View source for Stocken Farm Diary Part 2

LIFE ON STOCKEN FARM    Joan West's report for Hallmark, September 1986 to October 1996 inclusive

SEPTEMBER 1986

SILVER ANNIVERSARY

Tuesday 23<sup>rd</sup> September was for John and me a special day.   It was our Silver Wedding Anniversary.   We celebrated with a party on the Saturday before and the children took us out for the evening on the actual day.   Someone suggested a second honeymoon, but although we took a fortnight the first time, we were lucky to get two evenings now.   There used to be a gap between harvest and drilling, but planting dates are much earlier now with the ploughs and cultivators going in right behind the combine, so the farm has filled up the space.   As it was John noticed a cow beginning to calve as we went to the village hall for our party and on the Tuesday was still feeding calves ten minutes before we should have been ready to leave.

FARM COMES FIRST

If you deduce from this that the farm comes first you would be absolutely right.   If a farmer does not know this, then he will not be farming for very long.   A prospective bride probably knows this too, as it has most likely taken her ten years to get him out of his wellies long enough to get him up the aisle.   She will accept that she will come second, but even that may depend on how good a dog he has got.   In this respect I was lucky.   John had a good dog but I don’t think we got into competition for his affection.

‘SPOT’

The dog ‘Spot’ had come from Cumberland by rail, travelling in the guard’s van – a two year old trained sheepdog.  He arrived at Risborough Station in the morning.   A bright-eyed intelligent animal, who quickly weighed up his new situation, attached himself to John and lived for the farm, choosing to sleep with the cattle.  We had a flock of sheep then and at times took them down the road to Walters Ash.   The dog could control those sheep almost by being there.   It was as if they knew he would stand no nonsense from them – and he wouldn’t.   Bringing the cows back to the farm to be milked was the same.   Occasionally I would go to get them.   With the dog, a shout would alert the cows and the good ones would start walking, the dog away down the fields to fetch up the stragglers.  Without the dog I could shout “Quwan” – an imitation of John’s “come on” ‘till the cows come home’, or in that case they didn’t.   That meant walking to the furthest end of the meadows being grazed and shooing them.

MOONLIT CRISIS

Over the years I’ve had a fair amount of shooing practice.   About twenty cattle got out one glorious moonlit night and one we just could not find.  We scoured the village, beautiful in the moonlight, only to find later that it had jumped in with some others.  The ‘m-m-m-moon was over the cowshed’ but I don’t remember it being romantic – pity really!   More often it is pitch dark, drizzling rain and there’s a cow in difficulty, calving.   She cannot be examined down the field so we must drive her to the farmstead.   She will be determined to double back to her chosen spot.   Running in wellingtons, in the dark, over hoof-trodden ground is quite tricky, but don’t expect sympathy if you go full sprawl, the cow might get back past while you are fooling around on the ground.   Just be thankful if you haven’t landed in anything and the torch is still working and get up quick.

FARMER FARMS, WIFE BECOME ‘GOFER’

So how does a farming marriage survive 25 years?   Presuming the man is doing what he chooses, so also must the wife tell herself she enjoys the challenge of providing endless hearty meals.   Take a pride in transforming revolting washing into something again wearable.   Be happy to lend a hand.   Have you seen those ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ programmes, the vet with his arm disappearing inside a cow, quite possibly on the floor, well, farmers do that too and the wife comes in handy to hold the mucky tail up out of the way and lean on her to keep her still.   When we were first married the cows’ udders were washed with cloths that were boiled after every milking.   Made nappies seem a doddle when they too joined the wash, a separate wash I hasten to add.   Running errands stops you getting bored.   “Just pop down to the vet’s with this pig”, “he knows all about it, a rupture”, “he’ll see to it just before surgery”.   Did he know?   Heck!  I sat there with the cats, dogs and canaries.   “First please”.   “I’ve brought a pig, we did ring”, “Fine, just bring it in”.   Bring it in?   It weighs 60 lbs and certainly isn’t trained to a lead.   “Would you mind looking at it in the pick-up, I can’t manage it?” “Oh alright, I’ll get it”.   He peered at the pig in the truck.   “Good Heavens!    I thought you said “Peke”.   “Would you please sit on it to hold it down for me?”  Whatever next?  But my sanity lives to fight another day, or I think it does!

NIGHT WORK INDOORS

Your husband will also bring problems indoors, along with straw, corn, dust and other undesirable substances.  If it’s really bad, worry in the night, awake, or worse still go on working in his sleep.   One Christmas, short staffed through illness, the pressure of work on the turkey trussing team was terrible.   It’s not good for trade to tell customers “Sorry, you can’t have your Christmas dinner till next week”!   The final thing the trussers do is to bend back the wings, tucking them behind the body.   John, after working all day, continued in his sleep, trying to get me neatly folded up all night.   I have read of other cases where bale stacking has continued with the pillows and heaven help the wife whose husband has been shearing sheep all day, he’d have her nightie off and rolled up tidy in no time.

A CRAZY PAIR?

So what makes a farmer’s wife tick or should I say “stick”.   “Must be a bit crazy” you say.   Well maybe that’s it.   But what about him?   Choosing a profession where he can get wet and muddy up to his y-fronts, when he could have a job in a nice office and evenings, weekends, not to mention nights, without working?   Maybe he’s absolutely crazy too.   So that must be the answer – they simply do make a good pair.

NOVEMBER 1986

EXTRA MOUTHS TO FEED

In the lead up to Christmas, on top of the routine farm work, there are the Christmas poultry to prepare.  Extra staff are brought in and they are taken mid-morning coffee and fed at lunch and teatime also, for work goes on in the evening too.   Hot toast is popular for tea. The toaster is on the table and gets so hot the toast virtually jumps out of it.   Cake also is provided.   There are up to twelve people in every day from the 12<sup>th</sup> December.   That is twelve days so here’s my thoughts of what it is like.

'''THE FIRST DAY''', in mid-December, my true love gives to me a list that says “One man to stay and pluckers in for coffee, lunch and tea”

'''ON THE SECOND DAY''', I plan to serve roast pork and apples baked.  The men troop in for lunch, with turkey feathers caked.

'''ON THE THIRD DAY,''' it’s bacon badger and treacle tart.   It’s hungry work, as bird on knee, they ply the plucker’s art.

'''ON THE FOURTH DAY,''' as feathers fly, and Christmas getting near, beef stew with bread and butter pudding.   Is that the time?   It won’t be done I fear.

'''ON THE FIFTH DAY''', with any luck, all plucking should be done.   He gives me a list of extra work, but I must say we’ve had fun.   The kitchen never does get straight for more than half a minute and many an unusual place gets a turkey feather in it.   What, oh what for lunch today?   I pray inspiration divine.   The vicar arrives, a pheasant in hand, “This fell in the garden of mine”.   “Sure we can help you, we’ll pluck it and truss it”  I say as I rush to the freezer.  I’ll make a pheasant casserole, that will do nicely.   You’ve brought an answer for me Sir.   I’ll never be ready. Oh gosh, phone bell and door bell, as usual they’re ringing together.  Table laid, pudding? yes, I did plums and custard, now the men are late – did you ever?

'''ON THE SIXTH DAY''' of Christmas my true loves gives to me, three free days - to sort the bird’s weights, work out who wants what, allocate the birds, catch up on other jobs – and a list that says “One man to stay”.

'''ON THE NINTH DAY''' of Christmas my true love gives to me a list that says “One man to stay and trussers in for coffee, lunch and tea.

'''ON THE TENTH DAY''', the pace hots up, I have to face the facts.   I certainly will need more help to keep things on the tracks.   A few more stops pulled out by all who play this game. For a turkey after Christmas just wouldn’t be the same.   So another round of coffees, teas and mince pies from a friend, and another lunch is over with a game of dominoes to end.   Trusses trussing, helpers helping, phone a-ringing, customers calling “Lovely to see you, Happy Christmas, another year flown by, appalling!”

'''ON THE ELEVENTH DAY''' it’s even worse – we have a staggered lunch.  Customers keep coming and the workload hits a crunch.   Some friends arrive to collect their birds and it seems only fitting that they should also have some lunch – they squeeze in the first sitting.   This week we cooked roast lamb, chicken, steak and kidney, and gravy if one wishes, rice pudding, fruit batter, mashed and roast potatoes and vegetable dishes.

'''ON THE TWELTH DAY,''' no extras in, but Christmas is tomorrow.  That meals a special one.   So when all but one bird is collected, please let no more customers come.   Then with family and friends we’ll toast the delectable bird, that my husband’s been coddling all autumn and made the last twelve days absurd.

'''NB'''   The incident with the vicar and the pheasant happened 20 years ago.  We did prepare it for him and thinking of it inspired me to serve pheasant to the men.

