Will’s World: Things that go bang at harvest time
© Adobe Stock I call this time of year “injury season”. Farming’s a hazardous job as it is, but add the physical and mental exhaustion that comes with weeks of harvesting, and you’ve got a recipe for potential disaster.
I hope everyone’s managing to stay safe out there.
See also: 10 shortcuts that could kill you at harvest-time
About the author
I haven’t damaged myself too seriously this time, but have accumulated several minor injuries that have left me feeling battered and bruised, and looking several years older than I already am.
One of the little darlings that I rugby coach every week gleefully described me as “walking like an ancient fossil”, much to the hilarity of her teammates.
I don’t know exactly what that means (other than she’s definitely on the list for an end-of-season fine), but it can’t be a good thing.
One not-so-good turn
It started with a classic. I was rushing about, and instead of concentrating on what I was doing, I was thinking about everything else I had to do that day.
I was in a dark and low-ceilinged building, standing on a trough, trying to fit some chicken wire over a broken window to stop the pigeons coming in and crapping on my lawnmower (you don’t get sentences like that in other publications, do you? Eat your heart out, Times Literary Supplement).
Anyway, in my haste to get done, I stepped down from the trough heavily onto an unseen length of steel pipe and painfully turned my ankle.
On the plus side, daughter number 3, who, unbeknownst to me, was merrily riding her bike on the yard at the time, learned some useful new vocabulary.
On the negative side, it’s taking a long time to heal and wakes me up in the night. Thank goodness for the farmer’s friend that is ibuprofen.
The second occurred as the old man and I were unblocking the baler.
It was one of those daft things that happen with balers, where a tiny thing – in this case a broken spring – had created havoc with the whole machine, and the pre-chamber was jammed solid. What fun!
Of course, these things only happen when there’s rain on the horizon, and I was manically hacking at the straw, trying to prise it away with a bar, when the bar slipped.
You know that bone on the inside of your forearm that really hurts when you bash it on something? Yes, that one. “Oh blast, that rather stings,” I said. Or words to that affect.
Bang goes another one
After that, apart from a few minor things, it was all going quite well for a while.
We were making progress with combining, I hadn’t hurt myself again, and the end of harvest was beginning to loom thrillingly into sight.
I’d gone down to the other farm to service the combine. I’d successfully navigated climbing up to the top to clean the filters and engine; I’d managed to avoid falling as I wiped the dust from the mirrors and windscreen; and I hadn’t cut myself pulling bits of straw out of the knife sections. So far, so good.
I’d put the bowser on and, while it filled, I’d clambered into the back of the combine to clean the sieves, whistling to myself as I pulled out the chaff.
Suddenly there was a deafening explosion from outside, which caused me to jump out of my skin and smash my head into the steel plate above me.
Had the bowser blown up? Had something dropped from the sky? No, I’d unwittingly parked the combine next to the gas banger. Those pigeons again!
I think I need a holiday.