ABSTRACT THURSDAY

After we had collected our new garden chairs from Lechlade, we found what we thought was a cool and shady spot in a field to have our picnic.  We had just finished our sandwiches when we heard the rumble of a tractor and trailer so had to move out of the way quickly.  The tractor was driven by a young lady and she had obviously come to collect the corn that had been harvested in the next field.

This photograph was taken just over the road from where we were and I think this picture says it all about the state of the land in the UK at the moment and I thought it fitted in well with the Abstract Thursday challenge showing the tracks made by the tractor wheels. 

It is hotter than ever today, in fact, it is too hot, now we are back home, to even sit in our cool, blue corner in our garden. To a lesser degree, our garden looks very much like this with cracks about an inch wide in our flower beds with many of the plants wilting and dying.

We desperately need rain and sooner rather than later, but hopefully the farmers will be able to harvest their crops before the rain comes.

AMAZING FACT:

Today’s combines can harvest 
900 bushels of corn per hour.
In the 1930s a farmer could harvest
(by hand) about 100 bushels of corn
in a 9 hour day.

Put in a way I can understand - and I remember learning at school  (and often wondered why we had to learn it!) that 4 pecks = 1 bushel.  A bushel of wheat is about 60 pounds so 900 bushels would be 54,000 pounds  or for those of you who have “gone metric” this would equate to 24,493.98 kg. That’s a lot of corn!