August 05

LIKE MILLIONS DO every year, you’re about to experience one of Europe’s truly amazing holiday destinations. “Make hay while the sun shines” is how the old saying goes and throughout July that’s certainly what’s been going on in Highland Perthshire. Long sunny days and no rain make ideal haymaking weather and those of us lucky enough to have hay ready to cut during the good weather were able to make some of the best quality hay for a number of years.
Hay making involves cutting grass, which hasn’t been grazed by livestock since springtime/early summer. Once the grass is cut it is spread out using a hay turning machine behind a tractor. In hot sunny weather the grass dries out over a period of 4-5 days. Turning the grass once or twice a day ensures that all the moisture is removed from the grass and it is ready for baling.
Hay making was once a very labour intensive job, but with nearly every farm now making round bales as opposed to small square bales, most of the work can be done in the comfort of an air conditioned tractor cab.
All this ‘haymaking’ weathe,r however, has a downside. Grass growth has slowed up due to the ground drying out very quickly. Potato crops are having to be irrigated. Barley crops on drier parts of the fields are shrivelling up, as there isn’t enough moisture to fill the grains. As usual, the rain probably won’t come until we need some dry weather at harvest time!

Tractor Run
Now, you would think driving a tractor all week, the last thing you would want to do on your day off is to spend all day driving one. A tractor road run may seem an even stranger way to spend a day but the first one to be held in Highland, Perthshire by the local NFU branch was a big hit with everyone who took part. It also raised £165, which will go towards restoring a tractor for Breadalbane Academy’s Land Based Studies Course.
Twenty one tractors of all ages took part from a 1955 David Brown ‘30D’ to a nearly new Massey Ferguson ‘5465’. Many of the older tractors on the run had been restored to a very high standard and are a credit to their current owners.
Collecting and restoring older tractors and machinery is a hobby which appeals to a large variety of people all over the world. Rare machines can change hands for many thousands of pounds.
People collect tractors for all sorts of reasons, some collect different sizes of one make, others are lucky enough to have bought a tractor and not had to trade it in to fund buying another one, while some collect and restore a tractor similar to the one they first learned to drive on.
A number of businesses have sprung up to supply the demand for parts for restoring tractors. Many parts, which went out of production years ago, are being made again, while other companies concentrate on reconditioning engines and gearboxes.
Almost every weekend throughout the year, there are rallies, competitions and road runs going on somewhere in the country. Competition among restorers is fierce and machines, which win these concourse competitions, will be prepared to the same standard as the day they left the factory. In many cases, the paint jobs will actually be better than when they were new.
For those who either can’t afford the real thing, are too young to drive or have no space to store it, there is a vast range of model machines on offer, either in metal or plastic, to suit all ages and pockets.
It remains to be seen whether today’s air conditioned, four wheel drive, cd-playing tractors will become the collector’s items of the future. They may be warmer on a cold winters day in Highland Perthshire but you can’t beat the fun of driving an old tractor on a sunny day with the smell of diesel fumes and the wind in your hair (or what’s left of it!).

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