It was wonderful to watch the farmer at work, stacking the bales of straw with a fork lift, then lifting them onto the trailer to be towed away to somewhere safe and dry, and all done at high speed and with precision. It's been a hard year for many farmers, many having lost their crops due to heavy rain and flooding in some areas and others affected by falling milk prices. A week's good weather saw them frantically trying to get the harvest in while it lasts. Amazing to think this was all being done by two people, one on the baler and one on the fork lift. Three or four generations ago, when in the census , many of our ancestors would be described by the simple term Ag Lab, short for agricultural labourer, this field would have been busy with whole families cutting the corn, raking, stacking the corn into sheaves, threshing, gleaning, then making the straw into stacks for use during the winter. Those days are gone, farming is much less labour intensive and many of us are far removed from the source of the food we eat and often don't know or care how it has been produced. But we still need to be thankful for the work our farmers do and for a harvest safely gathered in.
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