Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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Penny
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Harvest TimeHarvest has just started on our Farm (well the farm we live on  ) OH is at this very moment out on the combine, cutting the rape seed. Apparently it's too dry to cut during the day, but moisture levels come up at night, so that's why he'll be down in the fields till goodness only knows when.
I love Harvest - the wonderful smell of straw, the barns gradually filling with grain.
But it does seem to have lost some of it's sparkle over the years. It used to be such a community event - all the locals getting together to bring the crops in, much drinking of cider and stuff. Now it's a £150,000 combine that does the whole field in a few hours. Whilst economically, that probably makes a lot of sense, it does seem to have destroyed the farming communities somewhat 
Although I have to admit to a strange fascination for the combine - I just went up to watch it at work, it's just so darn BIG!
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Bernie66
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Sounds lovely Penny, am quite jealous in a nice way.
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Mrs Fiddlesticks
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we've farming friends that are doing the barley/combine thing at the moment. We've been up to the farm and seen the combine in the shed - it is Huge isn't it? It is quite exciting if you see them along the road.
My friend who has 3 young boys says it affects their summer in that they have to go away in the school term before harvest or not at all and the long summer holidays have to be spent barely seeing Daddy as he's out all the time. She does describe days when she takes the children and a picnic and they walk across the fields to join him for lunch and then walk home again and let it take them all day. I thought that was a lovely old fashioned thing to do.
Course the other thing about having such big machinery about is that farmers children can't play around the farm as you'd imagine rather whistfully that they can, because its just too dangerous.
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gil
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We're organising a Harvest BBQ for the parish in August, once most of the silaging and hay-making is done. Grass, lambs and calves are the 'crops' here (only a few folk able to grow the odd field of spring barley). It's be the first time in several years that there's been such a celebration of community effort; many farmers do still help each other out with hay and silage, although some get contractors in for all or part of the process.
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Bernie66
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| gil wrote: | | It's be the first time in several years that there's been such a celebration of community effort; many farmers do still help each other out with hay and silage, although some get contractors in for all or part of the process. |
That's what I miss from the past, a real sense of community. it seems to have died as quickly as street crime has grown.
I can't imagine any street parties any more. I think the 1977 Jubilee one was probably the last I can remember.
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Mrs Fiddlesticks
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| Bernie66 wrote: |
That's what I miss from the past, a real sense of community. it seems to have died as quickly as street crime has grown.
I can't imagine any street parties any more. I think the 1977 Jubilee one was probably the last I can remember. |
I think it is there in some places but is harder to find and I think its because -
1) people are too busy to join in/organise
2) if there is something it tends to have an alterior motive in terms of fund raising for something ( I've been guilty of being on committees for that sort of thing) and it may be that that is off putting
Our village had a tea and mince pie afternoon last December organised by the Village Hall Committee that was completely free and it was a huge success, I think because it was a simple afternoon with no hidden agenda, nothing to promote ,and nothing to sell. Its hoped to be repeated this year to become an annual event.
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gingerwelly
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Do many areas still have a harvest festival ?
In wales there always tends to be a harvest festival, with a bit of a party and a BBQ. (oh and a huge bowl of harvest punch ,and elderflower drinks)...each family brings food ....bags of potatoes, apples and other veg, they are used to decorate the church and then its used at the BBQ or given to the oap's meals on wheels (also lotsof jars of jam and things)
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Mrs Fiddlesticks
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our school has one of sorts, the local church does I think but not sure on that one.
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Behemoth
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The long summer holiday is linked to the harvest and used to be longer, still is for Uni students and in North America. This was so kids could help get the harvest in all the way through to lifting the potatoes and beans for winter store.
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Chick-pea
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It makes me smile when people say "Oh, there isn't any community anymore". What do they want? Do they want people to know their neighbours, pop in each other's houses and help each other out? Well they should do that then. It seems everyone is waiting for everybody else to start being neighbourly, instead of doing it themselves.
Actually there is lots of community spirit but it usually isn't in streets and neighbourhoods, it is in groups like churches, schools, allotments, choirs, groups of people who might be geographically quite spread out but who share something in common like an interest or a set of beliefs.
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wellington womble
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I went into a restaurant yesterday with too much air conditioning, and there were lots of people bundled up in wooly jumpers. I'm really, really looking forward to autumn and the harvest. Wooly jumpers, knitting, real fires, cool weather, and none of this ridiclulous idea that sunshine should be 'enjoyed' in minimal clothing at the expense of your skin at every opportunity! Of all the seasons, summer is my least favourite, and I'm heartily sick of it! I love the harvest festival.
Communities are not necessarily geographical - they used to be, because people didn't move around very much, but now we do, so they're not - you used to get involved in the local community because it was that or nothing - it isn't anymore, and new communities (for example our very own DS.net!) are springing up all over. I'm not saying its better or worse, just different. You're right about people not really grasping that a communal effort is just a number of individual efforts, though.
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