Will’s World: A long time ago, and a harvest not far away…

For Christmas 1983 I received a toy Millennium Falcon, and it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire five-and-a-half years on the planet.

I’d been on my very best behaviour for months previously, hoping it would get me onto Santa’s good children list.

Thankfully, I must have just about made the cut, because on the morning of the 25th there it was, all wrapped up in shiny red paper and sitting under the tree.

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I remember it like it was yesterday, and I spent countless happy hours over the next few years imagining that I was Han Solo flying through the galaxy at lightspeed, battling the dark side on a heroic adventure.

Luke straw-walker

Fast-forward 40 years and I have a shiny new toy to play with. It’s lime green with red-and-white trim and has a top speed of 26.5kph.

Unfortunately it doesn’t fly, so the comparisons with fictional spacecraft sadly end there (although it does need a name for good luck – Mil-Lexion Falcon, anyone?).

But it’s still tremendously exciting, and a whole lot of fun to pilot. Yes, we’ve bought ourselves a combine.

A family friend had previously done harvesting for us for several decades (consider him a Jedi Master of combining), but retired from the job last year.

That left us with a decision to make – buy our own or go to the bottom of a contractor’s customer list.

After much weighing up of all the pros and cons, it’s beginning to look like we made the right choice, with the weather the way it’s been in the west of the country for the past month.

We’ve managed to snatch our winter barley in between the downpours. Looking at the forecast, God only knows when we’ll be able to get into the wheat and spring barley, but at least we’ll be able to go at a moment’s notice when it does eventually stop raining.

I remain forever the optimist, as you must be in this profession.

It’s difficult when it’s like this, though, isn’t it? Despite my optimism and general love of the life, I do sometimes find myself wondering why we do it. Farming, I mean.

I expect that sounds almost blasphemous to some of you, and I sincerely hope that I haven’t made you drop your copy of Farmers Weekly into your porridge in shock.

In my defence, we have been TB testing our cattle today, so that certainly doesn’t help matters, with the worry of reading the results in three days once again hanging over us like the proverbial lightsaber.

Quit farming, should I?

I know full well that difficult harvest seasons have occurred since humans first packed in the old hunter-gatherer game to start growing crops instead.

Nevertheless, the farming question still occurs to me when I’m feeling a bit tired and fed up.

So could I take my skill set to another industry and earn a lot more money? Probably. Would I be able to have weekends off? Yes, obviously.

Go on a nice summer holiday with my family and not have to worry about what was happening at home while I was away? Certainly.

Would I need to urgently check 10 different weather apps every morning? No, only a maniac would do that. Would I be able to look forward to a nice company pension on my retirement? Of course.

But I wouldn’t get to drive a combine though, would I? I’ll stick with farming.

This harvest season, may the force be with you.