July 15th – Another joy of warm summer rides is the overspray from crop sprinklers. Often placed – sometimes I wonder if somewhat mischievously – so they spray into adjoining lanes, cycling through the cold mist is a delight.
Sometimes, it you can’t get caught by one directly, standing downwind can be just as rewarding.
Or maybe, just maybe, if the sun is shining, you can catch a perfect little rainbow…
July 24th – One of the sights of summer I’ve so far missed is the crop sprinkler. Near Shenstone today, one solitary spray, watering a field of fine looking potatoes. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can get a full rainbow in their mist, but my efforts to find one today wee fruitless.
If you’re even luckier, it’s near the road, and there’s a delicious game of dare as you try to cycle past without getting sprayed.
Wehen I was a youth, you could hear these – and there would have been large numbers of them – for miles, the light rushing sound and the toc-toc-toc of the rotator, but since crops have switched more to cereals, they’re a rarer sight.
June 4th – Now, there’s a sign of summer – and a precious crop. At Lanes Farm on Sandhills, near Shire Oak, I see the sprinkler is already out. I can’t tell what’s growing here yet, but this is the crop that was shielded by polythene sheeting up until a couple of weeks ago.
One thing’s for sure: it’s a delicate crop. It’ll be interesting to watch it grow.
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