JANUARY 1987

CORDLESS TELEPHONE

This Christmas I was given a cordless telephone.   I was given it a week early, that being sensible with so many calls coming in from customers arranging to collect their turkeys.   So many times I have dashed from the shop to answer the house or office phone only to get there as it stopped, or answered the phone at the same time as the doorbell rang, or gone to the bathroom, which would guarantee to get it ringing.    Well now I try to remember to carry the new phone with me all the time. I have already answered it in some very strange circumstances and have, at times, been very thankful that it is not a ‘vision-phone’.

FREEZE UP

It is now 6.30pm 14<sup>th</sup> January.   Tea is over and a few minutes have been grabbed to relax in the warm before going back out again to fight the freezing wind.  All afternoon the men have been re-thawing frozen pipes and troughs, which by now are probably frozen again.   The water must be kept flowing for the livestock, especially the milking cows, who need to keep drinking.   I’ve questioned before, what makes the farming community ‘tick?’, but if you asked them today they’d probably  be to numb with cold to think ‘why’ themselves.   But the animals must be looked after.   They must have food, water, and clean bedding and somehow it gets done.   Bundled up in layers of clothes, hats and gloves, with wind-burned skin and frostbitten fingers if you have to remove gloves and damp hands touch frozen metal such as a door catch.   It makes life very tiring and it’s difficult to think of all the extra things the cold involves.   A tractor battery being charged, the tractor was driven off with the charger trailing behind, still attached.   The rear window of a tractor cab slammed shut, shattered into a thousand pieces.  Eggs froze in the nest boxes before every little cranny had been blocked up.   They even froze in the shop and I thought I had protected them well enough.  The potatoes were wrapped in sacks and old coats.

KITCHEN FARM AROMA

Back in the kitchen the all-powerful aroma of cooking cow dung means more kettles are being boiled to provide water to thaw yet more pipes.   This smell, by the way, comes off the bottom of the kettles where they have been stood down in the cattle yards, not from the most basic of fuel – dung cake, to which I am glad to say, we have not had to resort.   I say that with some feeling, as wherever on our travels I have seen it made, it always seems to be women making it, patting and shaping it, even decorating it – a skilful job, which I have no inclination to learn.

PROBLEMS

This month should see several loads of corn leaving the farm.   So far the lorries have had great difficulty getting through to us.   They have rarely got here on time and the transport companies keep ringing to rearrange the arrangements.   Then they ring wanting to talk to the drivers.   At least now I can take the phone out to them.   Likewise to John in the middle of feeding calves, or to the electrician being called from base to see how he is getting on in an emergency.   This was caused by a faulty light in the milking parlour which caused the safety trip to keep going off.   This caused the vacuum to be lost in the milking clusters, which then fall off the cows.   A most aggravating situation all round, made worse by the fact that there was no decent lighting with which to see to mend it.

WHERE’S THE TIME GONE?

John is off now to feed the calves and then to check the cows’ water again.   I have still got to grade the eggs.   I like to do this early in the day if possible, so that they go into the shop literally the same day as they are laid.   Today, by lunchtime, I had been boiling water, made coffees, made more coffees (the first lot slid off the tractor where it had been put down!), served customers, cooked lunch – and there was the morning gone.   I must go out to the shed to grade the eggs.

AMUSING CUSTOMERS

Writing this is just putting off the moment of braving the howling wind again.  I must also take down the notice in the shop that says “Order your Christmas turkey now” as I have had several wisecracks made about it.   Nice to keep the customers happy though!   One man arrived chuckling fit to burst.   “Your poster shows a cockerel crowing – don’t you know it’s the hens that lay the eggs?”   “Well, I just thought the males could crow about it best”.

APRIL 1987

YOUNG FARMERS SHOW

I do hope you went to the Young Farmers’ County Show on 16<sup>th</sup> May at Bledlow.   I suppose Coventry/Tottenham supporters must be excused, but it’s a pity if you didn’t.   There, the local Young Farmers’ Club, Princes Risborough, were hosts for this county event for this year.   They had an ideal site, thanks to Lord and Lady Carrington and their farm manager.  Seeing the dozens of different competitions, demonstrations, craft, and trade stands, public entertainments and refreshments and realising that basically it is organised by the members, aged twelve to twenty-five, one has to be impressed.   Their committee did call in their advisory committee (mostly ex-members) for consultation and help with the judging and stewarding.

SHOW STEWARDS

Why this ‘plug’ for the Young Farmers’?   Well, John and I are vice presidents, although we don’t do much as they are very competent themselves.   At their show we were two of the stewards, pleased to do what we were asked, with the younger generation in charge.   Members do not have to be connected with farming.   They visit and have talks about all sorts of jobs, hobbies and general interests.   Their competitions range from public speaking to quizzes and sports, with numerous social events with other clubs.   International exchanges are arranged and an annual national meeting held in May, this year in Blackpool.   Thirty four counties made journeys there, pulling, pushing, riding in or on sponsored “thingamies”, raising £113,200 for various charities.  Not bad, hey?   But all this starts at local level.   If you want to know more contact this year’s secretary – Jane Graham-Troll, tel. Kingston Blount 52863.

NOT ROSY FOR NEW-COMERS

For the young who want to farm, however, things certainly don’t look very rosy.   As no doubt you know milk quotas were introduced to restrict production.  You probably even know that the quota has been slashed still further.   If you don’t I can only think you have been to sunnier climes the past months, because the farmers have been bemoaning their fate with an energy usually used for increasing production and improving efficiency.   At least it was sunny here, so you didn’t get it all your way if you did!   A profit is only made on what is produced after the returns have covered the expenses.  Feeding the animals more grass, fresh in summer, as silage or hay in winter and feeding less grain is cheaper and the cows produce less milk.   Apart from adding to the grain surplus it sounds simple.   Unfortunately, just as the grass was ready to cut for silage down came the rain.   Wet grass makes bad silage.   The cows don’t like it – well, nobody likes it.   We need dry weather, it doesn’t seem a lot to need.   Just in case it transforms into a scorching summer, and grass gets short, we have planted some turnips for grazing in August – so we shall see how they work out.

OLD SAYING FAILS

By the way, the oak has been out in leaf about a month and it looks as if the ash has given up.   With such a big gap I thought we would have a drought, not ‘just a splash’.   Can’t even trust the old sayings now!

PAINFUL CUT BACKS

”Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”.   Sounds sensible until you realise that almost any move could take you “out of the frying pan into the fire”, for there is nothing that isn’t over-produced, or soon could be.   Hopefully the milk situation will become stabilised.   Others, like us, will be reducing output and cow numbers.   Fewer calves will be reared for herd replacements and more cows have been culled.   Seeing these animals who have been born, reared and had perhaps six or seven calves here, going before their time is depressing, making such decisions, difficult at the best of times, even more painful.   As for grain, something has to happen there and it won’t be easy.  There will be big changes in agriculture, but the clock cannot be put back.

ANSWERS MUST BE FOUND

The solutions for the 1990s cannot include the heavy labour and uncomfortable machinery of the past, there must be new answers and we must not let the keen young farmers be put off.   They are the ones to best keep up with the changing times and use their energies to put it into practice.

SEPTEMBER 1987

‘MOULIN’

This year’s harvest was quite three weeks late.   The grain was wet, the quality poor and the yield down.   If the media farming programmes interest you, you will know of ‘Moulin’, the wheat that didn’t pollinate this year – or hardly – and yes we did have a quarter of our wheat in that variety.   Even more galling is the fact that we hadn’t planned to.   The seed merchant recommended it when the variety we wanted wasn’t ready.   Enough of that, what’s new about this rotten summer?  It’s just that this was worse than usual.

DORMITORY VILLAGES of LONDON’S PLAYGROUND

So what is new?   Nothing yet, but if the countryside as we know it is not to die there will have to be changes.   The government has seen the writing on the wall and is calling for other uses for farm buildings, encouraging young enterprise and more recreational use for the land.   Sounds fine, but just try it.   The countryside is in a straightjacket, tied on tight by people who want to live in the villages and will unwittingly kill them with stagnation.   Ten years ago a speaker at a farming meeting stated that in ten years the Chilterns would have become dormitory villages and the countryside, part of London’s playground.

MAKING A LOSS

In the Lacey Green, Loosley Row and Speen village plans it says “the Council would encourage the retention of the existing system of mixed agricultural use with a balance of dairy, arable and fat stock production”   Great, sounds fine.   But how will they encourage people to work the long hours, often in adverse weather conditions and keep the environment nice for others, when, at the end of the day, they are worse off than when they started?

