It’s off to Oz with harvest done and dusted
ANY relief at getting our harvest finished this year has been tempered by the number of fields around the country still awaiting a visit from the combine.
While it’s always reassuring to get the last field cut and the last of the straw baled, I’m well aware that, for those yet to get to this stage, the growing angst isn’t made any better by reading about someone who has managed to finish.
There’s always a degree of impatience to get on and get the job finished, but for most people this year’s harvest seems to have been a long, drawn-out affair, beset by stops and starts due to the unsettled weather.
By the end of harvest, the daily pattern – dry weather for almost long enough for combining to start, only for hopes to be dashed by the onset of rain – had a bit of déjà vu about it.
In my own case, though, on top of the usual impatience, there was another reason for wanting to get the harvest done and dusted this year.
Two of the children currently live in Australia and we had promised them a visit.
As my wife is a teacher, it had to be fitted in around the October holiday.
So, with flights booked, the harvest pressure really began to pile on as we reached the end of September.
I really didn’t want to leave the entire responsibility for cutting several fields of late oats – which can be tricky at the best of times – to my son, who works at home and gamely offered us the opportunity to gallivant off Down Under.
There was much relief when the weather played ball for long enough to ensure that our bit of the country’s porridge supply was completed before we left.
Of course, no sooner was the harvest finished than it was time to get next year’s crops in and the rest of the team back home are dutifully getting on with that, for which they have my thanks.
But thoughts of big hats, sun tan lotion and cold beers were dented as, just before we left, my son and daughter dropped a bit of a bombshell – telling me that September in much of Oz had been the wettest on record and that October looked like being just as bad.
And with their grain harvest set to start soon, I was told that someone with plenty of wet harvest experience might be in demand.
What the football pundits might call a case of déjà vu all over again . . .