"Rustica" wrote in message


We were camping last week in Yorkshire and one night a combine was going
till after 11pm as the dew had not yet come down. My husband (ex-farm
worker) was amazed at how far on the crops were up there compared to here in
Kent -the weather has just been too dry here so nothing is ripe here yet
whereas there lots of barley was being cut and the wheat was not far off
iirc (I'm a city girl learning rural ways so these details might not be
exact!)

I suppose it was possible that it was a farm vehicle. They are all busy
filling the roads transporting straw atm. So the timing is right.

June the 21st or thereabouts is when you need to take in the hay.
You want the grass head still green so that the sugar stays in the crop
and unripened seed does not fall out loose.

It does ripen a little in the bale. The high water content is why
turning it is a necessity.

If you can hear jet liners at 6 or 7 miles -under the right
circumstances, it may be possible to hear a huge farm vehicle several
miles away. It is quite unusual, none the less.

I think wheat and other cereals can be baled immediately. The seed is
allowed to fully ripen and the stalk as dry as possible. Which would
put it around now, a month later, for the harvest.

Do you remember the weather when the farms were all shut down due to the
foot and mouth epidemic?

The whole nation had good hay that year. And no livestock to eat it. You
can almost picture the look on the face of the Egyptian king as he
watched his chancellor's forecasts coming true, from these things.

Farmers up here are going to make a few bob out of the weather the south
is getting. I wonder what will go wrong next.


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