18/9/07
Celebratory cups of coffee were all that marked the end of a long and tiring harvest. You would be hard pushed to observe any difference in our work load as we moved from gathering the bean seed to sowing next year’s oilseed rape. Our cultivations went well, but a damaged gear selector in the MF 6180 tractor that I use to pull my seed drill, had me changing to the old MF 698T that I use for pulling the sprayer. Uncoupling all of the electronics takes as long as the more mechanical bits of 3-point linkages and PTO shafts.
At least I managed to sow all of the fields in good time, but the lack of power meant that I had to travel much slower than normal. Rather frustrating.
Eventually, we finished and have been happily cultivating the land ready to sow wheat at the end of the month.
Precautions against burglars have been stepped up after the workshop door was battered down one evening, and a couple of chain-saws were stolen. Every time we seem to be secure, a new threat appears.
Regular readers will know about my relationship with some of the less lawful members of the ‘traveller’ community; it was galling to be told by the Police that the culprits had been visiting a local illegal site, had been caught breaking into a local business on the previous day, yet had been released on bail to commit several crimes (including ours). Failure to detain these known individuals was, apparently, directly caused by the government’s wish to reduce the number of people in our prisons.
Evening work ploughing has given us a different view of the countryside as we work with the powerful headlights. Creatures, shy in the daylight, simply ignore our noisy presence and it is a privilege to be able to observe badgers, deer, rabbits, foxes and hares (to name just the large furry residents) going about their nocturnal lives.
Tiredness is the only real problem as we work long hours into the night; Derek was shoked out of any ‘drifting off’, when the windscreen of the CLAAS Challenger was smashed by an airgun pellet. Police were called, but they did not rush to the scene of the attack, perhaps because he was not physically hurt!
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