Harvested
Clouds
This normally quiet part of the world has been a hive of activity and noise for the last week or two. Something that has never figured in my life before has been much in evidence.....the harvest.
As a city girl the question of how crops got from the field to the consumer had never really fluttered through my mind for more than a few childhood moments sat cross legged and impatient on a cold hard floor during school harvest festivals!
Here in a community whose economic survival is based on farming, the seasons and weather are of greater importance than I am used to and dictate what is done and when. I am fascinated by a way of life I have never witnessed before and have given little or no thought to previously.
The harvest in particular seems to be fraught with difficulties, crops can only be lifted under certain conditions and here for the past few weeks the normally still, quiet atmosphere has been permeated by the sounds of heavy machinery in the fields. This is not a 9-5 job by any stretch of the imagination. Once the crop is ready to be harvested and the weather suitable, those who's job it is to carry out the work are in the fields 24/7 until it is done. Social lives stop, the pubs are quieter than is the norm and it seems half of the already meagre population disappears.
Never before have I seen the almost eerie sight of these massive harvesting machines cutting their straight lines in the fields throughtout the night lit by powerful halogen lights. Nor did I ever realise just how big and technically advanced they are. These things are immense and this is the one time of year when getting stuck in traffic becomes slightly more common. Get behind one of these monsters and you have no chance......alone they can barely manoeuvre using both lanes let alone allow other traffic past!
4 Comments:
Nice pics...:0)
Those photos are lovely :-) I love harvest time, watching those machines run up and down the fields. I think I sat in one once on a trip from primary school, that was a long time ago though!
Paul
Michelle: ta flower :o)
Paul: I keep hassling a friend who operates a harvester for a ride but I keep getting told he's not insured :o(
suprisingly enough, for desert climate, my area is a very large producer of much feed and fodder, mainly hay for animals. Seein as how it's always summer and usually monsoon season at harvesting, 98% is done at night I've sat many an evening on top of the ex's house on top of his remote mountaintop, 5 miles as the crow flies from my neighborhood... and watched a whole bunch of em in different fields over a 10 square mile area. those big machines cost a minimum of $150,000 dollars, and come equipped with radios, TV's, autopilots, refrigerators.. and of course airconditioning!
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