Horny handed sons and daughters of toil

There are all sizes of tractors. Probably the most common around here are really old, really beaten up and quite small tractors. Think of a tractor the size of a 1950s Massey Ferguson, the sort of tractor Peter Rabbit's Mr. McGregor would have, if he'd had a tractor. They use them in the vineyards where there is just about space for them to manoeuvre, they use them to haul trailers full of grapes to the local bodega, they use them for the almonds and to go to the bar. A couple of days ago four big tractors roared past the front of our house followed by a medium sized tractor hauling a trailer. They were going to pick almonds. I know because the tractors each had one of the umbrella like nets at the back which are fastened around the tree trunk whilst the tree is given a good shaking. Sherlock Holmes wise I could also deduce that they may well be picking almonds because, when I passed the industrial estate the other day, I could hear the machines working and see the mountains of almond shells in the yard. Oh, and when we were eating outside the village hall on Sunday a tractor and trailer rig went by and nearly everybody there shouted encouragement to the farmer. I could see almonds in the trailer.

Pinoso is rural, it's surrounded by lots of small villages and by vineyards, wheat fields, almond and olive groves and goodness knows what else. And that's the thing. Those people in the village, at the meal, who urged the farmer on, knew what he was harvesting and my guess is that they usually know what's been harvested because they have friends or family involved. I don't. Some things are obvious, the grapes for instance, and maybe peaches or cherries but there are plenty of fields with green things in them. They could be artichokes or peas or peppers or melons or potatoes or onions or aubergines. I may be able to tell close up but I can't guess from as I see the workers stooped over, picking by hand, or the tractors going to and fro.

We have farmers as a near neighbours. They have plenty of kit, sometimes though, for things like big combines or the mechanised grape picking, they hire it in. They work all hours. They work the fields under artificial light quite often. Yesterday evening a tractor started ploughing up the field, which has been fallow for three or four years, directly opposite our house. They finished, I think, though to be honest I'd stopped paying much attention to the noise by then, around 10pm. I'd suspect they stopped to go home for the evening meal. They started again well before first light, around 4.30am.

But why have they ploughed up the field and why was it so urgent? I don't like not knowing that sort of thing.