The 2011 Little Casterton Working Weekend’s main highlight was the trio of three Sawyer-Massey tractors together working in the same field, another was the fleeting appearance of the Samson Sieve-Grip working for a few hours on Sunday, as was the Heider 12-20 and a few other singe-day attendees.

Harvesting took place using the massive Case prairie-style combine, as well as the Massey Harris self-propelled and International trailed harvesters. Behind the combines, a Jones Lion, John Deere and Massey Harris Ferguson balers took care of the straw. Following on, a Lister Blackstone elevator took the bales up to the top of the trailer ready to cart back to the yard.

Slightly further back in time, a binder did a few rounds with the resulting sheaves being threshed through either a couple of full-size threshing drums or a pair of barn threshers. A Ransomes baler and chaff cutter were also in attendance with one Ransomes drum at the top flat part of the field, all powered by steam. A mixed pair of Fowler ploughing engines covered a lot of ground at the far end of the field, as did the big crawler tractors and their multi-furrow ploughs.

The veteran tractor working area ran across the field rather than up-and-down towards the stationary engines this year, so we didn’t quite get such a good view from our vantage point near the hedge, as most of the machines worked closer down towards the sheds. The Big Bull worked its socks off all day Saturday and deserved its early bath on Sunday, but I do marvel at the driver’s commitment to working the same bit of ground over and over again for no real again, bearing in mind you can plough some furrows one moment, turn your back and someone else will level them with a cultivator the next, be harrowed the next and finally rolled, as you turn to do another round. Share and share alike is the motto.

The stationary engines were fewer than usual on Saturday but swelled in numbers on Sunday. However, there weren’t as many large engines, although two were in action elsewhere on the field, but there were some interesting different engine son show, including a Heinrici coal-fired hot-air engine. Corn-mills, chaff-cutters, cattle cake-mill, gooseberry blower, corn-on-the-cob shredder and an elaborate water-pup arrangement were all being demonstrated.

The 20-49 Motor Club put on a small display of classic cars and there were a hard-core of commercials but only a hand-full. In previous years, we’ve seen a visit from a club out on a run but this year the cars remained fairly constant throughout the day. All-in-all, it was a solid rather than an exceptional weekend at Casterton.