John O’Donovans farm Sandycove, Ballinspittle, was the setting for the 9th annual DeCourcey Harvest Working Day held as usual on the August Bank Holiday Monday. The event was run to raise money for The Fr Kingston Mission in Mozambique, Ballinadee School, Ballinadee Hall and DeCourceys Boxing club.
This year Farmhand Ltd with local distributor Derry O’Donovan Ltd were partners with the Club in running the event. Farmhand brought a fresh modern element to the Harvest Day, the highlight of which was the impressive parade of farm machinery from their catalogue. Full credit must go to Derry and Moira O’Donovan for assembling the array of equipment in one place. On the grandstand was Farmhand sales director David Borland who gave a detailed commentary on the machines as they paraded past.
In amongst the modern gear, there were a few early machines as well, including an Amazone fertilizer spinner originally sold new in Bandon in 1970 and an old Krone muck spreader, both of which were on vintage Massey Fergusons from the same era. Marketing director Stephen Scrivener was also present and was kept busy for the afternoon meeting past and future customers in the Farmhand hospitality tent. The team had a constant stream of visitors looking to chat and to purchase merchandise from the machinery brands on display.
This year the Harvest day also featured several working horses. They spent the day collecting sheaves from the binders and drawing them to the threshing machines. Well done to local Jack O’Reilly for the fine job in restoring the horse butt which he brought to the show. It was lovely to see the butt in use throughout the day.
Two threshers were in use during the event. Sullivan’s Clayton and Shuttleworth thresher was driven by Lordan’s Marshall traction engine and John O’Neill’s Ransomes was driven by Bart Desmond’s Crossley oil engine. The oil engine was driving several belts to also power a Claas trusser and a grinding mill. Murphys from Kinsale had their 1907 Fowler engine on display.
As usual, the event featured a variety of reaper and binders, trailed combines and vintage combines as well as landowner John O’Donovans 2012 Claas Lexion Montana. Away from the harvesting, the tilling area had a range of different vintage machines ploughing and harrowing. Keith Bryan from Waterfall had his wonderful Titan tractor pulling a trailed plough having earlier in the day had a reaper and binder in tow. 
At the lower end of the field Gearoid Walsh was giving a demonstration with an Amazone Cayros plough and alongside Liam O’Driscoll was putting his Kirovets K-424 articulated tractor through its paces with a reversible plough belonging to Jim O’Regan.
Once again the weather was very kind to us as we had beautiful sunshine for the afternoon. We give a big thank you to the landowner, sponsors and everyone who worked so hard to make the event a success. Looking forward to our 10th Harvest day in 2020.
