Bernard was harvesting the maize from his farm today and I thought that meant the maize cobs would be picked. Soon a huge tractor pulled into this utulity area in front of the house, towing a huge trailed full of green mulch. It backed onto the concrete pad which had boards edging two sides of it, and began tipping the contents onto it. Before it had finished another huge tractor and trailer arrived to do the same thing, and so began the pattern for the morning with five of these tractors and trailers working. Bernard was in one of them, and the others were all neighbouring farmers. Apparently they all help each other at this time of year when harvesting.
I was then invited on board a huge John Deere tractor, for a photo I thought, and then Danielle handed back my camera, the door was shut and we were off!! The next two hours will stay in my memory always. It was a beautiful day with a clear blue sky that stretched forever. Because this region is very flat, there is nothing to shorten the horizon and to me it seems to make the sky so much bigger than I usually see at home - the horizon is so far in the distance.
Talk about rocking and rolling with a young french farmer! There is no way you could have a smooth ride on one of those huge machines and my body got as good a workout as it would have using a hula hoop for two hours! We lurched and lumbered along the road for a bit and then turned down a narrow muddy track full of potholes to reach the paddocks the machine was working in. The driver's seat was sprung as were his control panels and the whole machine just bounced and rocked along. I was perched in a little dickie seat next to Xavier and was quite violently thrown from one side of my little space to the other as I tried to clutch onto anything to give me some balance! We soon arrived in the paddock where the going was slightly smoother and I saw the massive mulcher that was cutting the whole of the maize plants, sucking them up and mulching them, then spewing the mulch out a huge funnel at the top. A tractor and trailer would travel along side it to get their trailer filled, then it would depart for the Regnier farm silage store pit, and the next tractor in line would take its place -a relay of the sort I had never seen before.
The mulcher in action.
Xavier is an ex-pupil of Danielle's and a lovely young guy - so nice to put himself through two hours in his cab with an old townie from the other side of the world! We had many laughs - he only remembered a little English from his school days and my french farm vocabulary was almost non-existant so many gestures were used to help get the message across as we asked each other questions and learnt about farming in each other's countries. After our first lap back to the house he backed up the trailer, tipped it, and emptied the maize into the big pit area and then just took off down the road again. This was when I realised I was here with him for the long haul!
The pile grows bigger
After each drop-off, another tractor compresses the maize by driving backwards and forwards over it.
Danielle had taken to her mother-in-law's a pile of baguettes, pate, camembert, saussice, and a loaf that looked like a terrine. This was for everybody's lunch and when we were eating, Danielle said I had to try this terrine thing. She wouldn't say what it was - I had to eat it first. It was delicious on a piece of baguette and then she told me it was tripe and pig's head boiled together and then made into the terrine! I loved it.
We returned from dinner in Belgium at 11.30pm and have to be up at 6am for the trip to the forest to hear the deer roar! I will have to blog again in the morning as I have so much more to tell.
My new farmer friend!
Hahaha ... I laughed out loud just imagining the whole scene. Quelle aventure!
ReplyDelete