Working Westray

It’s Wednesday, so it’s time for the first in my series on Working Westray.

Here’s my good neighbour Alistair sharpening one of the blades of his baler:

Working Westray - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)

The barn is fabulous but almost dark in that corner so I had to use an exposure of 1/15th of a second, hand-held, to capture this. That also had the advantage of capturing all the sparks.

Later, out in the fields, I see Alistair using the baler to produce huge cylinders of grass while June uses the wrapper to encase them in plastic to exclude the air. That stops the wet grass from rotting and developing toxins from fungal growth.

Working Westray - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)

I particularly enjoyed waiting for Alistair’s tractor to drive into the gap between June’s tractor and the wrapper so I could capture them both at work.

It’s been a fascinating day to see them farming and their silage pit is now full to overflowing.

More Working Westray next Wednesday.

More Working Westray

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