SELLING UP

The only obviously profitable thing in conventional farming is in selling up.   Especially in dairying, which is where the daily grind is worse.  Apart from the land, animals and machinery, there is at present, value in the milk quota that seems high beyond all reason.   In this country quota can be sold.   As the first cuts began to bite, farmers bought more to make their total production back up to keep their overheads spread.   The farmer got a much better price than the compensation offered in an ‘outgoers’ scheme, which has been a flop, only getting rid of 5% of the anticipated amount.   More quota cuts are on their way to rectify this.   It is a very valuable commodity, but if, say, we were to sell ours, then milk could no longer be produced here.   There are no other enterprises that look worthwhile in the foreseeable future.   So what?  What did that speaker say?   “The Chilterns will become dormitory villages and the countryside part of London’s playground.   There is already a belt of land like that.   You go through it up the M40, A40, or M4 – scruffy, tin shelters for horses, unkempt hedges, boggy, unloved, the owners hoping that if it gets too much of an eyesore they might get planning on it.

RECREATION LAND. ---‘NIMBY’S’ ARISE

There is a need for recreational land.   We are frequently asked by the young teenagers for somewhere to ride their motorbikes.   Frequently asked for somewhere to park caravans, or for caravan rally sites.  What about a golf course, a horse eventing course, clay pigeon shoots, dog trials.   Other farmers have tried these things and what an uproar!   We are luckier than most.   The business has been established a long time.   But we could move to somewhere really rural or sell our quota and quit dairying and so could many like us.   So I do hope the Council do mean to encourage people who try to work in the countryside, or it could become – as we know it – ‘as dead as the dodo’

NOVEMBER 1987

NIGHT CALF HUNT

When John checks the cows and calves at night they should be lovely and peaceful.   An unsettled animal with something amiss can be easily spotted.  If it is there, that is.   One night a calf was missing.   We searched, we thought, everywhere.   It was three nights after Hallowe’en.    At last, a pair of large eyes, like a belated spook, reflected the torchlights at midnight, from inside the dung spreader.  It was perfectly camouflaged by a covering of slurry off the inside of the machine.   It was the calf we had been searching for, which had jumped out of her pen.   By the time we had the slimy, smelly struggling creature out of the barrel-shaped machine, cleaned up, fed, and tucked up it was nearly 1am, and the ‘camouflage’ was liberally transferred to us, particularly John, who had climbed into the machine.   What a lovely way to spend a moonlit night!

FLIGHTY CONTINENTALS

That calf is a Limousin (French) female of a very flighty disposition.   They are sometimes, especially the continentals, and when grown, jump into peoples’ gardens and the men have to collect them up and bring them home.   A Belgian Blue bull, called ‘Hardy –de-la-Bonne- Raie’, fathered some of those calves this year.   Pure Belgian Blue have such big bottoms that virtually all are born by caesarean section.  Crossed with Friesian this double-muscling is absent and so far we have had no difficulties calving, so more Belgian Blue and less Limousin or Charolais crosses next year.   They are strong and one gave John a vigorous kick.  It is unusual for cows to kick.  John assures me they won’t, but I get a feeling they will.   When examining a cow for calving, it is my job to push the cow forward so John can fasten the neck chain.   A lift of a back leg, “She’s going to kick” I say.   “Nonsense” says John, as we swap places.   The next unprintable comment tells me that, she that won’t, has.   I tried to look sympathetic and keep a straight face – with difficulty.

LENDING AN EAR

A new batch of hens to replace the old ones has started laying so we have double the usual number of eggs, the young ones only laying small eggs to start with.   To ensure stocks don’t pile up I have a wholesaler to clear them.  Hearing his problems is quite an experience.   Latterly his bull landed him in court, but as he said, how would you feel if you were his bull and a cow jumped into the field?   Wouldn’t you feel ferocious if the owner came to take the cow away?  Finding it difficult to put myself in that position and wondering if it was one of those flighty Limousins, left me bereft of words and praying that the phone might ring so I could end this conversation.

HENS DON’T UNDERSTAND

By Christmas the young hens should be laying large eggs, when everyone wants everything bigger and better and twice as many as usual, with extra-large for the festival itself.   So on Christmas Day do they sit down to bacon and egg breakfast, or boiled eggs in giant eggcups for tea?   Bet your life they don’t!   They keep them till after Christmas, getting stale and don’t buy any for weeks.   Explain that to the hens.   We’d like you to lay two extra-large eggs each day, dears, the week before Christmas, then you and I can shut up shop for a fortnight.”   No, they just go on churning them out and I have to call in the wholesaler again and hear the next instalment.

NO ‘INDIAN SUMMER’

No article would be complete without a comment on the weather.   What became of the ‘Indian Summer’?   Half our land was too wet to plant.   The winter corn seed cannot be grown in the spring and more seed has been purchased at an exorbitant price, for sowing then.   The winter corn seed will be wasted.

DESPARATE PROMISES

However, the mud and gales have affected others too and suddenly people appreciate our noisy machines.  Turning in gateways, skidding into ditches, even getting stuck in fields, as both the lorry and the breakdown truck, sent to rescue it, did on bonfire night at Widmer End, make agricultural machines desirable.   “Please come and help us, we will give you anything”   A desperate plea.  So John went and pulled them out.   We never heard from them again.

YIMBYS  =   ‘YES IN MY BACK YARD’

It’s the same with the chain saw.  There have been complaints about their noise, but when the gales felled trees into gardens, like a hot knife through butter, the owners knew where to turn for help.   We don’t reckon to use saws on Sundays, but everyone’s personal tree was considered an exception.   No we don’t keep a list of those that complain.   In fact if people do have a grumble, we would prefer them to come and see us – it’s the only way to sort things out amicably.

MUCKY AUTUMN

This autumn has been altogether mucky, but “where there’s muck, there’s brass” they say.   I thought ‘brass’ meant money – now I think it must mean something else.   I’m not sure what, but if you’ve got it try not to wallow in it, unless you feel like an amorous hippo, then it might set you singing to your heart’s content.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS..   It’s a great life if you don’t weaken!

'''P.S.'''   Compliments to the Electricity Board and local electricians who got things repaired in two hours, one Sunday evening, when the farm safety trip blew up, setting ablaze the meters and main cables feeding the farm.  Thank goodness for a good fire extinguisher!    By a miracle we actually saw it start through a crack between the doors.   And apologies to the cows who were left in the dark, the clusters fallen off their udders just as they expected to be milked.

JANUARY 1988

CRAFTY SQUIRREL

Mid-January, the days are beginning to open up a little and things look a bit brighter.   I mislaid my ‘rose-coloured’ specs since Christmas, but yesterday the blue tits were examining their nesting box and I thought - “How beautiful”.   A bit earlier and I would have hung a notice on it saying “”Fools, it’s not time to get the ‘spring feeling’, we haven’t had winter yet.”   Probably still should, for it’s been abnormally mild and wet.   The squirrel that lives in the garden has kept very active.  Unfortunately, he has got wise to the food that is put out for the birds and is ignoring the acorns he buried all over the lawn.   It will seem strange living in the middle of an oak plantation.   Perhaps the saplings could be a useful new line – always considering diversification you know!

MY PRE CHRISTMAS HIGH

Unlike the squirrel, I felt more like hibernating.   It all seems so flat after Christmas.   Selling and allocating the turkeys is my job, but they are plucked, drawn and trussed by a team of men.   The birds are prepared as they are required and the men do what I ask.   This fantastic situation lasts for about four days, as the customers are due to collect their birds.   It puts me on a high that will carry me over the holiday itself, while the house becomes a mess of littered carpets, scraps of food, fallen down cards and dropping tree needles, and one hopes a good time is had by all, and if it’s not, you’re too tired to do much about it.

A BREAK WELL EARNED

Christmas starts for us a fortnight before the 25<sup>th</sup>, when the extras come to work with the turkeys, and extra coffees, lunches and teas are added to the normal round.   It’s a hectic time, but a good atmosphere and though exhausting, we feel we’ve earned our break.

WORK ROSTAS

Over the Christmas and New Year holidays all the routine farm work must continue, so turns have to be taken to do it and eventually things get back to normal, in January.   This year, with the land so wet, no field work can be done.   Taking machines on the land not only causes mud but also consolidates the ground, so hedging and fencing repairs are having to wait.

BACK TO THE OFFICE

Once the house was reasonably straight the office had to be tackled.   That’s when the desire to hibernate overtook me.   I couldn’t see my desk for papers – all things that needed attention, for the rubbish bin had dealt with a lot of post as it arrived.  Anyway, having ploughed through the PAYE, the VAT, the monthly accounts, various forms and a number of letters, I can at least see the desk surface again.

CATTLE SHELTERED

With everywhere lying so wet it is good to know that the cattle all have shelter and concreted yards to move on.  Half the Home Meadow used to be churned into deep mud as the cows went in and out twice a day and there wasn’t anywhere dry to lie down.   It was there that John’s mother, on her way across to visit me  when we lived in the cottage, got so stuck that Gerald had to give her a fireman’s lift out of it, leaving her boots stuck fast in the mud.  Now the cows have bedding cubicles and mangers on hard standing – it’s all much more civilised.

