JCB Tractors on the road

I was fortunate while riding on the top deck of the bus, to spot these two JCB tractors, one with a shovel on the front and both pulling trailers.





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Sugar Beet Harvest 2014





Sugar beet is a staple crop of English farming.  In Norfolk two things begin every year in September.  The pheasant shooting season and the sugar beet harvest.  Young pheasants fresh from the rearing pens, gravitate in a dangerous manner to the country roads, to be joined by the sugar beet lorries that collect the harvested beet and convey it to the British Sugar factories at Wissington and Cantley.  The sight of sugar beet lorries, herald the new school term and the change in the seasons to autumn, with misty mornings and shortening daylight hours.

I took this picture just outside Attleborough, about half a mile from the junction for the A11.  The lorry is waiting by the beet elevator and the teleporter is heading to the pile sugar beet to load the elevator.

 I will add more pictures as the season progresses.  At the moment it is dry on the land, with day light hours still into the evening.  The process gets wet, muddy, dark and cold, as we head through to Christmas. 

This Vervaet 617 sugarbeet harvester was working Neil's land in Breckland.




This John Deere tactor was ferrying the beet off the land.







The harvester has a conveyor belt to load the sugarbeet into the trailers.





Neil was driving his tractor John Deere tractor and here he is lining up with the harvester to collect the beet.



Neil's John Deere 6830

Big Sky Days





Norfolk is known as big sky country because the flatness of the landscape creates no interruption to the horizon.  The sky becomes bigger because of this.  I recently took these pictures, after harvest that emphasise the point.

The paleness of the stubble and cut grass, seem to emphasise the sky in this picture.





The clouds seem to be coming towards the camera in this picture.

One last picture of swirling cloud coming across the landscape, creating another beautiful Norfolk sky.



Claas Senator 80 - Combine Harvester



This is a small field of cut barley, near Hingham Norfolk.  I watched the barley growing and wondered how they were going to cut it.  It is such a small piece of land and most modern combines would be too large to manoeuvre comfortably on it.





Then I noticed that the field had been cut and that this little combine had done the job.







Upon closer inspection and after doing some research, I found out it was a Claas Senator 80. 






It is a small combine with a 12ft header.






I wondered if this was little Claas was someone's restoration project.

 

There was another major mechanical problem.  A back wheel and axle failure that was very noticeable.

I hope that the need to plough will mean that it is moved to a shed, where restoration will continue.  Though I appreciate that getting it off the field will be difficult in it's current condition.

To my mind though, this machine is still a little prince.

John Deere tractor and Plough

John Deere tractor and plough.

Spoilt for Choice




I was spoilt for choice today, with a New Holland working to the left of me, mowing and hedging and a John Deere discing on the stubble to the right of me.

 

Thatched Roofs



Because we are away from major commuter routes and hemmed in by prime arable land, preventing housing development, nothing much changes in the villages.  These are two fine examples of thatched roofs in Breckland Norfolk.



Sharing Farming Knowledge






  


He confirmed that the caterpillar track on his John Deere tractor gives better traction and causes less damage to the land but it does not perform so well on wet land or heavy land.




He explained that the tilling machine that the tractor was pulling was using a set of discs to grub up the stubble, then a set of rollers and finally a compactor at the back , which was levelling the land.




I noticed that such a long and heavy machine could  not use three point linkage for manouvring, instead it had hydraulic wheels that it could be raised on.



Often those who work in the fields are under time pressure to complete tasks.  So when this gentleman was kind enough to stop and tell me what he was doing and what epuipment he was using, I felt really blessed.  He explained to me about minimum till.  This means that when he has finished in the field it will be sown, with no ploughing in between.

The Peddars Way



The Peddars Way, an ancient path, runs through the Norfolk countryside from Knettishall Heath to the sea at Holme, on the Norfolk coast.  I took the picture as I was walking on a section near my home.



Massey Ferguson 7480 tractor and muck spreader, Breckland Norfolk

Massey Ferguson 7480 tractor and muck spreader.  Picture taken in February this year.

Massey Ferguson 7480 tractor.

John Deere 6830 tractor, ploughing in Breckland Norfolk

This is a John Deere 6830 tractor, ploughing and rolling.  It is surrounded by seagulls looking for an easy lunch.  I posted another picture of this tractor and plough yesterday.




The driver had two large interconnecting fields to plough but didn't seem too concerned.  I don't think I would be either, at the wheel of such a lovely machine.



Young Phesants in the Sugarbeet.



Young pheasants just released from the rearing pens, always make me smile.  They seem so skinny and big eyed and don't yet seem at home in their surroundings.




This one was sensible enough to stay close to some good cover, in the sugarbeet field.




He didn't seem to want to run from me.  I was beginning to think that he thought I was his mother !




This was the field next to where the young phesants were.  It was being ploughed and I don't think pheasants are fond enough of crab apples to risk there being no cover available.