I think I spoke too soon when I said everything was going swimmingly as we are now trying to find our snorkels and arm bands!
Thankfully we managed to get all of the wheat harvested before the rain and we were actually waiting for the Spring Barley to ripen as the heavens opened. Then it will only be the Beans left to do before the combine harvester can be put back into the shed where it lives for about 10 months of the year.
The rain has been welcome in some small part as we have drilled next year's Oilseed Rape crops and they will benefit hugely from having a moist seedbed.
Whilst we are waiting for the crops to dry out we are full steam ahead on cultivating and ploughing the land that has been harvested. Again the rain will help a little as the going will be easier on the machinery.
As you can see in the photos, we store our crops in huge grain stores. This is store 6 which has about 750 tonnes of wheat on one side and is separated by the tunnel which transports air to the under floor vents. The moisture levels of the wheat were excellent this year and were below the threshold of needing to dry it. We only blow air through it now to keep it cool and eliminate hot spots. The other photo is of Sam loading a lorry of wheat which is heading off to Dover and beyond.