Bringing In The Wheat Crop Pt.1

Bringing In The Wheat Crop (Through Rose Coloured Spectacles).
Val D'Arda, Emilia Romagna. Circa 1972.
Part 1.

It started as it had always started, for generations  previously, under a September sky, with a man, a plough, several tonnes of what we shall genteelly call “bovine fertiliser” and an open field, and so it will continue, largely unaltered, the only differences being in the change of motive power from human sweat and toil, through the harnessed animal muscle of the horses and the bullocks, to the modern combustion engine in the form of a 300 hose power Fiat tractor. The purpose, to prepare the soil for seeding.

Seed which once sown, will over the coming months have to survive the attentions of the local wildlife, both terrestrial  and avian, the ravages of a northern Italian winter and later, surging rain, driving winds and of course,  the baking Mediterranean sun. Which if it is lucky will combine in the right proportions to kick start it into life, if not it will remain dormant in the field where it lies and will rot. It will make its first appearance on the surface in the early spring as a tiny green shoot,  just one of tens of thousands  in the field, forcing its way upwards, through soil and past stone, looking, searching, reaching, for that life giving element that is the sun.  By late spring these seedlings have become dense enough to completely hide from view the bare earth  from which they burst, and now their fate lies with the sun, rain and old father time, who again must combine to produce by the late summer, the plant that will by then have become a field of gold and ochre stalks standing waist high to a grown man, whose  heads will contain both their own future and more importantly for the farmer, those tiny little golden brown jewels of wheat grain that are known to antiquity as the “staff of life“.

Wheat: The Staff Of Life

As with most things agricultural, events tend to work in cycles, it’s early August the sun has worked it’s magic, and the plants have matured.  He could leave it a week or two longer for the grain to bulk up a little more and increase the size of the harvest, but he runs the risk of a late summer storm which could quite easily knock the entire crop to the ground and ruin a year’s hopes in only a couple of hours, and so the “contadino” rises from his bed early; an important decision has been made, today’s the day to bring in the wheat crop.

Harvesting a crop of any description is an all hands to the pumps family affair, machinery has to be serviced, blades have to be sharpened, sacks have to be mended , and bailer twine has to be bought etc, etc. More than that, the farmer needs to marshal his team. Who drives the reaper?  Who drives the tractor?  Who cuts the wheat by hand in all those hard to get to places? (after all, fields are usually neither flat nor square).  But more importantly (and here enters the author and his younger brother), what to do with those two kids from England, who are as keen as mustard to muck in and help, but know bugger all about harvesting! 

At this point, I think I should add that, we always thought that we were helping, however on reflection the value of our help was probably extremely limited, but we were always welcomed and included in most of the activities. We were given lots of opportunities to ‘help’ (or, get in the way depending on your point of view) with the preparation of the machinery from the checking of oil and water levels, to the sharpening of the reciprocating blades on the BCS Reaper. This involved our ‘assisting’ our cousin Gianetto as he demonstrated his skills as a blacksmith by attending to every one of about fifty individual blades on the cutting bar. Each blade is inspected, checked for damage and either repaired and sharpened the old fashioned way on a rotary whetstone, which I have to say, was almost certainly an antique when my grandfather was a boy, or if too badly damaged, replaced with an all new blade, which would be hot riveted in place, and hence, we were responsible for keeping the forge at the correct temperature and we took it in turns to hand crank the bellows to keep the air flowing through the coals and the temperature up.  Now all of this preparatory work (at least we thought of it as work), was very hot very noisy and very, very dirty ……. HA, HA, HA, BLOODY MARVELLOUS isn’t it! 

And so the big day dawns, a light breeze passes over us, the sun has risen and we are set to work early on clearing a starting point in one corner of the field where the Bruno and his BCS Reaper can make a start. We are given a scythe, a sickle, and a ball of twine and some basic instruction in their use;  

Scythe

1. Keep the scythe flat and use a sweeping motion working from right to left.
2. Don’t try to cut too much in one sweep, let the scythe do the work.
3. Don’t cut more than can be bundled together into your arms to form a sheaf.
4. Use the twine to form each sheaf as you go along.
5. Make sure no one is standing too close, as the scythe will easily remove a foot once it is sharpened.
6. Use the sickle to cut any stalks where the  scythe can’t reach.

Cow Horn Whetstone Holder

Having received our instructions, Nonno who had come along to keep an eye on us, came over and sharpened the scythe. Imagine if you will the picture of a 70 year old man  his face and hands the map of his life, wearing an English flat cap (Tweed, of course)  a long sleeved white shirt,  black heavy cotton trousers, supported with the widest leather belt you have ever seen, black army surplus ammunition boots, and a match stick clenched firmly between his teeth.

Marass

Hanging from his  belt were two items that you would only rarely see him without.  One is a machete/ bill hook like tool known locally as a Marassa,  and a small  20cm/8in whetstone carried in a an adapted cow’s horn which also contained a small amount of water to help attain a proper razor like edge on the various cutting tools.  Imagine once again the picture of an elderly gent whose hand is now flashing before your eyes, complete with whetstone along a blade that is over a metre long with a dexterity and accuracy equalled only by some of the worlds great surgeons and chefs. 

Cont.