Windy and broken
I returned to the site that was abandoned last week due to terrible weather when we got there. Today I picked up Graham, who was trying seed harvesting for the first time and we made our way up to top of the Cotswolds hoping for a better outlook.
The omens were looking good, and although there was a brisk wind, the weather was otherwise stable, if a little chilly. Fleeces were required most of the morning. Two harvesters were available and there was a constant flow of seed to sieve which kept us busy in the middle field.
After lunch, we decided to leave the tarpaulin in that field and make a new one in the top.
This is where the problems began. Although it was only about 50 meters away, the wind in that field was much much stronger. We realised after the first sieve that literally nothing would remain on the tarp.
But the problems compounded from there. When Tom came in from his first round, we noticed immediately that the harvester wheel had severely buckled on it’s axle. That really put that machine out of action and we had to spend valuable time loading it back onto the trailer so Tom could take it off to the repair shop.
Meanwhile, we then decided to continue with the remaining harvester in the middle field so we decamped the set up and returned to the first tarpaulin. Time was ticking on but we managed to get three or four rounds in which added to the haul. Of course, packing it into Lorna’s remaining truck was a challenge and there was barely room in the trailer or truck by the time everything was loaded back.
This was certainly the windiest harvest I’ve done and I can’t recall the harvester breaking either. So it was definitely an eventful first day for Graham, which hopefully doesn’t put him off the rest of the project.
