Anton Coaker on Thursday

Trials and tribulations of chasing bales

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I feels like I stepped straight out of the car returning from Scotland, into a tractor, and have been there since - chasing bales.

Extant symptoms include being dusty, oily, with gloop in the corners of squinting eyes - from looking through grubby windscreens into the lowering evening sun.

We've cut the remaining fiddly little fields I leave until last up here, as well as fetching home a fair pile of bought-in fodder, all to be stacked away safe.

Various contractors have been working on my behalf packing bales off the moor, as I've laboured away dodging rocks here with the aging rubber band baler, in between making trips out with the bale trailer to fetch back more of the former.

Out of necessity, I seamlessly shift into a mental triage while this is all going on. With multiple sites and crops on the go, I've to assess which tasks take priority. As long as no cattle are actually out on the road, etc, preserving the meagre crops is the game afoot. Utilising a collection of machinery mostly now approaching ‘classic’ status, I have to juggle which tractor has what personal issues, and who amongst my highly-skilled operatives is best suited to spin which plates.