Hope our AI man had a warm hand!
WE MUST start this first piece for the new year with some comment on the wonderful seasonal weather we enjoyed just before Christmas.
It was the first time for many years that we experienced ice on the insides of our bedroom windows, a delicate foliage of frosty crystals embroidering the panes. The heavy frosts certainly made the landscape beautifully different and there was that wonderful deadening of sound that comes only with the snow, so difficult to describe in words but you all know what I mean.
The enjoyment of the transformed landscape was encapsulated by the pleasure of accompanying our grandchildren sledging down the sloped fields and then dragging the sledges back up, only to go soaring off again with shrieks of delight. After a while I realised that using the quad bike to bring the sledges back to the top was a much better idea and created even more fun for everyone!
Fun apart,the freezing weather created a lot of extra work on the farm as always, especially in the milking parlour and dairy where there are many small pipes through which water has to pass and inevitably they will freeze at some point.
However, after time spent in thawing out the system and ensuring that it was as cold-proof as possible we did not lose any milk.
In anticipation of the next freeze, which will happen, we have now invested in a garage heater so we can now just burn a gallon of fossil fuel and keep things warm and snug to make sure the nation gets its milk.
While the country complained about the cold we farmers, as usual, just had to get out there and deal with it, ensuring our animals are not suffering and in doing so I ended up going about the farm looking like a Michelin man with the multi-layered look of jumper, boiler-suit, gilet, padded jacket, scarf and woolly hat and gloves. Talking of gloves, the vulgar thought came to me while I was with our AI man (artificial insemination) working in the freezing conditions that, he, at least, had one warm hand! (In the interests of fairness, other AI services are available.)
Now well into the new year, we must tackle the issues remaining to be addressed from our recent Red Tractor inspection, namely the silage pit being within ten metres of a watercourse. The fact that the proximity of the silage pit and the stream has been like this for as long as I can remember with no polluting incidents is irrelevant to the required ticking of boxes.
So no expense spared, pipes and fittings are waiting as we need to get it done next week despite the weather, as unlike the national water authorities, we have not been given until 2050 to sort out the problems with pollution.
I suppose given a 27-year window to sort out the sewage in rivers there is not the same pressure on current management to get on with the job as there is for us to get our relatively minor problem dealt with.
Although we are only in January there are already signs of spring, with daffodils shoots appearing in the lawns and borders and buds forming on the magnolias and even the birds are starting to sing despite the miserable weather of these few weeks.