MUD BATH OFFER

A ten day trip, staying on farms in Israel last November took us up past the Dead Sea.   There they have a roaring trade in Dead Sea Mud Baths, massages and so on, which are said to be very stimulating, rejuvenating and cure almost anything.   Now, although we may not have as much mud as we used to have, if anyone is interested in some of ours, I’m sure we could oblige with enough to cover any, well, most, situations.

IODINE DEFICIENCY

The free range hens have been shut up on deep litter, so they can still scratch about but don’t get muddy feet – they were making the nests so dirty.   It’s a bit unfortunate for the one that liked to paddle in the pond, but you can’t please them all.   At least they won’t be able to dig up the neighbours’ gardens.   With all the farm to roam on, they, like most beings, used to think ‘the other man’s grass is always greener’.   Actually, no-one in the past year can have worried about that, never can there have been so much grass.   It grew so fast last summer and autumn that it is the suspected cause of an iodine deficiency in the cows, which resulted in us losing twenty calves either at birth or soon after.   It is so frustrating to bring a live calf into the world and it gives one kick and packs it in.   You try everything you know to breathe life back unto it –but they just hadn’t the will or where-with-all to live this winter.   It is so discouraging and it happened so many times.   To counteract it, minute amounts of iodine have to be fed to the cows for a long period.   It’s a long term thing that has to be foreseen.

WORLD MARKET

During the winter months there is an endless round of farming meetings. Trying to foresee, is the subject of debate at most of them.   The farm’s produce has to be what the consumers want, but if what was wanted was known it would be simple.   Here in the south of England the quality, quantity, and types of product required could be quite different from the rest of the world’s – and it is certainly a small world – everywhere has a bearing on what is needed.

'''Hey, ho!'''   Back to the mud bath.

MARCH 1988

TAKE A BREAK

“What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.    No time to stand beneath the boughs and stare as long as sheep or cows?”

Well, if you’re a farmer, far better by half to be back at t’steading, caring for sheep lambing, cows calving, minding the mite don’t get in the grain store and checking the pipes don’t burst.  Better that staring over a gate, proverbial straw in mouth, because what you’d see would be flocks of the fattest pigeons for years eating the corn.   After the struggle it’s been to get it planted this wet winter that is going to do your blood pressure no good at all.   Meanwhile, back at the ranch house the animal grapevine will have worked overtime and taking their opportunity, the mice will have run indoors, the cattle broken out and the sheep achieved their life’s ambition by ending four legs upwards.   Far better, if you can grab a few minutes to do what John does.   Turn on the TV, it doesn’t matter what’s on, pick up the newspaper and having thus shut out all household and farming distractions – fall asleep.

BALANCING MILK QUOTA

Milk quotas have been in operation for four years, come the end of March.   England and Wales are counted as one unit by the EEC and this year the quota will be exceeded.   It was a good year for production, maybe because of the wealth of grass that grew all last year.   It is important to us to produce up to our quota as our overhead costs are spread across that quantity.   There is no compensation for producing less.   But, go over the quota and the penalty clauses come in.   After balancing the spare quota not used up by some, with that over the top, the remaining excess will be penalised at 19p per litre (approximately 1 3/4 pints).   As we are paid 16p per litre for our milk it would be tempting to leave the bung out of the tank rather than pay back at nearly 20% extra on what we had received, if we were much over our quota.   Fortunately, we are about right ourselves.

B.S.T. HORMONE

It is ironic that the other big talking point in the dairying world is the use of B.S.T.   No, not British Summer Time, though farmers may have ideas about that too.   No B.S.T – Bovine Somatotropine.   This natural hormone, already naturally in cows, can, if boosted up, dramatically increase milk yields.   This may sound a crazy thing to do when we are at the same time, talking of tipping milk away, but is economically sound.   Apart from a possible increase in food, the costs of keeping each cow would be the same and less land and fewer cows and less work would be needed to produce the quota to which each farm is restricted.   B.S.T is already being used in some countries.   Britain is waiting to sound public reaction to the use of this hormone, however natural it may be.   If the idea does not appeal it could be to our advantage come 1992 when France could be pouring their milk into this country, that ours is produced without using it.   It is up to you, folks!

WELL DONE LIZ

The standard of milk here is very high.   The hygiene regulations, strict and enforced – we have a product of which to be proud.   A headline in the Bucks Herald this week (24<sup>th</sup> March) reads “It takes a lotta bottle to stay in dairying.”   Yes, it is tough at present and the work is hard, particularly hard if you just started up when quotas came in, so I hope you turned over the page when you had read how difficult times are and on the other side saw the headline “Cleanest pint.”   This referred to an award given for the cleanest milk in Bucks, judged on regular laboratory tests for bacteria.  It was won by Elizabeth King of Grymsdyke Farm, Lacey Green and her herdsman Stuart Wilson.   I hope Elizabeth won’t be too cross with me for mentioning this but what else could I do?   When a woman makes it, in what is a very male dominated profession and as the newspaper said, it’s an industry that “Takes a lotta bottle”.   I don’t always agree with the papers – but this time I certainly do.

MAY 1988

MACHINE BREAK DOWN

‘Make silage when the sun shines’ doesn’t have quite the same ring as ‘Make hay when the sun shines” but it still applies as far as farming is concerned.   When non-farmers ‘make hay’ may be quite another matter!   Fine weather and farming frustrations inevitably go together.   We, along with most others, have not replaced our machinery as frequently as we used and more breakdowns are disrupting our work.   It is obvious that machines only come under stress when they are being used – and a silage harvesting team uses a series of different machines, all links in a chain of operation beavering away after a winter of being unused.   So silage making time arrived.   There was plenty of grass after a mild winter.   The weather was forecast “good” just long enough for a start to be made – so the mower went out to mow.   Next day the grass was wilted and the forage harvester started picking it up.   All was well until late afternoon when the harvester broke.

PARTS AT DEVISES

The harvester picks up the grass and blows it into the big caged trailers that cart it home.   Time was short to get the parts so late in the day.  The agents hadn’t got what we wanted, but the manufacturers had.   They agreed to leave the pieces under their flagpole for us to pick up.   Everything was at a standstill, so off we went for an evening trip to Devizes, Wiltshire.   It was a glorious sunny evening and everywhere looked so beautiful.   The journey was an enjoyable bonus in a frustrating saga.

BACK TO DEVISES

Next day dawned sunny and bright – a gorgeous day.   By mid-morning the harvester was in pieces, revealing far more extensive damage than anticipated – so post-haste, back to Devizes went John.   They would have the parts ready for him to collect at 1.30pm when they returned from lunch.   Late morning, the mower returned to the workshop.   A shaft had snapped, letting a collection of its works fall out.   The agents for the mower are at Reading and John would be returning past there.   Had they the parts?   Yes, they had.   Could I catch John as he collected the harvester parts at 1.30pm?   Yes, we managed that too.   Yes, John would pull off the M4 at Reading and collect the mower parts.   By late afternoon, still the sky was a cloudless blue, John had not returned and I was getting alarmed.   Where was he?   Sitting in a traffic jam on the M4 which had been closed following an accident.   People got out of their cars and sunbathed and John struggled to keep awake.   I think he had visions of the jam clearing and him still sitting there asleep.  With some justification for, when you’ve been extra busy, fatigue just takes over when you stop.   Eventually he got into Reading, only to find that they hadn’t got the parts after all and had arranged for them to come straight to us, special delivery, overnight.

BACK TO READING

Meanwhile the sprayer had pulled into the workshop.   The mechanic who had dismantled the other machines ready for their parts, swapped to repair the sprayer and the other staff had an early tea in case the required pieces arrived and something might get done.   The complete work-chain was at a standstill.   The only machine still working couldn’t be used because it stacked the grass in the barn and we couldn’t get the grass to it.   John at last arrived with the harvester parts.  It took till 9pm to fit it back together.   The mower parts, to be delivered to us overnight, went, instead, to Reading, so an early morning drive back to Reading next day for those.   Any way, it had rained overnight and the pressure was off, the grass was too wet to do anything.

LIFE MOVES ON

That was a fortnight ago. Luckily the weather since was better than forecast and what showers there were we luckily missed, so the first and biggest cut of silage is now home and will be fed to the dairy cows and beef cattle next winter.   At the time, with rain forecast, it was one of the most frustrating days possible.

CATTLE OUT

Monday, when the last of the silage was being brought in, or should have been, we were reminded that it wasn’t the only thing.   These big operations do tend to take over.   A phone call at 6.30am took us to Walters Ash where 24 cattle had been let out and were in the caravan park.   They then vanished.   Tracks on the RAF sports field took us down into the woods, dangerous because of the poisonous yew and there they were eventually found.   Later, at 8.30pm, 16 got out round the farmyard, so a roundup there was called for.

