August 26th – Cycling down through Stoneywell, near Farewell, I stopped to look at an unharvested field of wheat. The grain was ripe, and the ears starting to blacken. I wondered if the crop had been abandoned, then heard the noise of a combine harvester in the next field. I guess it all grinds to flour the same…
August 21st – To my surprise, the cereal harvest – thanks to largely dry weather – is almost over around Stonnall and Lichfield. Most of the oilseed rape seems to have been cut, too, and fields are now turning back, first to stubble and bales, then bare earth ready for replanting. I don’t think I’ve known a recent year when the process has been done and dusted so quickly. Last year in this field at Springhill, rapeseed was grown, this year, wheat. Wonder what the next crop will be?
August 10th – The harvest was underway everywhere I looked – out at Hammerwich, Stonnall, The slopes of Longon and the plains of Staffordshire. Everywhere I looked, there were plumes of grain dust rising in the distant fields like palls of smoke. At Home Farm, Sandhills, baling of the straw was ongoing. The parsnips in the field behind still look lush, and the oilseed rape is still not ripe, but the wheat, plump and healthy, is now stubble. And so the cycle continues.
August 5th – It seems the harvest had started just before the rains came over the weekend. These fields near Stonnall were still full of wheat on Thursday, and are now no more than neat rows of cut straw, with crows looking for food in the gleanings. I noticed other fields had been cut at Springhill and Summerhill too.
And so the season ticks on. It doesn’t seem long since there were deep snowdrifts here..
July 30th – The ripening is noticeable everywhere. Returning from Shenstone, the fields of wheat and oilseed rape were losing their last vestiges of green; not yet ready to harvest, but well on the way. The golden colour is welcome and is like late summer’s coat; the countryside is replete in golds, beige and dark, dark green.
Also doing well, the bramble fruits – dewberry and blackberry – are turning red, and the parsnips growing at Sandhills look in fine fettle.
Doesn’t look like it was such a bad season, after all.
July 21st – At Farewell, the advancing season is indicated in the landscape. Fields of very nearly ripe wheat, oilseed rape and barley stretch for miles. They aren’t quite ready yet, but are not far off, and even in this misty-grey humid evening, they were beautiful.
July 12th – Spinning out through Brownhills to Stonnall for tea, I crested Springhill on Barracks Lane on a languid, hot Friday evening. Even at 7pm there was little traffic, and few folk about. I noticed that a week or so of hot summer weather, and the colours of the season had changed. The bright, vivid, verdant greens have faded to more of a faded emerald jacket, and reds, golds and sandy yellows are creeping in to the landscape, colouring the fields shades of ripeness and fulfilment.
At Springhill, a field of gently ripening, plump wheat caught my eye, and at Cartersfield Lane, a healthy field of Barley.
A fine sight, but poignant too, as it indicates the seasons’ progression.
September 4th – I know I keep banging on about the harvest, but this year really has been highly unusual. It’s now early September, and crops that should have been in barns a month ago are still languishing in the fields; many possibly ruined.
Ziksby replied to my recent post about the harvest around Stonnall and Shenstone mostly being over, by pointing out that it was still ongoing around Aldridge and northeast Walsall: indeed, I was over-optimistc and it was still ongoing around south Staffordshire today. I noted one particular crop of wheat, still stood in the field between the railway and Hollyhill lane at Shenstone, that seems to be ruined. The grain is blackening, shrivelled and small.
Despite this, the recent good weather has prompted an agricultural machinery invasion, with harvesters working around the clock. A truly remarkable season.
August 22nd – The harvest seems to be taking forever this year. A bad summer, a series of late, false starts. Several fields around Stonnall and Shenstone are half-harvested. This must be a nightmare for farmers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen wheat lying ripe in the fields this late before. The swaths of straw at Springhill, I noted last week, have now, in one day, been baled and gone, yet work inches forward at Lynn and Sandhills.
This is one dreadful year.
August 3rd – The wheat is ripening near Shenstone, soon, it will be harvested and on its way to the mill. As my seasonal markers go, this footpath through the fields from Hollyhill Lane is one of the best. Last year, it was through a field of oilseed rape. Wonder what’ll be next year?
The grain itself looks healthy and fat – a consequence of the rain we’ve had. Biting the grains give a lovely, milky, glutinous taste. On this glorious evening, it was warm, and despite my end of week weariness, I couldn’t want to be anywhere finer than here, in south Staffordshire, in summertime.
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