Faces of Spain #8
Now there's old-style, old-fashioned farming but there is also sheer bloody hard work like this!
There are still many rural areas in Spain where the farming practices are more reminiscent of the UK half a century or more ago. There are small-scale, non-intensive, family-owned farms. The crops grown are highly varied, even within a single field. For example, a main crop of maize might be mixed with a patch of lettuces, a patch of potatoes or onions and an edge of vines. There seems to be little use of herbicides or pesticides and any machinary used belongs to a bygone age. Quite a bit of work is still done by hand. At least this gentleman had a petrol-driven scyth to take a hay meadow cut. The meadow was herb rich and full of wild flowers as well as the grasses, great animal feed.
About an hour later I saw that the machine had turned over on a very steep slope and was stuck in a ditch. I assume it was this man's father who had been summoned with a beat-up old Land Rover. With much swearing and gesticulating, they were trying to drag the cutter out of the ditch and get it back upright. By the end of the day, the meadow had been cut and the hay laid out to dry.
Faces of Spain #8
Now there's old-style, old-fashioned farming but there is also sheer bloody hard work like this!
There are still many rural areas in Spain where the farming practices are more reminiscent of the UK half a century or more ago. There are small-scale, non-intensive, family-owned farms. The crops grown are highly varied, even within a single field. For example, a main crop of maize might be mixed with a patch of lettuces, a patch of potatoes or onions and an edge of vines. There seems to be little use of herbicides or pesticides and any machinary used belongs to a bygone age. Quite a bit of work is still done by hand. At least this gentleman had a petrol-driven scyth to take a hay meadow cut. The meadow was herb rich and full of wild flowers as well as the grasses, great animal feed.
About an hour later I saw that the machine had turned over on a very steep slope and was stuck in a ditch. I assume it was this man's father who had been summoned with a beat-up old Land Rover. With much swearing and gesticulating, they were trying to drag the cutter out of the ditch and get it back upright. By the end of the day, the meadow had been cut and the hay laid out to dry.