FRUSTRATIONS.

Last night, when the silage was at last wrapped up, mid-evening, in came a lorry wanting to be loaded with corn.   All one’s instincts want to say “No”, for it’s a dirty, dusty job, especially in the bottom of the bins.   But the lorry drivers have a tough time too.   They wait for hours on end at docks and depots and often have to sleep in their lorries overnight.   So we did load him.   At least at the end of the day a bath and change after a dirty job would be possible.  If the lorry had waited overnight it would be a dirty job to start the day.   Just trying to look for a ‘silver lining’!   They say every cloud has one, but how to find a silver lining when there isn’t a cloud in the sky I just don’t know – when everything breaks down you just find frustrations.

JULY 1988

BLITZ

As the dust from a thousand pairs of feet settles over the farm we are settling down to some farming, for harvest is upon us.    I am now having to describe to new lorry drivers how to find Stocken farm, not just saying “Follow the signs for ‘Blitz’.   I hardy need to mention this because it seemed as if everyone from the villages was here for those performances.

LOVELY JUNE

Actually there hasn’t been any real dust, for it hasn’t been dry enough, not since June.   June, would you believe was lovely.   The first cut of silage was made, the hay in and the second cut of silage started.   Then a friend bought a summer dress and look what happened.

WILD BIRDS AT HOME

So farm life is back to ‘as we were’.  It is good to see that despite all the people, the birds are still living in the barn where the show was held.  The owl still perches sentinel over the buildings as dusk deepens and the numerous bats still swoop round and round the yards, just as they did before.   A moorhen hatched off on the front garden pond and on the pond behind the Blitz theatre barn a duck did what deems impossible and reared twelve ducklings.  They are flying now and look fully grown.   How did she manage it?   It is amazing, for there is a fox about, several hens have disappeared and young duckling must seem tempting.

SUMMER SUMMARY

The grass for the second cut silage matured into flower so was cut and brought home despite the weather.   The last loads and still open clamp collected a deluge from a thunderstorm, so it cannot be good.   It is now 25<sup>th</sup> July.   The winter barley is well ripe, so is the oil seed rape, we just need some sun.   Meanwhile, the combine, trailers and baler stand ready to go.   The grain bins are cleaned and dryers prepared.   Some good weather would save a lot of drying, although it depends how long it is to be stored how dry it must be.   When to sell is a decision that has to be made. Storms have flattened crops here in England, drought has hit America, it costs money to store but will a better price later make storing worthwhile?   What will the Russian harvest be?   Will there be more reciprocal trade agreements, bringing in cheap carbohydrates that will be used as filler in our cattle foods, rather than using home grown feed?   And if we knew all those answers so would everyone else no doubt.   And it is supposed to be a simple life!

A NEW BULL

We have this week purchased a new bull as the old one has got too heavy for the young cows (a cautionary tale there, methinks!).   It is ironic that a new head is to be appointed at the school as, shortly after David Green came to the school I mentioned to him that the fields adjoining used to be where the cows due to calve lived and had caused some disruption to lessons, educational though it may have been considered, when they gave birth there.   He pointed out that although the children no longer had that distraction, did I realise that the bull now lived in the field there with the cows.   Now, we do not reckon on providing the sex education for the school, nor do I know where the new bull will be living, but it was just after the last new head came that our last new bull arrived, so who knows.

PUBLIC FOOTPATHS

A perennial problem for us are public footpaths.   We have them in virtually every field.   We do reinstate them as soon as possible when we plough them up – and if the public want good ‘old-fashioned’ farming not just ‘chemical cultivations’, then ploughing there must be.   We do know the laws about reinstating them, but I suppose we should appreciate the interest people show when they ring to point out to us what they are.  Thereafter, footpaths having enough feet walking them have no problems, but at Walters Ash we do have a problem.  We – fools that we are – thinking that a footpath was best where people   want to get from A to B and vice versa, for which purpose they were originally intended, have let the changing community at Walters Ash make two new well-used footpaths, which to us are no more nuisance that the others, and the old one has not been used.   A Ramblers’ Association survey says that this must be open too and have complained to the Council.   So presumably we must stop shutting a ‘blind eye’ to the new ones and make the path users use the old one, which is not where they want it.   We certainly don’t want all of them, for as far as we are concerned they are just extra work for a public that in the main, doesn’t use them.

FARM YARD MANURE

Being aware of a growing antagonism to bagged fertiliser – many sorts indiscriminately lumped together under one umbrella as “bad”, I felt I should point out that here in the Chilterns the farms carry much livestock and a generous amount of f.y.m. is produced.  It smells and ferments and attracts flies and much wildlife and becomes rare good stuff.   When we cart it out in the ‘Muckmaster’ in the autumn there will be mud on the road.   It will be mostly mud, off the wheels of the spreader and the tractor, and we do know about clearing mud off the road (just to save the phone calls) and we do it as soon as possible.   But should you, as one shrewd lady has been known to do, run out with your shovel and barrow and take it back to your gardens it could do them a power of good.  Especially if you live near one of those bumps in the road where a good dollop of the real thing jumps out of our aptly named machine and at the same time it would help us no end with the clearing up.

Well, what are friends for, I ask you?

SEPTEMBER 1988

BUSHEL – WEIGHT

So, what has the farm been doing?  First, this year’s harvest is home.  Everyone’s crops looked really good earlier, but lacking sun the quality was not the best and the ‘bushel weights’ were disappointing.   I threw that useless snip of information in for those, who like me, remember the old volume measures with a touch of nostalgia and might like to know they live on in the grain trade.   No doubt I thought them well lost when modern packaging first replaced the bulky bushel baskets.   Next year’s crops are over half planted and the rest of the ground prepared.   We are just held up by this week’s rain from getting it finished.

FRESH FROZEN ????

The day old turkey poults came as usual and are growing like fury.   At a conference yesterday new methods were being discussed, particularly with a view to spreading the workload at Christmas.   Over the last few years a great number of what appear to be traditionally prepared birds, hung in butcher’s shops and drawn and trussed while you wait, have been ‘fresh frozen’, which in my opinion, is deceiving.  These birds are bought when poults are cheaper, reared when food is cheaper and plucked when labour is not under pressure with Christmas.   They are then frozen until Christmas when they are thawed and sold, drawn and trussed as fresh.

GAS STORED ????

As we only prepare birds for Christmas in the proper way you will understand why we don’t like this underhand competition.   The latest idea is to gas store them.   This method has been used for apples for years, very successfully, and it is said to work well with poultry.   After packing, the oxygen is sucked out of the container and replaced with gas.  I'm not saying there’s anything wrong with them, but if you want to buy fresh poultry you might do well to ask if it really is!

MILK QUOTA CUTS

Calving is also coming on apace.  With about one hundred and sixty cows to calve it probably wasn’t surprising when ten were born on one day, but it was a record for us.   More milk quota cuts have forced us to buy another 50,000 litres of quota, enough to save us selling eight cows.   This is a highly dubious thing to do as quotas could be abolished by the stroke of a pen, but it is either buy or get out, as those selling have done, and very lucratively too.   But if you carry on, you have to keep the overheads covered and that is exactly the snag with the ‘set-aside’ scheme about which I first decided to write.

SET – ASIDE

I decided that I ought to write about the Government’s new ‘set-aside’ scheme. So here goes.   To make set-aside work really well you do what we hear the Ransom Trust have done with their 3,000 or so acres at the London Brick Company near Bedford.   Set aside the whole farm, dismiss all the staff, all machinery goes – no costs except for keeping the land in a state of limbo, say, in grass, for which they get paid £80 per acre per year for 5 years.   Suits them fine.   However most farms, with no industrial interest like the LBC are a careful balance of acreage, men, machines and buildings.    Cut down the land farmed and the rest is all out of balance and the other elements must be cut too.   The minimum amount of land is 20%.   It can be made up of headlands round fields.   They are less productive areas, competing with hedges, rabbits and tractors turning on them during cultivating compressing the soil, so that could be tempting.   Look out for fields of corn with grass round the edges when on your travels.   But most farmers are in farming to farm and usually heavily committed financially.   Suppose the land is being bought on mortgage or rented – there goes a good chunk out of £80 an acre and it does have to be kept in good order, but not in agricultural use.   Grass is allowed.   Turfing?  Yes, but there isn’t enough top-soil to rob the land like that here.   Generally overheads per acre would be more than double £80 per acre and if some goes out of production the overhead costs are higher over what is left.

NOT FOR US

No, set-aside is not for us.  It would have to be all or nothing and we can’t give up just like that.   And what happens when the 5 years are up?  No-one seems to know!



