Holidays and harvests


Down here in Edinburgh they're called the 'October break', 'October half-term', or just plain 'October holidays'.  In the North East however they're still called by the name I knew as a child - the 'tattie holidays'.  In those days the potato harvest was gathered by hand, with women and children following the tractor and picking up the potatoes, or 'tatties'.  I was always annoyed that my mother vetoed  my earning pocket money in the same way as some of my classmates.  This week, in the window of a travel agent's in Elgin, I was pleased to see that mass market package holidays and Scottish farming tradition were brought together.

The Scottish potato harvest is forecast to be the worst for several years, with yields down 50% in some areas.  Our wet, cold, dark summer means that the grain harvest is also late.  Below, cut fields in Aberdeenshire.  No vast, flat acres here - it must be alarming negotiating a combine harvester over the contours of this hill.





The slightly reddish tinge of the soil in the shot below situates these fields in Angus, between Aberdeen and Dundee.


Some fields are still waiting to be cut, as in this field between Huntly and Inverurie.  I can't quite make out what it is - either barley or oats I think.  It looks more like barley.  While I wasn't allowed to 'howk tatties' (gather potatoes), I did accompany my grain merchant father to many farms at harvest time and became familiar with the various crops.
 

And here's another of Scotland's harvests - the wind.  This wind farm is to the west of Aberdeen, beside a stretch of road notorious for being blocked by snowdrifts in winter.  The taller white poles with the red tops by the side of the road are snow poles.  These help drivers to have a vague idea of where the road is when the surface is obliterated by snow.  Hard to imagine that we'll soon be at that time of year again.
 

Comments

  1. I hate to think of the winter coming! Many of the fruit crops here were damaged by early warm weather and then a late frost so there shortages of many types of apples in particular. A strange year everywhere.

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  2. Such beautiful countryside. We are at that wintery time of year here already - we went down to 24 F (-4 C) last night at our house and could see our first snow this weekend!

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  3. Very informative post. I really like the snow poles and would think they would be very valuable if so much snow falls that you can't even find the road. Love the wind falls!

    Hope you have a great weekend:)

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  4. Don't you just want to give one of those hay bales a push at the top of that rolling slope?
    I remember snow poles from my days training in the Cairngorms, absolute lifesavers at times.

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  5. I spent my childhood at the diagonally opposite end of the country, Dumfriesshire and we similarly called the october break, the tattie picking holiday - I even sometimes picked tatties on them.
    A generation back, my mother, who went to the convent school in Dumfries, tells that only those that were going tattie picking could get off the school during October - the farmer picked them all up from the school.

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  6. Nice photos of rather lovely Scottish countryside. Potatoes in the north of Cornwall are called tiddies.

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  7. I learn so much about your part of the world when I read your blog; information I get nowhere else. Thank you, as always.

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  8. I concur that it is barley :) Oats are a different colour.
    I love that sign! My daughter was most alarmed to discover that London schools don't have two weeks off in October... but they don't grow many tatties there either!

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  9. Guess how I found out that most of the UK had holidays in October.... traveled over there, thinking it would be easy-peasy, and it took FIVE DAYS in Gatwick to get a flight home! (I was flying standby, as I was an "air hostess" at the time.) 8-) Still worth it for the two weeks of bliss in Scotland I'd had, though!

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  10. Very interesting post , happy tatty Holidays :)

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  11. I love learning about your country here on your blog. Wonderful photos of the countryside!

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  12. Beautiful pictures. I never knew about tatties.

    I hope this weird weather year is not our new normal.

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  13. Beautiful photos and educational text! One of my readers left a comment recently describing her own "tattie howking" in the North-East of Scotland.

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  14. The second photo of the cut grain field is incredible. It looks just as if an enormous thick heavy carpet has been laid over the hill - very impressive.
    We enjoyed visiting your part of the world the other weekend on The river Spey. It's very different from the west coast. Very pretty lovely woodlands and the river is great for canoeing! I guess my boys were lucky that day with the fishermen, they tried to keep out of their way!

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  15. I have been away on vacation for a week or so and haven't read anything on the computer since we left. I had to go back and read all that you posted while I was gone.

    I'm still amazed at your country. It is such fun to have you tell more about what goes on during the various seasons. I was raised in a railroad town in Pocatello, Idaho. Idaho is known all over the U.S. as potato country and Idaho potatoes are supposed to be the best. We called them spuds. I went to the first part of my sophmore year in Twin Falls where they grow a lot of potatoes. We had what they called harvest vacation and a lot of the school kids worked in the potato fields. I even went for a couple of days and earned a little money. I didn't work for the whole two weeks though.

    It was interesting to see pictures of your grain fields too. They also grew quite a few grains in Twin Falls. We didn't get a lot of rain, so a lot of the crops were from "dry farming."

    We live now in Coachella Valley, which is quite a resort place. You may have heard of Palm Springs or Palm Desert, which is where we live. You have to go through a pass to get to our valley and as soon as you do, there are many mnay windmills. The picture you showed of yours had them quite separated while ours are so close together, I'm sure there is barely enough room for them to go around. Some of the people here are really against them as they say it ruins the look of our countryside, but I think they are terrific!! I love to see them as we travel through and most people agree with me.

    Thanks again, Linda, your posts are always so informative. I look forward to reading them.

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  16. I feel almost guilty I've not caught up sooner, but I've just done a similar 'tattie holiday line' - sorry didnt' steal it honest! Interesting isnt' it that its quite an east/west divide with the holiday names. Gorgeous shots of golden cut fields and bales. Its more mush and cloot up here. The bales that have got in don't look at bonnie as those in your shot!

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