Binder (AM10)

The sound of a binder for cutting grain and binding it into bundles. There were a number of sounds; the cutter bars sliding over each other, the swish of the stalks on to the sheets, the rattle of the sheets as they pass the stalks along and the thump as they are drawn together before being tied into bundles and ejected. At the farm of South Flaws, South Ronaldsay, Orkney. The farmer grew a few acres of oats to help feed the cattle over the winter and had kept an old binder in reasonable repair to harvest them. The binder – the forerunner of the combine harvester – needs two people to work it, one to drive the tractor that pulls and powers the binder and one to sit on the binder and operate the various levers that adjusted the height of the cut and the regularity of the bind, etc. The various sounds blend into a harmonious and rhythmic shuffle. Coupled with warm sunshine, the smell of freshly cut oats and the nearby sea, and Skylarks singing overhead, this is the sound of summer.

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