NOVEMBER 1988

PHONE RAINED OUT

When John bought me a portable telephone I did suspect a method in the madness that brought on this generosity, seeing that most of the calls are for the business.   However, it certainly proved very useful, cutting out the sprinting which, though good exercise, had often got me to the phone only to be greeted by the buzz of a caller hung up and the frustration of wondering who I had missed.   Until that is, I left it out in the rain.   Full of water it didn’t even give me a gurgle in reply.   Drained, it revived not at all, so off to be resuscitated it went and how I missed it!   There are always many calls, but more than usual in the autumn because of the turkey orders.   So I have been dashing more than usual, and “Dashing” more than usual as I answered to that buzz again.

WANDERING CATTLE

Several calls that were answered successfully were about cattle roaming.   If they are ours we are very glad to know.   If not ours we try to contact the owners.   But these calls were about some cattle that seemed to belong to no-one.  What to do?   I rang the police.   I explained who I was and that I had heard there were cattle loose that were not ours in a wood below Parslows Hillock.   “No” it isn’t our wood.”   Why are you ringing us then?”   “Well people keep ringing me, so I am ringing you to see if any have been reported missing”.   “No, there hasn’t.” he politely said.   “I’ll make a note of it” and I could imagine what he was thinking as he thankfully hung up the phone.

CLAIMED

These cattle were loose for several weeks living mostly in a wood where they were lucky not to be poisoned by the yew.   Eventually it was discovered that their field was at Wendover, though the owners lived at Chalfont.   Did they follow some ancient drovers way, or come via “Velvet Lawn”, the peoples old picnic ground that was part of Chequers Estate?   Perhaps the village ‘native’, some keen walker or local historian might have some ideas as to the route.   A lorry was brought to load them but they had become quite wild and ran off.  Tranquilising darts were being considered when I last heard of them.

ANIMAL NATURE

It made me think, not for the first time, how we rely on the good nature of animals, for on equal terms they are often bigger and stronger than us and have no qualms about kicking, biting, butting or clawing, if afraid.   Yet even the heifers, brought in and calving for the first time are remarkably quiet.   Having said that, there are exceptions to the rule.   A rogue dog, a bull that turns nasty, a cockerel that attacks people.  Maybe they see people as just big rivals in their world.   We had a cow ‘Karen’ who was very possessive over her calves and aggressive at calving.  An uncomplicated calving was always hoped for and a big relief all round when it was over.   As usual there have been autumn calvings, 120 so far.   The corn for next year’s harvest has been planted – twice some of it, where the slugs decimated it.

RECALLING LONDON SMOG

The autumn weather was lovely until the fog and frost descended on us.   November and December are months I associate with fog.   Smithfield Agricultural Show at Earls Court, London, is in early December and I recall memorable journeys in the smog and the poor animals coughing in the putrid air.   That was, of course, before smoke was banned in London.   I suppose it is just pure fog now – as long as exhaust fumes don’t count!

TRIPS TO EAST ANGLIA

Anyway, because autumn was kind and we were well up with the work, John and I took a week off, touring in East Anglia.   It was interesting to see sugar beet being harvested, something not grown here and well controlled by quotas, so not likely to be.   As a teenager I visited a large farm there where apples were also grown, apples with a wonderful flavour, which we don’t seem able to find any more.   My father had to go there to referee on a boar licence which had been refused and the farmer had appealed for a second opinion.   The sugar beet was being lifted then and they were using horses and carts, making deep rutted mud in fields and on roads.   The horses fascinated me as I hadn’t seen them working round here.   Now they use harvesters and lorries so things have changed.   Twenty years ago I went to East Anglia with Dick, John’s father, to buy a boar.   As we pulled into the farm, having gone down a driveway, there was an old house.   Not knowing where to go we pulled up outside it and dashing down the stairs and tumbling out of the door came a helter-skelter of several litters of half-grown pigs.   They were living in the house.

JANUARY 1989

TANKER DRIVERS STRIKE

December brought more than its usual crop of problems to the farm.   The most difficult for us being the strike of milk tanker drivers.   We were notified the afternoon before it came into operation, that is, after that day’s collection, which proved to be the last for ten days.   We had three marginal benefits: -

1.       Being the parish communicator we were the first to know.   This gave us a little longer to worry about it and the phone got red hot.

2.       We had two portable plastic tanks, bought as stand-by in case of power cuts or snowdrifts causing havoc.   They were very useful until they burst, at lunchtime on day one.

3.      Knowing Wren Davis for many years we were able to arrange to go directly there, rather than to a collection point at Stoke Mandeville, which, we understand, was pretty hectic to put it mildly.

DESPARATE IDEAS

A frantic afternoon’s phoning after our tanks had burst produced not a lot.   In total, the promise of a beer vat after Christmas, some contacts for orange juice suppliers (have we missed the opportunity for a new line in flavoured milk?) and an offer of one gallon jars of which we would need seven hundred and fifty, all of which would need sterilising after each use.   Great relief when Messrs. Wren Davis found us a proper mini tanker.   By making two journeys each day the problem seemed solved, until more cows calved and the tanker couldn’t hold it all.   Having lent our churns we then had to borrow them back for part of the day to take the surplus.   The farmers being a ‘never say die’ breed, the strike wasn’t biting too much and we were just contemplating what to do if the strike were escalated.   Some interesting Continental style action to draw the public attention to our plight, such as spraying the milk up Lacey Green Main Road perhaps.   But then the strike was called off.   Just after we had bought our own tanker too!

MINK

A more difficult problem for some local farms was the mink massacre.   And if you are getting fancy ideas about dear little furry creatures, don’t, because It’s the mink that do the killing.   Whole poultry flocks, both laying birds and fattening cockerels have been wiped out.   And if you’re getting fancy ideas about a wild mink DIY coat I wouldn’t do that either.   If you should come across one call in a professional to first trap it and then shoot it – which sounds alarmist – but do not underestimate their ferocity.   I discussed them with a gamekeeper and he, who uses ferrets against vermin, said that no way would he set a ferret against a mink.   And there’s not many people would handle a ferret!  We were fortunate they did not come our way with all the turkeys here, for although we had netted doors and windows, it is unlikely anything would keep them out if they decided to get in.

EDWINA CURRIE – AGRICUTURAL MINISTER – “WHAT A SICK JOKE!!!”

Now one night on LBC radio a certain local ex-egg producer rang in with some ‘interesting’ suggestions for Mrs. Edwina Currie.   If he hadn’t been an ‘ex’ egg producer, because the mink had killed all his hens his suggestions might have been even more interesting. There was also some suggestion that, like Cleopatra, she might like to bathe in milk if the dairies couldn’t take it due to that strike.   This was more subtle, being an inference to ‘asses’ milk’ because as far as I know she, as agricultural minister, had made no comment on the matter.  Hopefully, by the time this is published, the egg crisis will have settled into perspective.

EGG QUESTIONS

Salmonella is indisputably nasty and it is normal procedure for out breaks to be traced.   In the end producers with a good reliable product can only stand to gain if the public realise that some eggs are better than others.  In the meantime, everyone has suffered and where poultry is the only income and that not a very good one, the whole affair has been disastrous.   This year is designated “Food from Britain” year.   A year for the public and food producers to know each other better.  Eggs have hit the headlines and suddenly people want to know about poultry food.   So far so good.   How about asking if the ingredients are tasty, not just salmonella-free?   And ask how old the eggs actually are.   That date on the box is the date they are packed, not the date they are laid.

BUY LOCAL

Better still, discerning producers like discerning customers, so why not buy locally and get nearer the grass roots.

MARCH 1989

AGRICULTURAL ‘FREEBIES’

I suppose spring cleaning is no longer necessary what with all the marvellous ‘mod cons’.   There’s no excuse now for not having things clean all the time.   Or is there?   Cleaning would be much easier if it wasn’t for the amount of paper stacked up around us.  It’s not just the daily and local newspapers, they are firmly discarded as the next one arrives.   It’s the agricultural ‘freebies’.   These are good journals, with knowledgeable writers and important articles, all aimed at keeping the farming industry abreast of the times, gauging the public’s conflicting needs and their feelings, knowing, if possible, what is going on in the EEC, monitoring the new technology to help farmers get together a package that will give people enough food, but not too much, at a price they’d like to pay, but to make enough profit so as to continue employing staff and keep things neat and tidy, affording the nicety of being the twentieth century Capability Browns, so the countryside looks good for everybody to enjoy and have access to it, even though it’s our workshop. There is a lot one could read.

TO BE READ

So when the paper arrives, instead of tossing it with a flourish straight into the rubbish bin, which would be time saving and anti-clutter effective, you flip through it and there is sure to be something you really ought to read, but there isn’t time now, so it is stacked up with yesterdays, last weeks and last months, on the window sill.   Some, earmarked for more than a perfunctory look get taken into the sitting room.  The stacks don’t look so high here, but there are more of them.   Really important articles that are a must, are even taken to the bedroom and other places and these are read – not always in one session – and end up strewn, loose-leafed around the floor and bedside tables, which they have missed, as they dropped from the weary hand.

