Jim Webster's Blog, page 9

Billy and Sun Tzu

Round here, as you look out of the door at the pouring rain, you might say, ‘It’s not fit to put a cat out.’ In the case of our Billy, feral cat nonpareil, this isn’t really an issue as he doesn’t come into the house in the first place. Yes he has passed through, in …

Young women making hay when the wind blows

Many years ago a friend of mine used to regale me with stories of an old farmer he’d worked with. The old chap farmed at the top of one of the valleys that run into the Pennines. Back in the day, the farm at the foot of the valley would be a really good dairy …

We are not the men our fathers were?

Falling asleep at the wheel when mowing isn’t something you do often. I’ve never managed it. My father did. He was mowing whilst I was greasing round the forage harvester. The field he was cutting was on a slope, so I could hear the tractor get nearer and then get further way as he was …

So what’s it worth?

Pony paddock for sale? Well somebody round here is asking £150,000 for slightly over four acres. Now to be fair, it’s good land. In spite of talk about fencing and stables, I suspect that with a bit of care and a loader tractor with a decent set of pallet forks, you could clear in for …

The world of oily mill boards and cattle housing.

A timber rail finally gave way. I’d nailed it elegantly in place in 1981. I know this because we were erecting the building during the wedding of Charles and Di. The rail acts as a barrier between some cubicles and some calving boxes. Actually there’s a steel pipe acting as a rail as well. The …

Food prices and bumps in the road

From talking to farmers and others over the last few months, there has been ‘considerable dislocation’ in the market. The nearer you are to ‘commodity’ food production the more stable things have been. Whereas if you’ve specialised to produce for niche markets or even sell direct to the catering trade or at farmers markets, everything …

Further adventures in broadband

I think I’ve discovered the person who did the Openreach quote for our broadband. A chap I know is the manager of a local coffee shop. To help them survive they’re working with one of the delivery companies. Some of the orders are quite big, they had one that totted up to £50, which helps. …

Somebody has to hold the cow’s tail

I saw an interesting comment somewhere in the farming press. Apparently in agriculture we’re going to have to get with the programme and adopt more cutting edge technology. The ‘smart home’ is here, we’re now going to have the ‘smart farm’. Certainly moving to robot milking is now an option for dairy farmers. Economics and …

Blowing away the cobwebs

I was walking round checking heifers the other morning and my route takes me across a field where there were potatoes. As I walked along the headland I did a double take. I could have sworn there was ice in the tread marks left by the tractors. It was only as I looked closely that …

Losing your bottle. How is farming going to cope with the public?

The bottle lies discarded at the side of our lane, tossed out of a car window. You have to admit it makes a change from crisp packets, Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets and McDonald’s wrappers and drinks cartons. But then there’s a lot of it about. I went up to Scotland to see my daughter. Junction …