Archived News

14th December 2007  

Farming continues all year round and some may be surprised to learn that harvesting even occurs in the winter.  Laurence has been on the combine harvester this week harvesting maize, a few weeks later than hoped due to the rain in November.  It is a slow process using a special 'header' or cutter bar on the combine to remove the corn cobs from the maize stems. 

Unfortunately the maize is not yielding well, it was slow to ripen due to the poor weather earlier in the year and when the crop was ready to cut, more rain prevented harvesting and knocked the plants to the ground.

The combine was finally rolling this week, but instead of cutting the cobs from a standing plant, the cutter has the impossible task of scooping the cobs from the ground. This makes for very difficult and stressful work.

Today harvesting was up at Tillingbourne and twenty acres have been cut so far.  We may try a different variety of maize next year in the hope that the rain will not knock it down on this exposed site.

When the combine tank is filled with maize (corn), it is offloaded into a trailer and taken to the grain drier where the moisture level is reduced to below 15%  As the corn dries, the moisture puffs out around the drier.  When the corn is dry enough it will be collected by a grain merchant and sold for chicken feed.

This afternoon I was called to the front gate by a fireman, whilst another Officer walked across the garden from the back gate.

Someone had telephoned the emergency services reporting that flames were seen coming from a barn somewhere in our location and two fire engines were dispatched.

I was asked to check all the barns here at Manor Farm for signs of fire whilst the firemen went off to check the grain drier.  I guess that from a distance, a passing motorist mistook the steam from the drier as smoke and presumed there was a fire.  We are grateful to that person for their concern, grateful to the fire service for coming out to investigate and thankful that no flames were found. 

Life is certainly quite eventful here, that's for sure!