It was a great day.
One could feel the excitement in the air as we all waited for history to be made. The response to the call for combines was phenomenal. There were 185 machines of all shapes, makes and sizes on the site and now holds the world record of 175 combines working in unison. The whole effort was a great achievement for everyone involved — the hard-working committee, who left no stone unturned and, of course, the Curran family who provided the field of wheat and without whom it could not have happened. There was huge excitement, camaraderie and friendship for the whole day long as everyone was determined to do their level best to make the event a success. And as it turned out I did not drive my own combine. This honour fell to Laurence, who was delighted to step into my shoes. Instead, I got a job helping my brother, John, to direct the combines from their parking areas to their positions. And now we have our memories of a day when history was made — a day when farmers came together from all over the country in friendship and selflessness to not only create a world record but also to raise much-needed funds for those in need. And, as my eight-year-old grandson said, “we were all there to see a created”. Back to the mundane now and it is still dismal and dreary as I write. We brought the combine home on the day after the event. Owen, who is ‘s fiance, drove it home while I was the escort driver in front. It has been raining almost non-stop all week and the combine has not cut one grain of a crop. Neither has my second-cut silage been made on the out farm. There is no sign of an imminent improvement either. If this dreadful weather does not improve soon all of the crops will be destroyed.
And we have little incentive to be upbeat with the industry currently contemplating just how little they can get away with paying farmers for grain. I hear, too, on the grapevine that two huge shiploads of grain were dumped in this country last week. And this is a dumping practice — it is not selling in the usual manner. Industry will buy this up sooner than support their indigenous grain producers.