August
Scruffling
Cutting and carting bracken
Thatching hay cocks
Mowing thistles
Harvesting
This is the work for the farming year in the early 20th century in Normanby, I think scruffling should be scuffling, but it was the method I believe of hoeing the weeds between the crops. The crops are ready for bringing in it seems to me, the weather will dictate the time, wheat apparently likes this slightly cold summer, it is a cool plant. Thistles are of course a bit like dandelions, their fluffy seed heads travel far and wide. This was a walk up the hill to the farm at the top, I notice that on the long ridge into the village you have farms spaced equi-distance. From the top of the hill you can look round on the landscape, mostly farmland, the York moors can be seen in the far distance.
How much history has travelled through that short 100 years of history, human labour and horses were used for bringing in the wheat, then two world wars intervened, horses sadly disappeared and the great combine harvesters of today do the job in hours rather than days.
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| This is the farm seen from the south. |
And wasn't it sad to see these beautiful Yorkshire Fell horses auctioned off to place like America last night on Countryfile. Seemed to have arrived in the country with the Romans, their manes flowing beautifully.....
I rather think they were Lake District Fell horses Thelma (we do see the odd Dales pony round here though). I agree it was terribly sad - I wondered about what they were thinking as they stood so docile in those pens. My only consolation was that as they fetched such a high price (even the Queen bought some) surely they would all be well looked after. But to see them running wild and free and then to see them penned up was terribly sad.
ReplyDeleteYour wheat field looks as though it has been harvested and as the straw seems to be lying there it has obviously not gone for whole crop. The only harvest that has been done round here is wholecrop.
I feel you have really settled in - your posts sound as though you have lived there for ever.
Yes it was sad to see them penned, and of course broken up from the herd, but they will surely be well looked after, it is just the loss of freedom.
ReplyDeleteNo we haven't lived here forever;) just love to immerse myself in the atmosphere. Funnily enough, LS's cousin in Cornwall phoned up this afternoon, coming to stay for a couple of days in September to go to a party of an old friend in a village just down the road. Apparently the friend knows the person (a farmer) who built this house, now that is a small world!