Barley

This year a friend of my dad's grew some barley on a couple of our fields - a really big one and a really small one, as it happened. The fields were both prone to weeds and the grass was tired so to help the soil recover, it was decided that some other crop should be grown. Three weeks ago, before multiple rain storms and inches upon inches of rain, the winter barely was combined and baled into small square bales.

This was my first time seeing a figure-eight in action. It drags along behind the baler, collecting the square bales as they drop from the baler, and then putting them into a two-by-four square.

We wanted a hundred of these small bales for our sheep, so we brought a trailer and our special bale spike. This picks up the eight bales left behind my the figure-eight. It's very clever.

Exactly three weeks later, the combine was back again. This time it was a dull day and it was the turn of the spring barley to be harvested. The spring barley was on the small field so it didn't take long for the combine to do its job.

Large machines at work can attract a crowd.

The last load of grain goes into the trailer.

It's not very often that a crop like this is grown here, so I'm glad I got some photos.