We had only one shower yesterday and just 4mm of rain the night before. It's not what you would call classic harvest weather but some crops are fit and need to come into the barn before they suffer further damage.
As I have explained in my FW columns a group of us in this area share a couple of combines. This year they are the aged MF that is kept going as a spare and for small fields and a new (to us) Claas Lexion 600. It was used as a demonstrator last year so is just about "run in".
It has a 10m header, a 480hp engine, and 4wheel drive, which has already proved very useful this year. Even so the machine got stuck (not on one of our fields thank goodness) last evening and had to be towed out. Without the 4wd, fitted for that very purpose, it would probably have taken a military helicopter!
Despite that we (the group of us that is) are getting on with the oil seed rape (ours is 80% done) and the winter barley. It's being snatched between showers and is, obviously coming into barns pretty moist and needing to be dried. But we feel it is better to grit our teeth and stand that expense rather than lose more grain on the ground as the forecast predicts yet more rain.
Surprisingly, our rape appears to have yielded a respectable 1.8t/ac (4.7t/ha) although this is an estimate at this stage as it hasn't been over a weighbridge and still has to be dried down from about 14% to 9%. Even so it's better than I had feared.
The other pleasing aspect of our situation is that we are at least managing to do something, unlike those unfortunate farmers in flooded areas. And for that we must be very thankful.