JOHN BARLEYCORN.

There is an old folk song about John Barleycorn  and one of the verses reads like this ...

"They've hired men with sythes so sharp,

to cut him off at the knee,

They've rolled him and turned him

and served him most barbarously."

The dog was all ears alert this morning to the sound of machinery working in the barley fields that we visited just two days ago and had returned today because they were due to be harvested and not on the old fashioned way with scythes. These 50+ acres were being cut off below the knee, with modern machinery.

The forestry that normally mutes the sounds of traffic in the valley, resounded to the vibrations of this crop being harvested and we were curious to watch this modern leviathan at work.

No signs of pale green stalks today, the last few days of sun have finished the ripening and here was the large. John Deere combine harvester navigating through the mature crop.

This year is the 175th anniversary of John Deere, a one man blacksmith working in Illinois, USA. He designed a polished steel mold board to replace the cast iron plough shares that were currently in use, thereby making ploughing in heavier soils much easier. That was just a small moment of change and if you are interested in his inventions, just google John Deere, fascinating!  A simple idea, that changed the face of agricultural history. That man, started something that has become such a huge part of our agricultural mechanisation.
The machinery in it's classic green and gold with the leaping deer logo is now so much a part of the farming scenes across the world. It is quite  an incredible achievement.
Just imagine how long it would take men with scythes to harvest this much acreage?

 Now, just one man, driving this machine, can harvest all these acres, the grains being taken up into a hopper on the back and leaving just the stalks neatly in rows, which will be dealt with by another man with a baling machine.

Then a baler will come in and scoop up the straw left behind and bingo, the harvest is in!
The timing has been just right, today is the autumn equinox and ... as the weather due to change overnight, with rain forecast over the next four days . A lucky break methinks.
In the song there's a line ... "They've let him stand 'till midsummers day."
I guess that shows how times have changed, as that usually takes place on June 21st!
As we returned down the track between forest and farm. I looked across the valley ... towards Man Moel (in Welsh that means bare place) and all that you see in this view has been sculpted and changed by man from the forestry to the mine changed land and the farm land behind me and I thought of an apt way to describe all this terrain ... manscape!

It also occured to me that even the skies in today's photographs have contrails from planes, (they are always more noticeable on a Saturday). Is there no escape from man?
And by that, I am not being gender detrimental. just referring to the effect Homo Sapiens has changed on all of our landscape. and at times one has to wonder  ... "For better or worse." To quote an old phrase ... "A curates egg."  I would say this ... good in parts.
To end the day there was a sunset of sorts, but even then I had to position the camera in such a way that the scar of a contrail across the clouds didn't spoil an otherwise clear sky.

A rather special way to end this memorable day!