The long school summer vacation was originally intended for the children to be able to help with the harvest. Nowadays of course they just get a long time off and the parents have the problem of keeping them occupied.

Grain harvesting has become highly mechanised, but in our little village our farmer, Tom, doesn't go for the latest equipment - he's more of the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' type. I met him along the lane a while back on his tractor which he said was 40 years old and still going fine, so he didn't need a new one.

He also has a combine harvester built in the 1970s, so watching the annual routine from my upstairs office window is rather like being in a time warp. All these pictures were taken from my desk.

In mid-August the grain was ripening nicely:

 
Near the end of the month we had some walkers following the path across the other side of the field, through the knee-high grain.
 
These were from the 'Walk for Life' scheme which encourages town dwellers to get some exercise in the countryside, the leader is near the back, wearing a logo.

Then over the first weekend of September, slightly later than usual, Tom arrived with his 1970s machinery to bring in the harvest - modern combines do all this in one machine, but the older way is much more interesting to watch:

 
Around here most of the straw, and even the grain, is likely to end up being used for livestock.

One day of course we'll persuade the world to feed grain to people instead of animals, and Wikipedia has an interesting list of what can then be done with the straw, for example: biofuels, biomass, hats, thatching, packaging, paper, archery targets, construction material, rope, basketry, shoes, horticulture, decoration and erosion control.

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