Speaking of insects, one of the hottest and the most uncomfortable jobs I ever did was the cleaning up of the hedge round a field of oats during an August heat-wave. There was not the slightest breeze, and no shade anywhere, and I grew steadily hotter and hotter with every swing of the sickle. An to add to the discomfort, every insect I could name, and many more of whose existence I was unaware until then, spent the day making combines attacks on every available part of my anatomy. Ants were climbing over my bare ankles, mosquitoes were on my arms, a swarm of flies buzzed around my face, and 'clegs', whose sting can make even a well-trained horse bolt, kept whirring close to my ears. I heaved a sigh of relief when I realised at last that it was time to go in and milk, even though I knew that those same flies would make the black cow kick harder than ever during the milking.
At last came the long-awaited day when Mr. Pick decided that the corn was ready to cut. The heat-wave seemed to have ripened all the corn At once - barley, wheat, rye and oats, and two days (August 17th and 18th) were spent doing what is know as 'opening the fields.'
The barley ears were bent well over, a sure sign that it is ripe, and the whole filed looked white in the bright sun, except where a handful of scarlet poppies made a vivid splash of colour near the hedge. Their scent hung in the air, strong and strange. I was sorry to see them destroyed, but the barley must be cut. The last of the corn to be sown, barley is still the first to ripen.
The rye was very tall, much of it over five feet, and very straggly, and awkward to deal with - in complete contrast to the wheat which was perfectly straight and even. The oats were different again - fluffy and dainty, each grain hanging separately, so that the clusters seemed always to be moving and rustling however slight the breeze.
For two days Mr. Pick worked round the fields, cutting with a scythe until there was a wide enough lane all round to accommodate the horses and binder. The corn lay in wide swathes, and I followed and gathered it into sheaves, tied them up, and propped them against the hedge out of the way. The sheaf was tied with a few stalks of the straw itself. These are pulled tightly round the bundle, and tied with a half-knot, half-twist, and the ends securely tucked in. Mr. Pick taught me this knot carefully, for a sheaf that comes untied at the wrong moment can be very exasperating.
The following morning we were up and out in good time. The hazy sun gave promise of another fine, hot day, and we milked and fothered with speed, ate our own breakfast, and were ready for the fray.
In good time Mr. Hicks and George arrived from Baldrence, and our two horses and one of theirs were yoked into the binder, and off we all went down the lane to the field of oats. When George had wangled the ungainly machine through the gateway and into position, various adjustments were made and we were ready.
All eyes followed the binder as it sailed along. The sun poured down, already hot for so early in the day, so that everywhere seemed to be golden. I watched the corn fall as the knives of the binder cut through the hollow stems, and listened to the lovely swishing sound as it met the canvas of the binder and travelled up the slope. I saw it thrown out the other side, ties neatly with band into sheaves. But here the poetry ends - for unfortunately many of them were not tied! If ever I see a group of men gathered round a binder in a partly cut field, my first though is always - 'it isn’t tying up the sheaves'.
The worst part about it from my point of view, was that all the sheaves the binder missed had to be tied up by hand. Before long my arms were scratched and sore from the rough stalks, and were not helped by dozens of needle-sharp points from stray thistles.
'Now Mary,' said Mr. Hicks, 'Can you tie up a sheaf? Look, you just do this, and this, and this, and it's done.' With a flick of his wrist he had it tied, and I thanked my lucky stars that Mr. Pick had not done that the day before, or I wouldn't have been much wiser!
When the binder was once more sailing round the field, I was initiated into the art of stooking. And an art it is. It is much more than just leaning sheaves against each other to make a stook. The sheaves themselves must be picked up (one in each arm) so that when placed together the rounded side of the sheaf will be uppermost, and run the rain off instead of allowing it to soak into the middle of the sheaf. Then they must be brought together firmly, and at the right angle - too straight, and the rain soaks into the grain at the top; too big a slope, and the whole stook will collapse into the middle. And they must be kept in nice even lines up the field, with the open ends in the direction of the prevailing wind for quick drying.
If any of these points are ignored, you will most likely be faced with the task of re-building half of the field the following day.
The day wore on, full of sunshine, hard work, and the clatter of the binder, and gradually the area of the standing corn was reduced, and the even lines of stooks increased.
Meals were brought out to us, and we ate them - huge ones, sitting on the prickly stubble with our backs against one of the stooks.
