants.
I don't remember orange binder twine, but we always used blue baler twine on the farm, so I guess that could be the modern version. Good stuff, it repaired many a gate, fence etc, held things together and trousers up. And if you could unpick your knots it lasted forever.
Some lovely memories there Pat. We looked at a few places in Lincolnshire when we were property hunting back in 2009 and loved the look of the wonderful fertile soil, but as you know we settled for the hills of North Wales instead. So less vegetables by the acre and a lot more sheep.
I picked potatoes every fall as a child in northern Maine. Hard work but I always loved it. School let out for 3 weeks every year, and the whole town turned out including many teachers and parents. We were very proud to buy our own school clothes, and for some of us, to help our families. I also bought Barbie clothes with my "pickin" money.
Now, only the high schools let out as the younger children can't work on the mechanized harvesters. Just a few farmers still run "hand crews" though so some lucky kids can have the experience I remember so fondly.
I remember asking the fields with my mum and dad, the stubble scratching my bare legs, the form we picked up would be feed for our hens. Anything we could get like that helped save my parents money. Jean in Winnipeg
A young(ish) man here not only builds dry stone walls, but tries to teach others the method so it isn't lost. He's probably in his 50s. They do stand the test of time, and we have plenty of stones in this mountainous area, a less wide fields. I've taken part in one haying, many years ago. The best part was having a nip of moon-shine after all was done, though it tasted terrible.
Sorry auto correct changed walking to asking and corn to form!
I was driving home yesterday behind the biggest combine harvester I have ever seen, and I have seen some big ones squeezing along our narrow country lane. This monster was so huge it needed an outrider vehicle with flashing lights to accompany it and I really had to gird my loins to overtake it on a single carriageway country road. We are going to watch an ancient meadow being harrowed by a team of heavy horses this weekend. I would like to think the meadow has been scythed but I expect it has been cut by tractor. We are fortunate to live opposite an ancient hay meadow which is gently grazed by sheep and when they do take the annual hay cut is baled in small rectangular bales. I have old archive photos from the 1920s of women and children working in this meadow. I am proud to be a successful wildflower meadow maker (we are quite rare unless you are King Charles!) and we will start cutting the meadow next week using our solar charged battery mower. We take the highest cut working from the perimeter inwards and leave it for a couple of days to dry out before a second cut takes it as short as we can. In a normal wet autumn the aftermath grows very quickly and we usually do at least one if not two further cuts and in the meantime I rake as much as I can. Our meadow is now In its sixth year and we now have around 40 different wildflowers, including orchids, growing and a dozen or more different grasses but happily nowadays hardly any Yorkshire Fog which was the dominant species. Sarah in Sussex
When I was young, we followed behind a tractor pulling the wagon and we loaded up all the hay left by the baler chugging on ahead of us. It was heavy, dirty work, but our hay rash was a badge of honor.
50+ years later, my brother in law does the large round bales, and so our help is not needed for that chore anymore.
Our Amish friends do not bale at all. The loose hay is thrown on to a wagon and taken to the barn where it is thrown loose. The children push it back into place as the adults fork it into the loft. Their oats are stacked int the fields as you describe. They will be threshed. The oats used for animal feed and the straw for bedding.
We are not careful people, I fear. Gleaning seems to be a thing of the past. Farmers would not allow you on their fields.
I really enjoyed today's blog,not that I don't enjoy them all.
Thanks
Pirate(a mere 84!) is from East Kent, and worked in the hop gardens when young in school holidays. Also when he joined the RAF he would come back for tattie hiking, each having their length of furrow to pick by hand after the tattie hiker had been by..and the women would move his marker stick so that he got less!
The good old/bad old days indeed. Maybe I am just a silly romantic, but were they really so bad? People worked very hard, some for possibly very little, and labour was cheap. But back then folk were not so greedy and were satisfied with a simple life. My grandparents had a paddock for their goats and we grandchildren loved to help with the haymaking. For a couple of weeks before the set date we were banned from playing in the long grass. Everyone pitched in and whoever was available at the time would help to build the hayrick and then cover it with a tarpaulin sheet, tied down with weights. I believe I may have seen one of the first tractors in our area after the war when the field over the hedge was ploughed.
The manual labor of farming was very demanding. Farming once brought entire communities together and I'm not sure this happens any more. Advances in planting and harvesting has changed everything. Dry stone building is an art and the walls are truly very beautiful.
I grew up a city kid in a not so large city. My Dad worked for International Harvester company so I heard many a story about farms, hay bales, combines, and such but Dad had died before the round bales became common.
