So, it looks like this year’s harvest is going to be a game of two halves – with the return to business as usual of ‘grab-it when you can’ combining following that unusual dry spell which let us experience what harvest must be like in many other parts of the world where an uninterrupted run is looked upon as the norm.

It was grand to get a good early start to the proceedings, though. While it did concertina a lot of machine preparation and maintenance, plus some hurried shed tidying and cleaning into a fairly frenetic period of activity, it was a real joy to be cutting at such low moistures and to be able to move from one field to another without keeping a constant eye on the weather moving up the valley.

While we were all thankful for the hot, dry start to this year’s harvest – and surprised by just how well the crops actually performed, given the lack of rain – it was inevitable that things would eventually return to the usual changeable harvest weather we all know and love in Scotland.

Of course, there was nothing surer to encourage this than the declaration of drought in several counties south of the Border and the imposition of an irrigation ban in some areas on this side.

But when we did have our first long spell of serious rain – which was actually the day after the thunderstorms – we realised just how long the dry spell had lasted. Meg, our collie pup, which is now six months old, was absolutely blown away when she discovered puddles for the first time.

For, until that sudden change, all she had seen as her world had extended further round the farm had been dry-as-a-bone fields and dusty farm tracks.

She was astonished by the sudden change to the entirety of the arid landscape which she had known since her arrival back at lambing time. The sudden appearance of these weird pools of water in the roadways, which swirled around peoples’ feet and splashed when she jumped up and down in them, was a genuinely novel and exciting experience for her.

However, I strongly suspect that puddles might just be something which she’ll need to get used to in the long run …

Anyhoo, despite having invested in additional drying capacity this year – and even after recent slight easing of fuel prices – it’s still fair to say that we appreciated that the cheapest and most efficient grain drier is the one that rises high in the sky. (And I would imagine that those with irrigation equipment might now be thinking that the best source of water comes from the same direction).

I reckon that the fact that the grain is considerably drier than normal – with some wheat and barley being cut a 13% moisture – has not only saved a deal on drying costs, but also led us to somewhat underestimate the yields which were coming off the fields, with little in the way of the usual shrinkage and weight loss which occurs betwixt cutting and the weigh lines coming in from delivered lorry loads.

Of course, there has been the slight irritation that while deductions are charged on grain which is damper than the specified level, there is no weight adjustment or bonus on delivered loads of grain which are drier than that level.

While we didn’t take this as far as taking the hose pipe to our grain store – as some had been suggesting they might – we were slightly more relaxed about loading lorries during some of the recent rainy days.

Another thing which has kept harvest interesting this year has been the sequence in which the crops have ripened off – and rather than the usual snooker-like order, where we first pot the spring barely then move onto the wheat and often finish up with the spring oats, things have been a bit more mixed up this year. The soil type this time seems to have had as much of an influence on harvest timing, as did variety or sowing date.

However, while most of the crops have so far actually surprised us with their yields given the long dry spell, I initially thought that the spring oats were going to be a slightly different matter.

For this sometimes dour crop is often the one which seems best suited to Scotland’s dreich, rain-filled summers, generally holding onto its green-as-leeks look well into September.

So, when it started turning a harvest yellow towards the end of July, a move which I suspect was aided by the growth regulator applied some weeks earlier, I was quite resigned to the fact that that the crop might be a bit of a disappointment.

But while the oat yields probably won’t be breaking any records with the number of unfilled husk heads blown over the back indicating that they probably hadn’t achieved their full potential, they’ve not been nearly as bad as I had feared.

Given the fact that they were cut when they were still standing – an unusual experience in oats which are generally a bit brackled and sometime even lying flat by the time the combine reaches them – and that the winds hadn’t shaken the grain out of the heads, actual field losses must have been well below usual levels. So that, too, was a saving, to say nothing of a major reduction in the usual levels of wear and tear on the combine.

Well, I say that field losses were lower – but after we moved into the second field which had needed a day or two longer to ripen up and in consequence was cut after the first of the rainfall, I was a bit disappointed by the reading on the yield meter as I worked my way up the first round of the field.

That was especially so as it looked like a slightly heavier crop than the one we had been cutting a few days earlier and the sensors were indicating that very little was going over the back either.

Luckily, I hadn’t travelled too far on that first round of the field before I twigged that actually remembering to close the stone trap on the combine after giving it a clean out in the morning would be a good way of countering this apparent shortfall in yield.

In my defence – if there is one! – I would say that I had been distracted during my daily combine maintenance routine by a phone call indicating the prospect of a lorry actually arriving to pick up some of the grain.

While some grain has now been moving out of the stores, to date it hasn’t been keeping up with the speed of harvesting – and the game of chess to decide which part of which store is going to be used to shoe-horn in the most recently cut grain continues.

I’m just begging to worry that we might soon find that check-mate is being declared – at which point we’ll find ourselves well and truly snookered!