HISTORIC

Dirt may not be supposed to build up any more, but those stacks can be there so long, waiting for attention, that the flies and cobwebs behind them have long since been abandoned by the spiders.  I started looking through them and without going too deep there were nineteen different magazines – each centred on a different aspect of farming.   Each interesting, but by now those at the bottom of the pile are even out of date, things change so quickly.   Might just as well have binned them in the first place.   Surely the forests aren’t being cut down to make paper for us to simply send it straight for recycling – if you can get it recycled that is.

NO WEATHER???

“What is she waffling on for?” I hear you think.   “Isn’t there some weather to complain about?”    Well, it’s been so unseasonably warm we don’t know what to make of it.   By next time maybe we shall know what effect it will have had.

NO STRANGE ILLNESSES???

And what about these bacteria and strange illnesses raging through the land?   Never fear!   We don’t want them, either for our stock, staff or ourselves and as I reckon we’re in the front line, we shall certainly keep an eye open for anything untoward.  Hopefully there will be nothing to report on those.

BITTER COMPLAINT of ILLEGAL SHOOTING

Now a grouse.   Well, actually it was a duck and it really is a bitter complaint.   The wild ducks have successfully hatched here for two years, last year rearing an exceptionally large brood.   By August they were flying in beautiful formation across the farm to Widmer pond and back.   Then some idiot shot one.   It wasn’t even for food, because it was just left lying there down in the road.   In any case it was too young, it was out of shooting season, so, sentiment aside, this was illegal.   Is this country living?   What countryman would do such a thing?

MAY 1989

TRAFFIC DETERANT

It has been suggested that the farmers might drive their cattle on the roads to deter the through traffic.  Now, would we be so heartless?  So careless of our animals safety?  They would soon be nervous wrecks, or if they were not, we would be.   The milking herd used to be taken across the field and down Kiln Lane to ‘Hillocks’, the big field down there on the left.   Then, some neighbours (John and I lived in Kiln Lane then) put their bungalow on the market.   They asked if we would stop the cows messing on the road as it didn’t look good for prospective buyers!   The herd is more than twice the size now.   Is there anywhere in particular you would like them driven?   A new line in diversification.   ‘Aggravate your neighbours, with a truly rural step in time’!

SHEEP & CATTLE by ROAD

We used to walk the flock of sheep to Walters Ash by road, and the cattle.   Can you imagine even attempting to get out of the farm entrance safely onto the road now?   We do still move a few cattle round the village from field to field on foot, but not as much as we did.   Open-fronted gardens – a cattle driver’s nightmare if ever there was one – are so common now.   Vehicles should give way to animals, but some people have not the time for a delay, like waiting for cattle to move on.   A car trying to come on through is asking for a stampede and inviting a ‘polite’ enquiry from the stockman as to what do they think they are trying to achieve.

“YIPPEE”

When they are first turned out after wintering in the yards, the animals kick up their heels and go for a ‘whoopy zoom’, which with milking cows can be a very undignified performance.  They then quickly settle down to their summer pastures.   The milkers have the grass fields within walking distance of the milking parlour, without crossing roads.

MISSING

The calves and yearlings are spread further afield and taken by trailer for the first time.   To go on foot through the village on that occasion would be provoking devastation.   One load went to Wardrobe’s Field where they duly careered around the field until they settled down, overseen by the men.   There then appeared to be one missing.   Unable to believe it, they even came back and counted the remainder in case the wrong number had been loaded.   But no, it had disappeared.   Fruitless hours of searching, until it was given up and reported missing to the police and neighbouring farmers.   It turned up several days later in the next field, apparently unharmed.

HUNT THE CALF

Another batch of calves was not so lucky.   They had been turned out and settled in a field behind the Black Horse when something frightened them.   Frightened them so badly that they dashed through a barbed –wire fence getting quite nasty cuts.   All but one had gone through into the next field which was grass.   But one had gone sideways through into a field of rape which was in full flower and about four feet high.   When a phone call alerted us Steve was the only man at the farm so he and I went to investigate.   Frank Dormer and Phil Dell came out to ‘encourage’ us and found themselves drawn into the spirit of the adventure – that of hunt the three foot high calf in the four foot high rape.

FUN & RISKY

Eventually we got it coming back down the edge of the field towards the gate, which had been opened so it could join the others.   Frank was hidden in the crop just beyond the gate.   With perfect timing and a magnificent bellow he rose into view. The calf dashed through the gateway having had his final and maybe greatest fright of the day. Where Frank had perfected this art I would not like to hazard a guess.   I do remember as we struggled to get along through that rape crop having heard, I thought, Frank say “Fooling in this could be fun and risky, Joan”   Luckily, before my imagination ran away with me I realised that he had said “Fooling in this should be worth some whisky, Joan”.

“ABSOLUTELY”

I know I felt I needed one.   I must remember to send some round to my stalwart helpers

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JULY 1989

HARVEST ONGOING

End of July and the harvesting is well on.   The barley and oats are home and the oil seed rape has been combined.   No prizes for guessing that everything is early.  The quality is not as good as it might be, as things had dried out rather than matured.   Now we are starting on the wheat, which is our main crop, and appears to have stood the dry weather better, but it is still a good fortnight earlier than usual.

MOUNTAIN TO MOLEHILL

Same as last year there is a penalty for growing grain in the form of a levy on every tonne sold.   By Christmas last year it was realised that the grain ‘mountain’ had become a ‘molehill’ and the ‘powers that be’ decided to pay one third of it back.   We had to send documentary evidence of all we had sold, which made another job for us and more ‘jobs for the boys’, and the repayment has just arrived, just as we start paying this year’s.   “Will they calculate it right this year?”   I ask myself.   Probably not, as with the drought and disease, both here and in America there is talk of the ‘molehill’ being even smaller.

HAPPY COWS

The dairy cows are at their lowest milk yield now, as they are dried off for two months holiday prior to their calves being born.   All cows, the beef cattle and the young stock being reared seem to like the hot weather.   With the eradication of warble-flies they are now much more comfortable in the summer.  The snag is that we have already been feeding winter rations out in the fields for some weeks as the pastures are so sparse.

DOUBLE DIAMOND

Last autumn I mentioned the arrival of a new Hereford stock bull called Double Diamond.   We hoped he would work wonders and he was certainly an eager young thing.   Unfortunately, jumping the gate between two pens of cows was a bit excessive and he has hurt his back.   He is now ‘resting’ as the acting profession call it.   For his sake I hope he recovers, any other outcome doesn’t hold too bright a future as a stock bull’s talents are rather limited.

BOSWELL’S DOMINO

Meantime we have purchased another bull – a Limousin.   His name is Boswell’s Domino.   Does this mean he’ll knock spots off the others?   What a corny remark, I hear you mutter. Well yes, but we are busy getting the corn harvest home, while you’re on your summer hols.   Or maybe it’s just a touch of the sun – I’m just not used to it after the last few summers.



SEPTEMBER 1989

BIRDSONG

Sunday morning, 1<sup>st</sup> October and Lacey Green is sitting in a cloud.   The farm is quiet and I can hear the birds through the closed windows, loud enough to distinguish the different birds, yet together like some complicated orchestration.   Late summer and early autumn seems the one time they can sing for pure pleasure. They have fulfilled the great urges of site hunting, nesting and rearing their demanding fledglings.   Just a little time now to enjoy, before the migrating birds take off on their incredibly dangerous journeys and the residents face the English winter. Time, time to sing.

GATHERED IN & BE THANKFUL

Time for us too, to sing of all gathered in and be thankful.   For in general farmers, with so much beyond our control, have had an easy season.  Not the highest yields, but otherwise easy.   The fact that ours seemed hard was due to working under pressure, being short staffed and that seems to create problems.   Maybe the unexpected turns up, but with the workforce already at full stretch, coping is that much more strain.   Why the rush?   Well, when the time is right, the crop ripe and the weather good, it’s like those little birds, you’ve got to get on with it.   We were lucky with the weather.   Heavy rain on oil seed rape when ready to harvest can knock all the little seeds out of the pods.   Thunderstorms completely devastated some peoples’ crops.   Field beans planted in the spring virtually failed due to the dry weather and spring sown corn likewise.   What we grew here did alright

RECORD BURST TYRES

We did have a record crop of punctures and burst tyres, caused, we surmised, by the hot roads – some of our land being eight miles away.   We had use of a portable telephone on one of the tractors which was a tremendous help for phoning back here to get the necessary tackle and whatever tyre was required.   Our team are now most proficient at quick tyre changes – and it’s not easy when you consider the size of some of the tyres and the loads the trailers carry.  As for the person who showered abuse on the men working in a busy road changing a tyre, as if they would choose to risk life and limb doing such a dangerous job, I can only think he was asking for some of our “rich and versatile language” as Clem Brown phrased it, in colourful reply.   But the men had better things to do.

