Thrashing with tractors

[davidje]

At the invitation of Contractor, we went along to this thrashing demonstration. The only steam came from the kettle but nontheless, it was worth the visit. Here are a few images of the day:

[lampwortroy]

Thanks David. Seeing those hessian sacks and small bales reminds me of the days as a schoolboy working on the back of a bagging combine powered by an Austin A40 998cc petrol/paraffin engine towed by a Fordson Super Dexta. Tying the bags with rough baler twine and dropping them off the back of the combine. Days of blistered and bleeding hands, sore backs and flagons of Woodpecker Cider.
Tired? Of course, but we were happy with the extra pocket money.

[davidje]

It's strange, we used to always have cider at the end of a day's haymaking. I guess it was the only beverage you could 'take away' from the pub. There were no off-licences then. Two shillings a bottle, probably 2 pints. I've had some of the best champagne since then because of the job I did, but it could not compare with the cider we passed around when we all sat in the farmyard knackered after a day's work.

[lampwortroy]

Originally Posted by davidje

It's strange, we used to always have cider at the end of a day's haymaking. I guess it was the only beverage you could 'take away' from the pub. There were no off-licences then. Two shillings a bottle, probably 2 pints. I've had some of the best champagne since then because of the job I did, but it could not compare with the cider we passed around when we all sat in the farmyard knackered after a day's work.

Cider seemed to wash the dust out of the mouth better than anything. Bulmer's Woodpecker could be bought at local grocery stores. Sometimes we had Gaymers Cydrax as well. The meals were ALLWAYS brown bread, lashings of butter and wensleydale cheese. Remember the flagons of cider with the stone stoppers or sometimes a gallon stone jar of ginger beer.

[davidje]

I'm sure there are people on here smiling at two old men remembering 'the good old days'.

There is no better table than the old farmhouse kitchen at the end of a succesful harvest. A massive kitchen with a slab floor, a table made from 4 inch thick wood and festooned with a massive ham, cheese, pickles, bread and scones. Tea that is impossible to re-create outside of the farmhouse. The farmers wife, arms like a Welsh full back, smiling widely as she watched us all eat. And afterwards, the farmer lining us up in a row; 9 shillings for me for two weeks work as I was 'just a nipper but a good worker'. 3 pounds for my dad, 18 shillings for my older brothers and so on.

A week later, the farmer came round with a bag of potatoes for all the families that had helped in the harvest.

I don't know if those days were better but I try to re-create them in my older age. I bake bread, cakes, make pickles, jams and chutneys. I try to grow as much as I can in my small garden, I buy milk straight from the cow at a local farm and know the lambs, cows and turkeys the farmer sells at the door. If it makes a difference, I will invite you all to my 80th birthday, if not I can at least say that it wasn't Macdonalds or Burger King that finished me off

[lampwortroy]

David, you forgot one thing - the farmhouse kitchen table was almost white having been scrubbed hard so many times.
We make cakes, pickles, jams, chutneys and marmalades. In the autumn we walk the railway footpaths and pick blackberries, sloes (wonderful jam), damsons, crab apples,wild raspberries. We grow potatoes in large plant pots (keeps the slugs and worms away). We also have a local farm, but with a Jersey herd whose home bottled milk is half full of yellow cream and we also have a family butcher whose bacon is dry cured and when fried keeps its shape and flavour. Life is wonderful without Tesco & ASDA if you know where to look. I have never been in a MacDonalds, only eaten Burger King at motorway services and only occasionally visit a KFC. Our treat each week is battered cod & chips from the local fish & chip shop.

[Steamhead21]

Did stacking bales once also remember tatty picking and picking rosehips.

[davidje]

I think Dylan Thomas in his poem "FERN HILL" captures it all perfectly:

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

[lampwortroy]

The Father of one of my train-spotting school pals owned a farm by the side of the Leamside line. We could help on the farm and trainspot at the same time. I remember collecting bales of hay & straw with a horse and a 2 wheeled cart. We would go out with the cart and 2 x 20ft ladders. Building the bales from the back of the cart along the ladders so with a full load the bales were about 6 high above the horse's ears and 10 high at the back. Much of the hay was sold to West Cumberland Farmers who would come with a 6 wheeled Foden 2 stroke flat and load 205 bales at a time. We could hear it coming miles away. Music to the ears was a Foden 2 stroke howling along flat out.

[Pedlers mate]

Always jumped off the school bus and if I could hear the distinctive hum of the threshing drum, or in later years, the combine, would bolt down my dinner and, home-work or not, be off like a shot to find where the local farmer was working and be out with them until it got dark. Maybe that's why I didn't go to university but managed to keep hearth and home together all the same! My Saturday job was cleaning out the cow-shed and I could sell any cow-muck I wanted and keep the cash, hard work, smelly but how I loved it.