Photo-a-Day  (Wednesday, 24th July, 2019)

Unwrapped this should please some folk.

That's more like it! Unwrapped and natural - a timeless country scene, easy on the eye...

Much less labour intensive now , it once took a dozen lads to get the hay in . I helped at Cyril Hatton's farm during the holidays. Heavy lifting it was too and the twine cut into uncalloused hands.
The best job , apart from driving the tractor ( which was Cyril's preserve) was on the summit of the trailer pulling up the oblong bales with a hook. It got stacked so high at times that it wobbled like a game of Jenga on the journey to the barn. A stream of stalks in it's wake.

What happened to Hay Stacks? and sheathes of hay. I bet a lot of kids and young adults have never seen any.

That would be too much to hope for Ron - I would rather see hay stacks, and sheaths of hay - far more artistic. Even the words sound better than 'bales' but anything is better than 'plastic wrapped'....

RON, with some of today's moronic youngsters, how long would a haystack last before it was set on fire?

There was always a full sized baked bread wheat sheaf made by the local baker in St. Mary's Lower Ince at harvest time. Sometimes a real one also. The nearest most ever came to seeing such things

All that lovely scene needs to make it complete is a ' Worzel Gummidge' .....any offers?

Ron ,I'm amazed anyone alive today has ever seen one. I thought this method would have died out in the Edwardian age.
Picturesque indeed and captured romantically by the great landscape painters but farm labouring must have been backbreaking in those days. The reality more Thomas Hardy than Constable or Monet.
Necessity being the mother of invention , I think the baler became crucial as hundreds of workers flocked to the mills.
David, yon field looks like the one by Platt Lane going down to the lake. I went spud picking there once. A job far tougher than haymaking! Thanks for the photo.

I am not totally as old as Methusa....well you know who I mean & I remember us kids in the back fields of Holland Moor helping with the harvest, just for fun. We would stook the sheaves as they fell out of the binder (?) A stook was 3 or 4 sheaves stacked upright in a shape like a wigwam.
As far as I recall none of us came to any harm, the farmer was happy & we went home all prickly from the corn stalks, dirty & tired but what fun we had.

Just a memory I have. Time moves on & you couldnt have that sort of fun today, farming is so different & mechanised.

Heavy, with the summers heat
And fallen cordless 'stacks,
Those twenty 'hands' would sit as one,
Time-honoured plowers' craics.
How formal, now, are chilly bales,
Their 'jammers plastic-bound,
And jaded beer so quickly drunk
No talk of May-girls crowned.

Poet,I too went spud picking in the School hols..as well as strawberries and peas,I loved the outdoor life..we once got told off by the farmer hanging out of his bedroom window shaking his fists saying "what time do you call this"poor farmer I bet he was ready for a good nights sleep after his work on the farm..kids eh!!!

I have a question for all you who want to turn the clock back. How many of you did your weekly wash in a dolly tub this week? How many cleaned the house with a broom? How many washed the pots in a bowl in the sink? Not many I reckon but you would like the farmer, who is running a commercial enterprise, to revert to methodology of the 50's. I did all of the above and enjoyed it. I also went down the yard for the loo. Good days but I for one have no desire to return to them.

Who said we wanted to go back Broady? I still prefer the hay bales uncovered. I don't blame the farmers at all for making their jobs easier - I also still wash the pots in a bowl, and I sweep the kitchen tiles before mopping. it's fun to look back though.

I too still wash my pots in a bowl broady, I can have them washed, dried and put away long before the dish washer has completed its cycle.

I wouldn't mind going back to be young again though ... And do it all again.

I used to load hay onto a farm cart back in the 70’s using a pytle, a two pronged fork. This was at Bostock’s farm down Lafford lane in Upholland. It was bl&ddy hard work.

Maureen, I went spud picking too...I only lasted one day , talk about back breaking work. My Mother might have been quite the lady when we lived in India but she wasnt averse to us learning what hard work was !

Yes,I remember going potato picking at Walton's farm in Bamfurlong about 1966.It was back-breaking work and you had to be really quick.A few of us went from school but we only did one day.