"Make hay while the sun shines" was presumably coined by someone sitting in the shade, not by someone driving a now-classic 1980s tractor without air conditioning.
Last week's weather certainly put every mower, tedder, rake and every size of baler to work across southern England as some excellent crops of hay and haylage were pulled together.
But the combination of flat-panel glass, minimal insulation and the transmission forming part of the cab floor made me wonder just how operators of the past and those working in hotter climates ever tolerated tractor cabs from the 1980s and 1990s.
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Modern tractors, with their expansive glazing and few, if any, opening windows, are virtually unusable if the air conditioning decides to take the day off during record temperatures.
Yet those creating nostalgic scenes with two-wheel-drive tractors turning and raking hay, doors flung wide open and warm air being pushed around the cab by an asthmatic Lucas fan, deserve real credit for their perseverance.
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There is plenty of nostalgia surrounding older machinery, but after a few hours in a sweltering cab it quickly becomes apparent just how much progress has been made in operator comfort.
Let's hope the countless bales produced by so many smaller farms this summer are matched by stronger fodder values and livestock prices next year, so that the work will see some decent reward.