What a treat to read of your experiences, Pat, and the experiences of your readers!
I am glad there are still crafts persons who keep the old skills alive for The National Trust buildings as well as for dry stone walls.
Hugs!
I love Sarah from Sussex's account of her wildflower meadow and it's cutting. I doubt that my wildflower meadow is as large as hers is, but it's a similar age. I've been cutting mine for the last few years with a traditional long-handled scythe but this year, my 76th, it became very clear that I'm not up to it any more, I ached badly for days afterwards - next year it'll be a mower.
Am Kentish born and bred and was touring around the county only last week. Very few hop fields these days. Certainly the traditional oast houses are virtually all private homes now. I think most hops now come from the USA, Germany and Poland. Always so interesting to read your blog. Thank you.
Farmers used to come into town with a lorry and drive back with women and children sitting on the back wearing headscarves. Potatoes, peas, beet, turnips, you name it, paid for a day's backbreaking work on t'land.
In the 1980's, my husband and I saw a lorry or truck travelling at a crawl on the road in a country town where we were about to start teaching. There were young men each side, legs dangling over the side, heads bowed respectfully, and in the middle, a coffin. It was an eye opener how things were done very differently there, even skirting around the legality of that I suppose. The same town was a citrus, almond, grape and apricot producing era. Apricots were at their peak around December and and most in the community were expected
to pitch in with harvesting and the cutting sheds. Such things had to be taken into consideration when school assignments were due. - Pam, Sth Aust.
Susexvron -Thanks for your comment. I am interested in the 'vron' on the end of Sussex. Until I remarried after the death of my first husband my surname only had six letters and ended vron and I know he had distant relatives down your way
There are still wild flowermeadows in Swaledale (wonderful whole swathes of wild pansies. ) I understand the farmers get a subsidy for holding off mowing until the flowers have seeded.
Heather - the farmer's first tractor - a Fergie of course - was bought in 1947. He still had it and used it for mucking out until he died sox years ago.
Sarah - lovely to read your account.
Thanks so much everyone.
I lived on a Sussex farm in the 1960s, and one of my school holiday jobs as an older teenager was hay and straw baling - the old-fashioned small rectangular bales with orange baler twine. And learning the art of using a pitchfork for getting the bales onto the trailer especially as the height increased.
The Vron part is a shortening of my first name rather than surname. Sorry it’s not more interesting.
I am a farmer's wife and can confirm that bale twine is used for multiple purposes. I think every one of my jacket pockets has a bit in.
We still have dry stone experts here, due to the number of stones left at the end of the glacial moraine. I think they are a wonder.
Much has changed in the agriculture industry. For me , nothing is the same. When they told me that a combine was more than a million bucks that finished me. So much for bundles and stooks.
My husband and I often watched Michael Portillo, his travel shows are great, and I love his pink and yellow and green and purple clothes. Once on a show he remarked which town is his favorite, it was in Spain and he bought a house there.
I remember reading all about how they harvest the cranberries in a 1960's National Geographic magazine. I do remember being totally fascinated; I'd never heard of such a thing.
Terra - His faheer was Spanish and they fled here during the Spanish Civi War I believe.
Thank you all for another fascinating lot of interesting reading.
Terra - sorry about the spelling - of course I mean father.
I used to help on small-bale harvests when I was a teenager. I couldn't throw bales up, but because I was willing to get up onto the full trailer I used to help on the top, taking them off again. My hands!!! That orange twine was evil.
As a child in the early 50s we picked blackberries and chestnuts. In the 70s with my children we used to gleen peas and potatoes with the farmers permission, we had 2 days between harvest and the plough. We collected chestnuts, blackberries, rose hips, and hazelnut, I still do but few people harvest the hedgerows now.
Portillo's first ever rail tv journey was back to Salamanca in Spain where he comes from. He was retracing his steps back to his father's home. I remember it well. It was a one off but it was so popular that he was asked to make more rail journey programmes and so he did and his career in tv and rail journeys began.
The farmers here have been busy cutting the fields during this recent dry spell. I keep getting stuck behind a tractor whenever I drive anywhere just now.
Snap! I have a dry stone wall at the end of my garden as well. I think they're a lovely feature. X
Interesting Rachel - I didn't know that was how he started. I always watch, especially those in the US as many of them retrace our holidays ,
Thanks again everyone. Pleased to have roused such interest.
I often visit cranberry bogs here in Wisconsin. Many are near to where I live. Watching the harvest is interesting. But I go to see the birds that pass through. Thank you for an interesting blog!
Post a Comment