Harvest
Editing and Harvest don’t mix
November 18, 2011
As the time for the unedited proof copies of Purple Roads to go to the printers, nears, my editing time seems to be shrinking – gasp!
Late last week I got the third round of edits back and although there’s still a reasonable amount to do, there is a backlog of farm and housework that wants my attention too. Harvest has started and for a couple of days last week, I was on the chaser bin.
Thursday, thinking I had a day at home, I quickly loaded the washing machine to the brim, threw on a loaf of bread and a cake and sat down at my office desk to start. Unfortunately all of these activities were still in play when the phone call to go and help in the sheep yards came. Nothing that any other farmer’s wife wouldn’t understand.
Rocket is Fleur McDonald's new Editor
Today, I’m thinking about taking the phone off the hook and turning the two-way down. Anna and Matt (the two main characters in Purple Roads) need my attention and to be honest, I need them. I have a few ideas racing around my head that I need to somehow work into this edit.
And obviously my new editor thinks it’s time that I worked on Purple Roads again. He seems to have that look on his face. Or maybe he just wants the opportunity to curl up at my feet and sleep.
I wonder if the boss would come looking for me if I didn’t answer his calls?
Posted in Country Life, Farm animals, Harvest, Purple Roads, The Farmer's Life | 
Tags: edits, grain, Harvest | 
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I love the hustle and bustle of harvest
November 17, 2011
I love the hustle and bustle of harvest. If you discount the fact that you spend about fifteen hours a day, itching and sticking to vinyl seats that you have to peel yourself off of, harvest could be one of my favourite times of the year. Unfortunately those two things don’t help endear itself to me. Well, the itchiness more than anything.
Harvest in full swing
I love the urgent calls over the two-way: ‘Truck due in twenty minutes.’ Or ‘This sections is yielding really well.’ Today I heard the boss saying that there was a section that looked like the kangaroos had used for both their living room and kitchen! I’m think that the barley must have been fairly flat and non-existent in that small patch.
I enjoy looking at the vividness of the golden barley stubbles against the blue sky and the green of the header. And I take great pleasure in knowing as soon as we’ve finished the paddock, sheep or cattle will be in them, grazing on the wayward grains that have somehow slipped through the header and on to the ground. It’s great feed for them.
Cattle will graze on the barley stubble
We have finished harvesting our canola with a return per hectare that left us quite stunned it was so good!
Our barley is swathed and we’ve decided to have a go at direct heading the last paddock of barley, which is what we’re doing today. I’ve been on shifting duty – shifting silos from one place to another, moving augers and taking samples to the bin, to check if the moisture is low enough for us to start.
I’m waiting for Hayden to get home from school. I know the minute he does, he’ll be entrenched in the little seat along side the header driver (his dad aka The Boss) and won’t shift until I insist he comes and does his homework!
Harvester in action
Rochelle on the other hand, will be just as happy walking Rocket and practising her basketball shots for a carnival on the weekend.
Ah, Esperance weather! And more books!
December 6, 2010
The clouds started to gather, yesterday afternoon. The headers were racing to try get as much crop into the bins, before the rain came… Or maybe it wouldn’t rain, it just pretending it might.
At about 8pm Hayden came running out of his room. ‘Mum, Dad I can hear rain!’
Oh good. We only had about another two hours worth of harvest left and we would be finished, but now we’ll have to stop because the moisture will be too high and because all our silos were full!
This will mean we’re stopped for a little while because, as I type, there are little ‘scuddy’ showers coming up from the coast. We’re hoping to be finished before Christmas!
Now, I mentioned there would be more author recommendations for books as presents or summer reading.
Kate Gordon of Three things about Daisy Blue, fame has emailed me huge list! Check out some of these:
Reading:
- Zombies vs Unicorns – Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier
- Beauty – Robin McKinley
- Love is the Higher Law – David Levithan
- Revolution – Jennifer Donnelly
- The Tao of Pooh – Benjamin Hoff
- (Because my Husband will kill me if I never get around to reading his favourite books) The Death Gate Cycle – Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Giving:
- To my Mum (who loves YA books) – Dear Swoosie – Penni Russon & Kate Constable
- To Husband Bear (my beloved metalhead) Mosh Potatoes – Steve Seabury
- To my Dad (a brilliant cook and Nigella fan) – Nigella Express – Nigella Lawson
- To my Nan (a lover of a good, warm, lively read) – Dona Nicanora’s Hat Shop – Kirstan Hawkins
- To my brother (who digs an awesome thriller) – Worth Dying for – Lee Child
- To my flower-loving mother-in-law – The Rose – Jennifer Potter
A blog about… well, harvest!
