Harvest Brittany Style...

Brittany's a tough,, ramped up agricultural environment. Even the strimmer we bought from the local DIY shop turned out to be 'Commercial Strength', so it's not surprising that when the local farmers here set about the annual Maize harvest in late September or early October... they have to do it 'big style'. The fields are huge and the task is gigantic and hectare upon hectare for miles around here are planted with sweetcorn. I can't imagine how this task would have been completed before mechanical equipment came into everyday use. It pulls into perspective why there are so many farmsteads and tied cottages making up the thousands of hamlets and many hundred villages across the peninsula so that anything on this scale could be carried out with anything like the same precision manually.

It's extremely rare to find fresh maize for sale in supermarkets as a commodity for human consumption ... It's just a big 'Non' from the natives  it seems (parsnips take on the same rarity value too). And the reason that all the fields of maize you'll see are dull russet and very uninviting is that the whole plant as it's sheared from the earth is, within a wink, shredded, stalk and all... into tiny pieces... Shredded to make flakes for animal feed. It rests for seconds within the combine before being blown in a tight streaming cloud through a chute and out into the air directly into a fast moving mobile bin the size of a shipping container. This is being towed behind a 'pumped up' tractor - the whole rig is a cross between a veloceraptor and something out of Transformers . The tractor follows the giant shredder in a ballet round and around the field in a clockwise direction as the crop diminishes noticeably in size... As the bin passes the half full mark another identical rig appears as if from nowhere and latches on to the rear of this mechanical hokey-cokey... Following close behind, the driver awaits his cue. The full bin peels away at a signal from the combine's 'pilot' and the empty one shimmies up to replace it in an instant. He hardly let's any drop...

There's not a moment of hesitation. The full bin is hurried from the field and the rig heaves its way down narrow lanes (nothing can pass - even Cornwall can't compete with the narrowness of some round here)... off to the co-operative's silos to be weighed, logged and stored. Then it's straight back to the fray. This activity is being played out by dozens of teams across the Breton peninsula and the combine and tractor drivers are, for a month or so, the champions of the Bretagne Champs (fields).  They are obviously the same people who a month earlier take on the wheat for the flour mills... They are the cowboys, the plainsmen of Breton agriculture... They are the same harvesters who clear the fields of wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, carrots, cabbages, sprouts, oil seed rape... you name it they cut it!

This vulcanised dance marathon goes on from early morn - moving from field to field - and often through the night according to the weather forecast. Night time goings on, if you are lucky enough to see them are amazing. We're lucky. Right outside our back window is a 5 Hectare field and, when you're just about to turn in for the night it's a privilege to be able to stand at the window with an extra glass of wine or pommeau hooch and watch the late night moon-lit ballet begin where the daytime polka left off!