There are advantages to living on side of hill
AFTER the dramas of last month’s weather, life is back to normal, though there is still a lot of work to be done resulting from Storm Callum.
Around the farm there are any number of trees to be moved and turned into firewood and though torrents of water rushed down off the fields it all ran past us without causing too much damage – there are advantages to living on the side of a hill.
Some of the many trees that we have had to move fell, lifting their root plates and lay across tracks so presented certain challenges for us, but access has been opened up once more after several days of hard work.
What a relief it was to have such glorious weather immediately after the tempest for the clearing up operations.
Looking across the valley it really can be seen how hedges and grass cover protect the soil; a recently ploughed field with most of its hedges removed suffered badly with numerous gullies being gouged out by the heavy rainfall and about six inches of soil has been deposited in neighbours yards and across the road.
To think it took thousands of years for the soil to form and then just hours for it to be lost! If that field still had its two miles of hedges in place the soil erosion would have been considerably lessened. To give credit where credit is due we must thank the Met Office for their accurate prediction of the outcome of the storm allow- ing people to prepare.
The photograph shown is of our local sewage works the day after the storm.
Scenes like this have happened many times before and I just wonder would a farmer be allowed a slurry pit in such a location no matter how good one’s contingency plan?
I am not naturally at home in front of a computer, but needs must and with more business activity having to be done online I was left with no choice but to get plugged in with the installation of a farm software package.
Having installed it with the questionable aid of a very unclear manual I set to.
Most of the difficulties came with getting the sequences right when entering the required data.
Drop boxes have so many items that are irrelevant to our farming practice.
Eventually, with the help of a very patient tutor, I succeeded in navigating myself around the spread sheet and only then did I realise that a whole day had gone.
It was sad to reflect that what should have been a productive day was lost and that no matter how much data was entered and juggled no more profit for the farm was to be seen.
It was a huge relief to get to do something tangible like feeding calves after a frustrating day in front of the computer screen.