November 16, 2010
Can you imagine sitting in a huge, rumbling header, day after day, picking up these rows? Well that’s what the boss does when harvest starts!
These are our oats (not wild ones, I promise!) The boss has spent the last day and half swathing them, which means he cuts them from a standing crop, into these rows. He’ll be back in a week or so to harvest them.
The grain is safe in these rows – the heads can’t blow off the stem, if we get hot, strong winds, it helps keep the moisture low in the grain.
I’m actually not a fan of harvest – well I am if I’m in an air-conditioned tractor and never have to get out! I don’t like the grain dust – it does funny things to my breathing – and it makes me itchy – especially oats and wheat. But I love seeing the header gobble up these rows, like it’s eating candy and I love seeing the golden grains in the bin.
Roll on the end of harvest (so what if we have only just started?!) which I guess means Christmas and the New Year!
Ready, set… stop!
November 10, 2010
We were so ready to start harvest today. Yep, we were. Yesterday the boss said that he’d be swathing the oats and then start harvesting standing barley… depending on what the moisture was. (Can’t harvest if the moisture inside the grain is too high – it doesn’t store well.)
So, even though we knew there was a forecast for rain and the atmosphere had been threatening all day, we went to bed, thinking the header would probably be going today.
Not so.
The thunder and lightning we had last night, was truly amazing. It was surround-sound thunder; rumbling right over the top of our heads, then away to the north, the sound would almost fade and then come straight back over the top of us!
The lightning was spectacular; I kept thinking; “A little bit of rain would be good. We don’t want any fires!’ And we got a little bit. The gentle beat of rain on a tin roof and thunder as were all snug inside, is a good sound… until someone took the lid off the watering can and emptied it on us, hard and fast! It bucketed down! I don’t think I heard rain like it, all through winter! 17mm in less than 30 minutes!
My first thought was ‘great, no fires,’ as it got louder and heavier I thought: ‘Crap not that much!’
It was so heavy that my roses that looked like this, (above) yesterday, are now all shredded, the petals embedded in the dirt, where the heavy torrents of water, pushed them.
Anyway, we’re not harvesting today! As I write this, the rain is steadily falling, although it clears up and then comes back again. It’ll probably be gone by tomorrow, leaving in its wake a few farmers that really wish it hadn’t been at all!
The rain will have done wonders on our sorghum crop, it will put harvest back for some time… more writing time, maybe!
Oh, PS: Don’t forget about The Ultimate Getaway and the Christmas phone call!
The changing colours of the season
November 9, 2010
It’s nearly harvest – in fact some of the farmers to the north of us, have already started.
Harvest indicates, to me, that summer is here. Long hot days, snakes, flies, strong seas breezes (if we’re lucky!) in the afternoons, the rumbling of trucks and headers at any time of the day or night… and being itchy! Especially if you’re like my sister and I and allergic to grain dust!
It also means the beautiful green that we’ve had has faded to a golden yellow and as we get further into January/February the lovely golden glow fades to a washed out brown.
It’s hard to imagine the coolness of winter and the green paddocks – when you look back at this photo…
…and realize it’s only three months ago it was taken, then look at the one I took last night, you can’t help but marvel at nature!
What are your thoughts on summer?
The Edit!
December 10, 2009
I love getting the first clean, fresh, pages, back from Allen and Unwin – it looks like a book and is ready to read. It’s like starting again and seeing the book through fresh eyes.
This edit was particularly difficult for me. We were going flat chat with harvest and I had a deadline to have the edit finished by… deadlines and harvest just don’t work.
I spent hours sitting in the tractor, waiting for Anthony to call me over to the header and take a load of grain away from him! It was frustrating when I spent time sitting, waiting, not doing very much, when I had Blue Skies hanging over my head. Then I decided to take the manuscript with me and see if I could read through it while I was waiting! Well, that was an interesting experience!