Then, late in the evening, came the moment when the last strip of corn in the middle of the field (about a yard wide) was all that was left to cut. During the day I had seen very little of and of the small animals which normally inhabit a corn-field, and now I saw the reason why. As the binder had eaten away at the edge of the field, the inhabitants had moved further and further into the middle. And here they were, in the last standing yard of corn, and soon to be left with no cover at all.
The first to break cover was a rabbit, which zig-zagged away, and to my joy gained the long grass on the headland without being caught by either men or dogs. More rabbits followed, and many mice and shrews. A hedgehog then trundled his way across the stubble, and disappeared into the far hedge. A few were caught, mainly rabbits, but I was both surprised and pleased that most of them got away unscathed to the protecting hedge.
There followed day after day of similar work. On the 19th we cut and stooked the oats, a couple of days later the wheat, and finally the rye. The straight, neat stooks of the wheat gave the field a tailored look, but those in the rye field were long and floppy, and refused to be tidied up.
At last all were in stooks, and we transferred to Baldrence to lend a hand there. Then, while the sun and the wind dried out the corn ('Oats must stand in the field over three Sundays,' said Mr. Pick), we turned our hands to other jobs.
Victoria plums to pick - balanced up a ladder and usually surrounded by wasps! Hedges to slash, ditches to clear, and many other jobs.
Hedging was arduous work, but I enjoyed it. A slasher is a good tool to use, and does an excellent job if you keep it really sharp. So for a few days a whetstone was added to the many other things in my pocket. It was rough work, but the results were worth while. The only wood not cut was ash, and I was told to leave these to be used when they were long enough for stack prods.
Hedging is somewhat complicated when the hedge has a along it as was the case with our road-side hedge. It ran for the length of three fields, and about half of that length had a deep ditch between it and the road. To slash the hedge it was necessary to stand with one foot on either side of the ditch, and you were in a mess (literally!) if you lost your balance.
When the hedge was finished, the hedge bottom and both the sloping sides of the ditch had to be cut with a sickle, and then the bottom of the ditch cleared with a spade. This means standing in about six inches of water and mud, and lifting up dripping spades laden with mud onto the bank top. It would have been easier bare-footed, but the mud was too liberally supplied with thorns from the hedge, and tadpoles, frogs, newts and the like to make it really practicable. So wellington boots were the only possible footwear in spite of the heat.
The most enjoyable part of hedging, to my mind, was the burning of all the branches afterwards. We would rake up, and have huge bonfires in the field at intervals down the length of the hedge. Always, now, the tangy smell of wood-smoke drifting across the countryside takes me straight back to the road-side field where I first did this job.
Then the pears from the high tree in the corner of the orchard began to fall, and as the cows were getting more than their fair share of them, I went to gather them.
It was a day of strong winds, and I found it a tricky job to rear the very long ladder. However, following the instructions given to me by Mr. Pick on other occasions, I got it up and resting reasonably firmly against the tree. When I climbed to the top of it, I felt as if I was in a small ship on a rough sea, swaying from side to side.
Then I felt the foot of the ladder give a jerk, and looking down I saw the cows intent on pushing the bottom rung with their noses. I shouted at them, but it had no effect whatever. So down I came and chased them off, but by the time I reached the top again, of course they were back. So I just hung on as best I could, thinking how useful I would have found the ‘wings of a dove' my Dad often sings about!
After the pears came the apple pulling, a much easier job, and very enjoyable.
Then the second crop of clover was ready, and we got it dried in beautiful weather. Here I had my first go at driving a horse-rake. One day when Mr. Pick was down at Baldrance, Mrs. Pick and I piked the clover in the smallest of the fields up the track. I felt quite important as I fetched Dolly from her stable, harnessed her to the rake, and drove her round the field. I loved it too, except for the iron seat on which I jogged until I felt black and blue. When the field was finished, we pulled Victoria plums until milking time.
By this time my skin was permanently bronze, and I was eating like a horse, and feeling (to quote Mrs. Pick again) 'as fit as a lop'.
Then came the day when Mr. Pick pronounced the corn to be ready for loading.
There followed days which were the longest I had ever worked - from early morning until we couldn't see to do any more. And even then the cows had to be milked, and everything fed by storm lantern before we were finished. But as long as the weather held, we dare not stop.
I found loading sheaves very different from loading hay. I was up on the cart, and the sheaves were forked up to me, two at a time, as quickly as I could deal with them - and more quickly sometimes, for they arrived in front, at the sides, and sometimes behind me. And even sometimes (depending on who was down below) on top of me! I had to quickly put them in position and be ready for the next two, building a load good enough to stay in place down the long track to the stackyard, and through the gates and over all kinds of bumpy ground.
