Jim Webster's Blog, page 10

Testing times when you’re trying to find a better class of monkey for the circus

Testing times when you’re trying to find a better class of monkey for the circus As you can imagine, a slaughterhouse will get an awful lot of paperwork, and a lot of it has to be properly disposed of because it’s government documents. So a manager I know installed a shredding machine to dispose of …

The Dairy Farm in the year 2050

Yes, Prime Minister, if you’ll just walk this way please. I’m glad to see that your advisers made sure they bought you a pair of wellingtons especially for this trip. Oh? Wellington has been airbrushed from history because of his links with Slavery? Or Ireland? Whatever, just put them on. The purpose of taking you …

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance Billy, walking the mean streets. When it comes to vermin control, he’s a leading player, and is pretty indefatigable. The other half of our vermin control is an enthusiast with an air rifle. It has to be said that with these two working in harmony and mutual respect, …

Agricultural Epidemiology and going back to school

Looking round yesterday everybody was busy. Combining, baling and carting straw, baling and carting round bale silage, each one was working flat out. I suspect the average age of drivers was a lot lower than what it’ll be next week when so many of them go back to school. It’s been an ‘interesting’ harvest round …

Welcome to the world’s most expensive broadband?

    Well it’s official. We’ve had the formal notification. To quote,   “As discussed the detailed quote provided by Openreach to upgrade your connection under the Universal Service Scheme is  £ 104,311.20    ”   So there you have it. I must admit that it struck me that this wasn’t so much a quote as …

Can we cope with too much testing?

When all this coronavirus business kicked off, it was foot and mouth that came to mind. After all it was a case of coping with a virus. But now it’s our experience with bovine TB that seems to be most relevant. All cattle farmers are used to regular TB testing, and I’m pretty sure we’ve …

Queue here for really expensive rural broadband.

Today started at 4am. That’s when I woke up and realised it was dark. What I didn’t realise was that it was 4am. The darkness and my inability to tell the time had the same cause. The radio alarm clock wasn’t on. So we’d had a power cut. Now that needed further exploration. Had there …

Livestock farming, where did the money go?

A young farmer was talking to me. An old chap had told him that when they wanted to buy a new tractor they sold three new calved dairy heifers. The young farmer wanted to know if this was true. The answer is, yes, it’s true. Admittedly his informant bred damned good cows, and the rest …

Beware the wrath of an angry dog.

It has to be admitted that Sal is not the most aggressive of dogs. Unusual for Border Collies, she rather likes people. In fact she has no concept of social distancing and no understanding of the fact that people might not appreciate muddy footprints on their trousers/shirt/jacket. It’s the same with livestock. She is remarkably …

Exotic travel broadens the mind

The problem with the world of lockdown is that it’s not particularly worth going anywhere. I was walking through town yesterday and perhaps 1% of people were wearing masks in the street. Then the minute they went into a shop, the mask was donned. (I’m the same, I wear a tube scarf, pull it up …