It was my first visit to Fieldays this year; an event that has been educating, entertaining, enthralling or completely enveloping farmers for 42 years at Mystery Creek, Waikato – and I had never been near the place.
Of course I had been told by previous attendees that it would blow me away as it was so big and all encompassing. I have to admit that even the size of the No 1 car park was quite intimidating, especially as there were few geographical features to provide a point of reference for finding your car at the end of the day.
As I crested the brow of the hill from the car park I was suitably impressed; the display area was bigger than I had imagined, and I was only looking down at the agricultural machinery section, and across to the Mystery Creek pavilion. It was a bit like flying across Australia – it just kept on going.
I could see that the site extended well beyond my initial purview, but it was too much to take in without actually walking the walk.
As I had no particular interest – I was not in the market for any agricultural, horticultural or even kitchen gadgets – I decided to adopt the random walk approach to viewing the exhibits. I started in the agricultural machinery section and my first conclusion was that Fieldays is an exhibition of boys’ toys for farmers, a “farmers’ market” in the true sense of the term.
Tractors, excavators, cow bails, milking equipment, irrigation systems, saw mills, and utes by the score – you name it and it was probably there in one form or another. So I roamed the site from the Innovation Center to the fencing area, then ventured into the Rural Living area.
Here there seemed to be everything for improving living on or traveling away from the farm, including slicers and dicers, cleaners and gleaners as well as massages, aromatherapy and all sorts of remedies for coughs, colds, sore holes and pimples on the bum.
After four hours I decided that my golf training of eighteen holes, twice a week had paid off, but I was in need of some form of rest. I had noted early on that there were seats arranged for spectators to watch the Tractor pulling – so I made my way there.
Tractor pulling – now there is a term to brighten the eye of every petrol or diesel head of the farming world. It obviously has all the usual jargon associated with an esoteric pastime, and the announcers kept spouting it forth with some repetition so there was an opportunity to become familiar with at least some of the finer points of the ‘sport’.
Tractors have come a long way since my early introduction to a single cylinder Lanz Bulldog; they have enclosed cabs, with more bells and whistles than the modern cell phone, and they probably come with one of those as a standard feature.
I could understand the races between two matched machines dragging sledges with similar weights over the measured one hundred meters, but the more intriguing competition was that in which the tractors pulled a machine combination of a tractor and sledges that provided increased drag resistance as a function of the distance traveled.
There were contests for standard and for custom built or modified and some extremely modified, with emphasis on the right tire pressure, gear selection, and use of a weight transfer system.
What intrigued me most however was the alacrity with which the track was leveled and grubbed after each contest to return it to simulate a ploughed paddock. It must have been the most cultivated strip of dirt in the whole area. All very educational for a foot weary shiny arse.
Fieldays – it’s an experience, but I think the first visit will also be my last; once is enough of any good thing.
Archive for July, 2010
12 Jul
WorkinWords 