30/09/14

The last day of September already, where has the month gone?  I'm still seed dressing, at least until the end of the week.  There will probably be dribs and drabs after then but it won't be constant.  I usually have some beans to clean at the very end of the season.  Most of the beans are still to cut so I don't expect to see any for a while.  This morning was a typical Autumn day, it started with thick fog and when it cleared it didn't really get out until the afternoon.  The only saving grace was that there wasn't any frost.

The first two pictures below was taken at my first customer, looking East, towards the coast which will be approximately a mile away..   

I met this friendly pig while at my first customer and had a quick word through the fence.  It didn't say much in reply, only a few contended grunts.

See you tomorrow.

25, 26 and 27/09/14

Still seed dressing, and working on Saturday as well.  I had better things to do on Saturday than spend the morning getting covered in itchy dust.  But covered in itchy dust is what I got, at least I'm getting paid for it, the jobs I was going to do would have cost me.  The only trouble is that they have been postponed and I will still have to complete them next weekend.  Still it will be over shortly and I will be back to driving until the spring season starts.  I shouldn't grumble as I enjoy the job except for the dust.  I get to customers that I only see once a year.  Today my first customer was at a little village called Ulrome.  On arrival I parked up and switched the engine off to listen, listening is usually the easiest way to locate someone on a farm.  All I could hear through the mist was a heavy sighing.  It took me a while to identify it, waves gently breaking on the beach.  I hadn't realised that I was so close to the sea.  Today went well enough and I didn't encounter any problems.  See you tomorrow.

24/09/14

As I expected I have been seed dressing again today.  Two customers today, the first not for from the top of Sutton Bank and the second slightly south of Thirsk, just off the A19.  Both jobs were good jobs for well organised farmers.  The pictures are from the first job of the day.  Ten tonnes of Wheat from two varieties, the second variety was Grafton and it was the best sample of wheat I have dressed this year and possibly the best sample I have ever cleaned and dressed.  The grain wasn't only bold, it was even with very little small grain and was a pleasure to work with.  As an added bonus the yard I was working in was spacious and tidy.  For those who haven't had any involvement in agriculture, sorry if I'm being boring.

All set up and running.

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The best wheat of the season coming through the cleaner.

And into the bag, couldn't be better.

I'm seed dressing again tomorrow, but we must be getting to the end of it shortly.  The season has been kind to us and we haven't been rained off yet.  Also we haven't had to work inside, thank goodness.  The dust can be incredible , not nice.  See you tomorrow.

23/09/14

Seed dressing again today, both customers near Thirsk.  Today went well, that is until I found I was dressing two and a half tonnes of naked oats.  They are the most dusty, itchy and irritating crop to work with.  But though I had to run them through slowly they went through without causing any blockages.  That in itself is a wonder, I was very thankful to get them finished, with a bit of luck I won't see any more this year.  Otherwise the day has been good and I was back in the yard by a quarter to five.  I am back in the same area tomorrow, my first customer is near the top of Sutton Bank, the second on the side of the A19 just south of Thirsk.  It's wheat all day tomorrow so it should be a better day, we shall see.  If there isn't any fog I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow, the views in the Sutton Bank area are great.  See you tomorrow.

22/09/14

Today has been tedious beyond belief.  I have been seed dressing again, which was no surprise, but that isn't usually a problem.  Some customers are nearly beyond belief.  The first customer started by attaching his loader tractor to a trailer, thereby tying up the loader tractor.  He then proceeded to fill the hopper from half tonne bags which he held over the intake hopper with his dedicated loader.  The only problem with this is that it left him unable to remove full bags of seed unless he tied off the bag he was holding and put it down first.  Great!  We finally got through the seed he had bagged and started on the seed he had put in trailers.  Yes trailers! He managed to split five tonnes of seed of the same variety between two eight tonne trailers, I still haven't managed to work out why he did this.  I think this level of disorganisation must take a great deal of planning and forethought, otherwise it just wouldn't be possible.  The job took at least twice as long as it should have done but I did manage to get finished and move on to the next job.  The second customer holds the record for the most screenings from one and a half tonnes of seed, this record has been unbroken for four years and I sincerely hope it remains so.  This year the barley wasn't quite as bad, but nearly.  Its not that the quality of the grain is poor, quite the opposite, it was very good.  Its just that for some reason his combined harvester makes a very poor job of threshing barley.  There was a very large amount of partially threshed ears in the sample so I had to run the machine very slowly. But I eventually did manage to get the job completed and got back into the yard, with a sigh of relief, at about a quarter to five, having not stopped working since six in the morning.  No lunch again, this job is very good for slimming.  So it took me all day to complete just over ten tonnes, with good organisation this should have been two and a half hours working time and two hours setting up and cleaning down.  But some days it just goes like that, tomorrow will be different.  Could be better, could be worse, I don't know which, but it will be different it always is.  See you tomorrow.

17,18,19 and 20/09/14

Yes even Saturday the twentieth, I was working this morning.  I have spent the last four days seed dressing and expect to  the job to continue for another two weeks and then it will slowly peter out over the next month as farmers complete their autumn sowing.  My last day of operating the seed dresser could be late October or early November.  The week has gone fairly well, no more problems or break downs and no difficult customers.  There has been some very dodgy loader driving but nothing too serious or dangerous. I arrived at the customers farm this morning in time to see the longest row of swallows and house martins lined up on the electricity wires that I have seen in many years.  It really is a pleasure to see these little birds in such numbers again, I do hope that their decline in numbers will finally come to a halt.  It would be a very sad world if it came to the point that there were no swallows arriving for the summer. Sorry I didn't get any pictures.  I'm now going to work in the dark, it won't be long before the swallows depart for the winter to warmer climes.  Aren't they sensible little birds.  Soon enough I'll be coming home in the dark as well and I won't see my orchard until the weekend.  After the shortest day has passed and the daylight slowly lengthens I will look forward, once again, to welcoming the home.  See you on Monday.