When I’m driving the chaser bin, I often take a book – there is always time to read – it doesn’t matter if you read the same sentence twice or skip a page – it doesn’t effect your work. Editing a MS does! I don’t know how many times, after getting so caught up in what I was doing, that I didn’t see the signal (auger out from the header), to take a load of grain back to the silos. There were a few terse calls on the two-way, asking if I was intending to help that day!
By the end, there were lots of dirty finger prints all over the MS and a couple of pages that had water spilt on them, when the kids jumped in the tractor for their daily ride. But more to the point, there was lots of green marks that indicated the changes I was making… it was slowly getting done.
It was then a process of transferring everything I’d changed onto an email and sending it back to my editor. I made the deadline and we finished harvest… I’m not sure I want to try doing both of them at the same time, ever, again!
Full moon, an end to harvest and a finished edit!
December 6, 2009
I must say, after a fairly intense three weeks, harvest has finally finished and I, for one, am glad! I love seeing the grain come in and finding out what we’ve produced! But three weeks of 4am starts and after dark finishes, as well as trying to edit Blue Skies, has taken its toll!
I was feeling pretty pleased when I went to sit outside in the peace and quiet to watch the moon rise, complete with a glass of wine! We had finished harvest, I had just hit the ‘send’ button on an email to my editor containing all the changes for Blue Skies, so that had been put to rest and how could anyone not enjoy watching this moon rise? It was massive and the light it cast across the country side, was magical.
So now I’ve enjoyed my feeling of freedom, I’m back to waiting! Waiting for my editor to get back to me and for the unedited proof book form to arrive, waiting for the last silo of grain to be cleaned and delivered and waiting for the next pile of jobs to build up! We start today weaning our calves and preg-testing the cows, so the waiting for Blue Skies won’t seem so bad.
But at the moment, I’m just as happy to raise a glass of wine to the moon and enjoy the feeling of not being busy- for a short time!
Harvesting
November 17, 2009
When we did the first edit for Blue Skies, we got to the part about harvest and Ali asked me to insert what a header was. Now, I’m sure most of you who jump on here to have a look know what a header is! But, just in case there are any city folk who haven’t seen harvesting, I’ve taken a video – it’s not the best quality, but you’ll see the dust, hear the roar of the engine and rustle of the dry stalks.
The dust is so itchy – especially in this variety of barley. If you accidentally walk through it when you’re unloading, you’ll tear yourself to pieces for the rest of the day!
As you’ll see from the background, we were harvesting as fast as we could before the thunderstorms hit again – that night the thunder was right over the top of us! But not much rain, although with the amount of lightening hitting the ground, we were grateful for the small amount we had – it was just enough to discourage any fires that thought about starting.
Season finishes
November 9, 2009
Our season has come to an abrupt end. There wasn’t any gradual change in the grass as there can be some years. It went from green to golden in the space of about three days! Now is the time that my love/hate relationship starts with summer. I am not a fan of hot weather – which is quite strange, considering where I grew up, but my skin can’t take the strong summer sun… and I’m a weakling, when the temperature hits over thirty and I have to work in it!
But I love the school holidays, Christmas, the warm nights, awesome sunsets and any excuse for a BBQ and few drinks! (And the beach, if I’m in the shade!)
All that is still to come. First there is harvest: Anthony has pulled the header out of the shed and started to swath some of our barley, so we’ll be harvesting by tomorrow.
Second, there’s the feedlot: these lambs have been drenched and jetted (for flies) and are on their way down to the feedlot. They’ll be my charges, while harvest is going on. I’ll make sure the feeders are full and the water is clean and fresh and then let Anthony know when I think they are ready for sale.
And then there is the seasonal thunderstorms that can bring fires or a deluge of rain!
This time of the year is always stressful – trying to get the harvest off before there are any summer rains, can cause even the most placid person to get rather snarly! It is such a big job and there is so much riding on it that it hangs over everyone head and we all hold our breath until the last truck has left the farm.
Hopefully next year our season will be a ‘normal’ one and not as difficult as the past two years.