At first I found the sudden starting off of the horse a bit disconcerting, and occasionally I found myself on my back, with sheaves landing on top of me. This state of affairs did not last too long, fortunately, and I found that I developed an awareness of what the horse was doing, so that whenever I was with horses I knew what they were up to without really thinking about it. This was a great help, and I found that I was more or less balanced whatever they did.
When a load was finished, a rope was thrown over it, and I reached the ground by sliding down it. Then the horse had to be led to the stackyard, where the base for a stack had previously been made ready.
Sometimes I would for the sheaves onto the stack, which either Mr. Pick or Mr. Hicks would build. Quite tricky this, as at first you tend to be always standing on the sheaf you are trying to pick up. Practice is again the only answer.
The stack grew higher, and I was sometimes up on top, when George would throw the sheaves up to me, and I would catch them on my fork or pick them up, and fork them across to Mr. Pick as he built the stack. I remember the first time I did this for Mr. Hicks. As the stack got higher, of course it grew narrower, finally finishing more or less at a point.
We got nearer and nearer together, until we were both perched on about two sheaves at the very top of the high stack. Was I glad when someone put up the ladder and I could climb down to safety!
Sometimes I was given the lovely job of driving the empty cart back to the field. I loved this, partly for thee few minutes' respite it gave, but mostly for the enjoyment I got out of standing in the creaking, iron-tyred cart as it bumped slowly over hard earth. I held the reins and looked round at the harvest scene. There were wisps of straw on the sandy track. Sometimes there was the clatter of a wood pigeon as our arrival scared it from the top of a hawthorn tree; sometimes a swallow would dip to the surface of the pond as we passed. Sometimes I would look at the variety of insects in the bottom of the cart around my feet, where they had dropped from the sheaves and were unable to get out. Flies, grubs, beetles, spiders, ladybirds, and many others, milling around in the cart. I have never seen such a variety in one small area before.
Meals were again eaten in the field, or on top of a load, or wherever we happened to be when they arrived.
And so we went on, until one by one the fields were cleared, and we came to the time when the last load of corn for that year was swaying down the field to the stackyard as dusk was falling.
I unharnessed Prince from the cart, took him into the stable, and removed his collar and hames, etc.
Coming back through the field I bumped into something, and found myself with my arms around the neck of the black heifer, who was quite invisible in the dark. Outside the fold doors I stood for a minute before going into the house. And as I looked at the new outline of the stacks against the night sky, the result of so much hard work but so very well worth while, I thought that if I had been a man and in a position to choose my way of life, I would most certainly have been a farmer.
There was still more corn to lead at Baldrence, and for the next few days we helped there, sometimes all of us, sometimes just Mr. Pick, until theirs was in too, and the cord harvest was over for a year.
We had been rained off just once in all those days, about 4 o'clock one afternoon, but at night the skies had cleared, and the next morning was as good as ever. I should think it was almost a record. I certainly didn't see another harvest like it.
I have vivid memories of times when the corn was so flattened by the rain and wind that I had to go in front of the binder, lifting the stems with a long pole to allow the knives to get under it to cut it, and many patches had to be cute by hand with a scythe. There were times when the stooks were standing so long on the stubble that we had to lift them bodily to another place, so the clover with which the corn was under-sown would not be entirely killed.
The first time that this happened, Mr. Pick sent me on my bike to a farm some distance away to borrow some 'stook shifters'. I had no idea what these would be like, but they turned out to be two long poles with handles a t the ends and a long spike in the middle. When Mr. Pick and I took the ends, we could put them one on each side of a stook, so that the spikes stuck into it, and lift the whole stook bodily to another place. It was a tiring job by the time we had moved them all, but it would have been much worse if we had had to move the sheaves singly, instead of eight at a time.
I remember going round one filed of oat stooks, shaking out the heads in an attempt to help them dry. The tops of some of the stooks had been wet for so long that they had sprouted and grown, and the whole top was green.