16/09/14

I've spent the last three working days with the driver of the other seed dresser watching and learning.  Luckily I get on well with him so the three days have been good.  I have listened , pressed a few buttons I haven?t pressed before asked silly questions and generally got in his way.  But, surprise surprise some of the operations of the machine have slowly insinuated themselves into my brain.  And given a following wind and more than a little luck I might just be able to make it perform its tasks without breaking it, perhaps!  Honestly though it's not bad to operate, it has a better cleaner than my machine but I don't rate the seed treatment side of the machine.  It operates on some sort of a volume measure and I haven't taken it to bits yet to see how it works, but I will.  The three days have passed quickly and I am told that my machine is now in working order again, or at least as near working order as it is ever likely to be.  So tomorrow I'm on my own again, pretending I'm useful.

The best picture from the last three days has to be the picture below of the Golden Labrador playing king of the castle on a heap of road gravel.  He seemed to be very pleased with himself, but he is a very nice dog so perhaps he should be  We met him at the farm belonging to our first customer of the day, just north of Whitby.

See you tomorrow.

11/09/14

That's done it! I've broken my seed dresser. I have been told that I have to learn to operate the other one, damned thing that it is. So tomorrow I'm being apprentice to my colleague.  What's bothering me is that the other dresser is much slower, if what I'm told is correct, it's only half the speed. I hope this is wrong but I have my doubts. Also it doesn't have a weighed above the mixer, only a volume measure, so I know that it cannot be set correctly except occasionally by pure luck. But I'll do as I'm told. Perhaps it will be better than I think. The machine does have a much better cleaner than mine, so there is some gain.  But the worst of it will be the boredom of working at three tonnes per hour. My, much older machine works at twice that speed in good going.  See you tomorrow.

10/09/14

The first picture below was taken this morning on the final approach to my first customer.  This farm house dates from 1816, some of the buildings are older.  The farmer thinks that there will have been an earlier house on this site.  The buildings are sitting at the head of their own little valley looking out to the coast near Scarborough.  The setting is quite beautiful.  The second picture was taken from the farm yard looking down the valley towards the coast.  Unfortunately the sun was bright and low so the picture is darker than I would have liked.  I ought to have altered it but I haven't.

Today has been easy enough starting just North of Scarborough and working back via Potter Brompton to Duggleby.  Three customers, for the first two I was dressing barley and for the last I was dressing wheat.  The first customer was the smallest amount, only two tonnes but he certainly had the best view.  See you tomorrow.

09/09/14

Seed dressing again.  Two customers today and, believe it or not, I was given the correct addresses on my paper work.  Great!  I was able to drive to the customers with no problems. Both customers had wheat and barley to dress so both involved a total clean out but other than that the day went well and I actually had time to stop for a half hour for a drink.  I know I will be seed dressing again tomorrow but as I couldn't be bothered to look at my tickets I have no idea where I will be working.  Tomorrow morning will be soon enough to find out.  I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow, if there is anything worth taking.  See you tomorrow.

08/09/14

Seed dressing again today, and I expect the rest of the week will be the same.  Only two customers today but the first was near Harrogate, well out of my usual area.  It wouldn't have been so bad if I had been given the correct address.  Firstly I wanted to go down Sutton Bank but it is closed for the week so I had to go round.  When I got that closure negotiated I got to the address on my paperwork easily enough with the aid of my friendly sat nav.  There was no-one there and neither of the telephone numbers I had been given were ringing.  Great! Called back to base"does the customer possibly have two farms?"  "Not that we know of."  By now I'm getting suspicious, the office staff (wasn't that a polite turn of phrase, everything considered)  had given me the billing address not the address for the job.  Luckily a man with a tractor pulled into the yard, "Were you expecting a man with a seed dresser?"  "Yes but not here, we expected you at our other farm about half a mile away."
The half mile turned out to be about a mile and a half but he did guide me to the correct place.  His brothers comment was "They've been coming here for fifteen years.  Didn't they say?"
That's the third time since I started seed dressing this season that this has happened.  I do wish our nice office staff would be a little more careful.  (There! I'm being very polite again.)

The job went reasonably well and off to the next customer at Sutton Under Whitestone Cliff.  Not content with shutting Sutton bank the nice highway maintenance people had decided to dig up the roundabout in Thirsk thereby cutting off the normal access to my next customer.  The day just got better, after a detour round twisty narrow single track roads I finally reached my next and last customer.  When I got set up the elderly customer said"I'll just go and get my cup of tea while you tie up the bags."  He was using second hand bags and couldn't be bothered to tie them himself.  Note there was no offer of tea for the operator!  Funny thing customers like that who use old bags often find them difficult to untie.  Strange isn't it!  To cap the day off when I got back to the yard about six pm the operator of the other dresser informed me that he would be out with his dresser tomorrow and they had given him my favourite customers.  That was enough I went home.  See you tomorrow, perhaps I'll do less grumbling.

01/09/14

Been seed dressing for the last five working days.  There isn't much to say about it so I haven't commented but there are some pictures of seed dressing by the sea.

There are no pictures from today, I haven't been is such a picturesque location today and also the work I was given wasn't possible in the time allotted so when I arrived at the last customer they had given up and gone to do something more constructive.  The lady organising the job is new to it so she is forgiven, come to that I don't really mind.  I work as quickly as the situation allows and get the job done as well as possible, I can do no more.  See you tomorrow, maybe!