Farming | #writephoto Flash Fiction

Farming. That is a really difficult prompt this week from KL Caley at New2Writing.com. Of course, my colleagues will come up with brilliant takes on the idea. People I meet at craft fairs ask where my ideas come from. Without a prompt, I have no idea. With a prompt… they emerge in time. This one’s 300 words. Enjoy.

Farming with a Red Tractor

The red tractor went around and around the field. It wasn’t the corn field, that was next door. He’d be going there next.

In this field, he went carefully around the tracks laid down early in the year during the seed sowing. This was a root crop. The tractor had to follow the lines of the previous run so as not to damage the plants. They might be beetroot, they might be mangelwurzels. Those were for the cattle and sheep and pigs through the winter. The beetroot was for nice warming soups in the winter for us. And hot, coated with cheese sauce, for us too. Yum.

The tractor left the beet field and went over to see if he could help the harvester. The tractor picked up a trailer at the gate, then went and put bales in it. When all the bales were picked up it delivered them to the barn. Then he went back for more. This time he followed the harvester and put the bales straight from the harvester’s chute into the trailer. That saved a lot of work.

After dropping those bales at the barn, the tractor met the digger, with its scoop on the front. It might be good to take the digger to the field, to tip the bales on the ground into the tractor’s trailer. 

That was complicated, but not too much damage was done in the process. And they managed not to disturb the large patch left as set-aside for the lapwings to rear their chicks each year.

After that it was time for tea.

So he put the tractor, digger and harvester in the toybox and went to have beans on toast and a large glass of orange juice. Farming was thirsty work for a five year-old.

(c) J M Pett 2022