Life before Harvest

With Harvest now in full swing.. at least until the rain decided to put a dampener on things! I couldn’t help thinking to myself (whilst hurriedly dropping off dinner to the combine and simultaneously walking the dog)  how many normal people out there are completely oblivious to the phenomenon that is harvest.. that long awaiting time in the agricultural calendar that brings both trepidation and sheer excitement.

With the lead up to harvest turning even the most relaxed farmer (not that there are many) into a twitchy, nervous wreck… are we ready, are we not.. is it too early, am I too late, being on combine watch.. like lemmings at the top of a cliff.. who’ll be the first to launch themselves into the hell.. sorry I mean joyous occasion that is harvest.

I myself, as many other farmers wags have a day job, my daily life couldn’t be any more different to donning my boots and getting stuck into whatever task the farmer has bestowed upon me and its these colleagues that start me thinking about ‘life before farming’ when my evenings weren’t full of packing up dinner (I’ve become quite a specialist at transporting culinary delights across a part cut field) or jumping on a tractor that needs taking back to the yard (the farmer doest quite have enough confidence in the ‘townie’ tipping the trailer alone just yet) or maybe the sitting up at 2am not being able to sleep, worried about the boys working all night, just because the dew hasn’t dropped yet!

But I  wouldn’t change it for the world, as the lights in the village houses go out with the blissful ignorance that none farming households enjoy, I couldn’t imagine life any other way, so yes having a day jobs great, but farming that’s a way of life and I love it.