This photo was taken in late Spring, 1954 of a crop of oats my father and a sharefarmer grew for chaff to use in the dairy that we had then. I cant actually remember the crop, but remember playing in the temporary storage that they used for the chaff in later years, and the hustle that was involved in chaffing and storing it. This crop was a bit remarkable in its height, Westy (the sharefarmer) was 6 foot 2 - and another photo taken on the same day shows the crop above his raised hand - far different to the crops nowadays that only grow to waist height. My parents closed the dairy down when I was 8, and went into beef cattle - a decision forced in part by the requirements of the dairy inspector to spend more money every visit -the last one that he wanted to see done would have cost more than a years income, and this was on top of a string of requirements that had already been fulfilled.
The girl in the photo is my sister (at nearly 3 yo) , the man is Westy, the baby is ...................................................................................................................................................... yes youve guessed it - its yours truly - Me :-)
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Nostalgic Saturday
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4 comments:
Kudos on your first solo-nostalgia-blog!!
And they wonder why farmers are becoming a thing of the past! How could they expect farm families to pay such beastly fees!?
And why is wheat half the height now than it used to be??
Hi Pita - The costs to farmers all over seem to be increasing way out of proportion to the returns (fuel, fertilizer, seed and govt regulations and forms etc)
There are a few reasons that they have bred towards shorter stemmed varieties - less of the available nutrients going into the stem, so more is available for the grain; more even crop height to be able to be harvested efficiently with machinery; but the main reason initially was to reduce the possibility of the crop "lodging" (ie laying over, usually due to wind) which makes them difficult and sometimes impossible to harvest.
Great post RG... my friend is going through similar with his bee-keeping... each time they inspect its more costs more regulations...he's at the point of throwing it in....
Love your story...
All these regulations also are affecting other aspects of our lives - just look at the restrictions on playground equipment for example
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