Barley was the one corn crop I really didn't like, because of the long hairs around the heads. These are barbed, and the barbs are so arranged that if they catch on your cuff they 'creep' up inside your sleeve and end up somewhere near your shoulders! This is no exaggeration, and by the time you have spent some hours dealing with the barley you feel as if your shirt is some kind of instrument of torture. One day at Baldrence I was picking on the stack with Mr. Hicks. They had an elevator, which carried the barley up and dropped it on the top of the stack. There was a strong wind, and as the barley fell from above our heads we were under a constant rain of bits and pieces - many of them the barbed hairs which break off easily. These got in my clothes, and worked through to my skin, and I was never so uncomfortable in my life! My neck, back and arms looked for two or three days as if I had got measles, and as for my undies they were so thickly matted with barbed spikes that I gave up all hope of ever getting them all out, and I burnt them.
About this time we went to the Harvest Services at the chapel. This had always been my favorite service, but now it meant so much more. Now I could sing with understanding 'We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land' realising as never before, that it is the united efforts of God and man, working together in cooperation that make the Harvest possible.
It is not literally true that 'all is safely gathered in' when the corn is harvested. We should really sing that about the end of January! For many crops were still waiting to be harvested.
Potatoes were the next job. But before we began on these Mr. Pick yoked Prince to the hen-house which was on iron wheels, and he pulled it out onto the stubble. When the hens were let out they had meals for some time spread out before them, and they needed very little attention for some time. Except, that is, for the first night! For when we went the rounds to fasten up the hens at dusk, the hen-house on the stubble was completely empty. Not a hen in sight anywhere. Mr. And Mrs. Pick, who knew much more about hens than I did, knew where to look. They took me back to the grass field where the house had been, and there, sure enough, were all the silly hens, huddled together on the grass, on the exact spot where the house had been! We left them until we were sure they had settled for the night, and then the three of us went out with lanterns and a flash lamp, and picking up as many as we could carry at a time we took them back to the stubble and popped them into the house. You can walk up to a hen any time in the dark, shine a light on it, and pick it up without any bother. We had no more trouble with them, and the next night they were all in the hut on the usual perches when I went to lock up. These, by the way, were all young pullets. Fresh corn will stop a hen from laying, so the older ones were left on the grass and fed as usual.
To return to the potatoes - this was my first go at potato picking. Mr. Pick went up the rows with a plough and turned them over, and we followed, with as many helpers as we could get, gathering the potatoes into baskets and emptying them into the cart. 'Scrattin' potatoes' it was called, and that described it very aptly. For the plough did not bring all the potatoes to the top by any means, so we had to search around for them with our hands. When all the rows which had been ploughed out were gathered, Mr. Pick harrowed the soil, bringing to the surface the few that had been missed. These we gathered and put into the cart, and Mr. Pick tipped them wherever the pie was to be. The pie was eventually covered with straw and then with soil.
When the whole field was cleared, we raked the tops up, leaving them in piles, in rows down the field.
Potato picking went on for some time, interspersed with pulling and bagging a few turnips (a nice job in early October but not so nice in bad weather) and enlivened by a day at the Easingwold Agricultural Show which we all enjoyed.
All the schools in the district had potato picking holidays, and we sometimes had quite a number of children helping us.
One year we had a gang of Land Girls from the Hostel. Most of them were very good, and nice girls too. But one of them turned up in a rather short maroon velvet dress. Watching her progress up the field, I was very thankful for my most sensible dungarees!
The countryside was looking very much like autumn by this time. One day while I was in the field, I heard calls overhead which could only mean one thing. I looked up, and sure enough I saw about forty wild geese, in 'V' formation. They were calling as they flew, a weird, lonely call, which always conjures up a picture of wide and solitary marchlands in the dusk.
At last all the potatoes were up, and the pies made safe and weatherproof.
Two years later Mr. Pick got a potato spinner, which most certainly speeded up the job a lot. It did a much better job of lifting them from the ground - but it was rather more wearing on the back this way, because instead of 'scratin' on our knees we now walked, bent double, and picked up the potatoes from the top.
In November of that first year we had a lot of frost, and I was initiated into the job of pulling 'wuzzle' one morning when the leaves were coated with ice. To do this job I had to grasp the leaves (ice and all) with my left hand, pull up the wuzzle, swing it across, and with a knife in my right hand chop the wuzzle from the tops as it swung, and chop it in the right place too! This became rather difficult after a whole, as my hands were frozen. But apart from that I rather liked the job.
While the frost was very keen, we forked manure from the fold into the cart, and tipped it in heaps on the corn stubble, so that it could be plowed in. This was a very hard job, but certainly warming! I was very glad to stop when the cocoa arrived, and stand up straight while I drank it, looking across the frosty stubble to the brilliant splash of colour in the far hedge - a rowan tree laden with scarlet berries, and alive with blackbirds and thrushes having a free meal.