In praise of farmers

[southerncomfort]

It's 11.15pm and all my neighbours are still out in their tractors trying to get the hay and silage baled before the predicted rain and storms hit tomorrow.

They've been going since 7am, they must be exhausted.

ETA: its just started raining!

 

[Rowreach]

They've been going all night all week here, the rain came in about 2 hours ago. They all seem to be running on Monster.

 

[poiuytrewq]

I don’t know how they can physically work the hours they do sometimes. I’d not be able to function.

 

[PapaverFollis]

I'm sure farmers are a different species.

 

[teddypops]

My dad used to work all night at hay/ straw making times. He was a one man band so had no choice really.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

We never worked through the night when we were farming but when haymaking would be out all day making it and then all evening stacking. Temps at the top of the barn on a hot day were unbelievable. You could have fried an egg on the tin roof. We didn't have modern equipment and only made small bales so every bale was handled twice, usually by me. No wonder I am crocked now.

 

[ycbm]

Lambing time is the same, they are out there all day when the sun is up, and sometimes all night too.
.

 

[Micky]

Nice to hear farmers being appreciated! OH used to be out till midnight silaging and pair of us in bed at 10 up at 5 for lambing..it’s a way of life not a job, but knackering at times!

 

[Gift Horse]

Grass harvesting is not as hard as it was though, my grandfather would cut 10 acres with a scythe. Thirty years ago when I was a child it was all small bale hay mostly loaded with pitchforks.
Now on the same farm silaging is done in two days by contractors

 

[Not_so_brave_anymore]

Yes, our neighbour was out with both his sons last week, started 7am and they were still going when I went to bed at 10.30pm ?. They've got large dairy and beef herds so I guess they get through a lot of silage! Not only very hard work, but constant anxiety that the weather will scupper all that hard work. Not a 9-5, that's for sure.

 

[Flowerofthefen]

Think the farmers round here have it easy compared to some! They seem to always be in holiday!! They are busy for hay and harvest and thats about it. Rest of year they work normal hours or go off on holiday!

 

[Rowreach]

My own farmer (son) has just come home having been working since 8am yesterday. No sooner was he in the door but his phone rang, someone looking him for a job. He's had the wit to go and get a shower, get into bed and turn his phone off.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

My husband can remember when his dad used to pick up his scythe and go out to start cutting hay. They also had one of the first tractors in the area. They were in milk back then when it was a profitable industry not a money pit like it is now. Milk still went into churns at that time. My husband told me he used to grab a saucer and skim off some of the cream, no wonder he has a weight problem now. They were well to do farmers then but how things change. By the time we gave up in 1994 we were probably the smallest farm in the area and one of the poorest. No fancy machinery just hard slog. When we were first married in 1971, any ditching or hedge trimming was done by hand, kept my husband really fit. Once a hedge topper and also a ditcher was acquired he gained no end of weight as was no longer burning it off.
My husband is 76, hard to believe what progress has been made in farming in his lifetime.