A DIFFERENT CALL

With only a couple of days to go, the long haul and the hot roads were really taking their toll and seven tyres went in one day.   I had reached the pitch of dreading the phone ringing and we had been for new tyres so many times we had lost count.   Last day.  Two loads to get home by late afternoon.   The ‘phone rang.   “I’ve got a problem”, “Not another puncture?” “No”. A long pause.   “A wheel’s fallen off”.   I thought it must be sick joke – it just doesn’t happen.  But it wasn’t and it had, on the bend by the Pink and Lily.   And the help we had then, for which we are very grateful, was exceptional.   The traffic had to be guided round, while we emptied the trailer, eventually towing it home between two tractors, literally ‘one wheel on my wagon’, except it wasn’t rolling along.   Meanwhile the last load had come home in the other trailer and the long haul was over.

WHAT DO I DO?

Reflecting on Clem Brown’s article, in which he says that at parties he is asked the inevitable question “What do you do?”   I recalled an occasion when I had been asked, by a male I may add, what I find the more inevitable “Who are you?”   I assume this does not mean am I listed in ‘Who’s Who’, but rather, to whom do I belong?   On that occasion I indicated that John was my husband and told him what he did.  “Oh!” he said.   “Do you do anything, or are you a laid-back farmer’s wife?”   If only I could have come out with some ‘rich and versatile’ language with which to reply.   I couldn’t even think of anything when I got home, which is usually when the pithy, witty, answers spring to mind, but then I still wonder what he imagined it was like to live your life ‘on the farm’

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NOVEMBER 1989

WORLD CATTLE FOOD

Christmas is looming up and it isn’t five minutes since last time.   I’m sure time is going quicker than ever before.   Now if there are any of you that are going to say that that is a gross exaggeration and is not even a fact I’ve no doubt you will all confirm that the world of matter cannot be destroyed.   Ok!    So I accept that this chemical law is a fact – but matter certainly gets moved a great deal and must be getting around faster than ever and that I also believe.  For example, take our cattle food.  Maize gluten, a by-product from maize when the starch is taken out, imported from America or the Continent; fish meal produced in vast quantities from fish caught off the coast of Chile; sugar beet pulp, a by-product from sugar beet after the sugar has been extracted; brewers’ grains and citrus pulp similarly by- products; barley and wheat – home grown.

MILK FOR CALVES

Cows produce their milk to rear a calf, occasionally twins, on very occasions triplets and I’ve never heard of quads, so the fourth teat is I suppose, in this wonderful world of creation and evolution either to balance the look of things, as a spare, or for something we haven’t cottoned on to yet.  I can’t imagine that the convenience of the milking machine was part of the grand design.   Anyway, to produce extra milk to spare for humans the cows need a better diet than just grass and the ration above is fed, as well as ad.lib grass (silage or hay in winter) at the rate of 20lbs per day for maintenance plus 24 litres of milk given, eg. The more milk produced the more food is given.

FISH MEAL

To return to the example of the cattle food and taking the fish meal for example.   Over it comes from Chile.   We feed it to the cows and they turn it into milk, which is promptly sent to London, quickly consumed and after a couple of re-cyclings, hey presto! It’s back into the sea and the fish again – except it’s in a different ocean.  These fish breed and are caught and the movement of matter continues, but how quickly it has got around half the world.   And on the way what difference has this movement made?   No doubt it has given income to Chile and created work for people there, en route and here.   The transport industry has benefitted and added to the pollution on our roads.  But here in Lacey Green, where land is grade 3, with the banks grade 4, our cows will have added a great deal more fertility to the land through being fed this extra food than they have taken out through the grass.   And people will have grown a little and increased their calcium from using the milk.

IMPROVES LAND

I don’t know what it is that makes the waters off Chile such a fantastic breeding ground for the fish that make the fish meal but almost certainly it is related to a food source.  Maybe it is another case of depleting the resources from the other side of the world, although that depends on what is being done with the revenue generated by it, but maybe the most beneficial movement in this chain improves the land here.   What began on the land has been recycled back to the land.

YEARS DO GO QUICKER

Whether the speed with which things move around is desirable I could not judge for although matter cannot be destroyed and the weight of the world cannot change we certainly can mix up the ingredients quicker than ever before and the weight distribution probably moves around quicker as many of us will discover, to our despair over Christmas.  And isn’t it a job to get it moving on its way again after the holiday?   You think there is a whole year till the next Christmas to get those extra pounds off, but remember Christmas does keep coming round quicker and quicker, you must admit that it does if you are matter of fact about it, never mind what the calendar says.

OUR GOOD WISHES

On behalf of all at Stocken Farm “Happy Christmas” to all Hallmark readers and “Thank you” to everyone who has taken a helpful interest in our life ‘on the farm’

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JANUARY 1990

DOUBLE DIAMOND the NIGHTMARE

The autumn is a very vital time for our dairy herd.   The young heifers calve for the first time from September onwards and the majority of the cows calve during the autumn also.   In the hope that the heifers will settle down successfully in the herd it is always been thought that an easy calving was important, so that no undue strain was put on the young cow.   Because of this it has been our practice to use a bull from one of the smaller beef breeds, usually a Hereford, in order to get a smaller calf.   A fair number of the heifers were expecting calves fathered by Double Diamond before he got himself over-enthusiastic and jumped the gate into the cows’ yard.   This put him out of action with a strained back for quite a while, which as things turned out, was just as well.   His calves turned out to superb but just too big, with very wide hips and there were seemingly endless complications.   From the first nineteen calvings there were nine dead calves, one dead heifer, three caesarean operations, three heifers left very weak and one that will probably be unable to breed again.   It was a nightmare, not to mention the financial loss and the damage it may have done to those young cows that had just come into the herd, hopefully for many years to come.

“GOOD BYE” BUTCHERS

Christmas found us as usual busy preparing turkeys for sale.   As the dairy herd increased over the years with its own heavy workload during the autumn and also more and more corn being planted during the autumn instead of the spring, so the number of turkeys has been reduced.   We now no longer supply the butchers, who bought a lot.    They took them undrawn, taking them early and wanted to take the most popular sizes   We used to produce weights from 8-30lbs.    Now we specialise in birds weighing from 18-30 lbs, undrawn weight, although we do prepare them for the oven.   We order only female day-old poults, but they are extremely difficult to sex, work done exclusively by Japanese women, but there are invariable a few stags, which are the ones that weigh over 25lbs.   We are now down to four hundred, all sold retail, but that is enough to keep us in the Christmas spirit, if you see what I mean.   Sincerely, it is a time when we see our friends, who buy their birds from us.   And many customers who came as strangers, over the years have become part of our Christmas.   It just wouldn’t seem right not seeing them all.   And after doing it for so many years I don’t think we would feel we had earned Christmas without all that extra work.

MINK CAUGHT IN THE ACT

We were extraordinarily lucky in one thing.   Perhaps you may recall I mentioned the wild mink that were causing so much havoc in the area fifteen months ago.  One night back in the autumn, seven or eight of our hens were killed in their pen.  There was a little hole under the door and we thought that maybe it had been done by a stout or maybe a mink but we didn’t know.   We saw no sign of the culprit, no more damage was done and gradually the affair was forgotten.   Until Boxing Day.   Then we found the same thing had happened.   The block of wood that had covered the hole had moved just a bit and again there was a gap.   Six dead or dying chickens inside, but this time the culprit was still there, enjoying his, or her, Christmas feast, and it’s a wonder that it didn’t attack the hand that nearly went into the nest box where it was hiding, enjoying its prey.  Luckily sharp eyes on both sides weighed up the situation and he didn’t get the chance to add hand to the menu.  Losing the chickens was bad enough but as it seems that it could have been around quite a while it might have got into the turkey yards and that would have been infinitely worse.   Like a fox it had attacked many more birds than it could eat.   We borrowed a cage from the mink farm, the powerful scent of mink enticed it in and it was returned to that farm.

EEC TURKEY PROPOSALS

Had the mink destroyed the turkeys that would have been awful, but no more awful than the new legislation proposed for the Common Market, which will effectively stop fresh turkey production on farms completely.   They would have all birds killed in factory or abattoir conditions.   There is already strict control on the premises where birds are prepared, even if they are only used for a few days a year, as here.   We believe that the hand preparation of each bird produces a product in a class far better than anything that came off a production line.   Of course we would think so, but we don’t kid ourselves that all those people come to us when they’re rushed off their feet organising their Christmas, just to wish us “Happy Christmas”, though it’s very nice if they do.   In all modesty it has to be the turkeys they come for.   In any case, shouldn’t the consumer have a right to buy what he wants?  Surely people aren’t so foolish that they can’t be allowed to choose for themselves?

MARCH 1990

GALES

John and I were actually on holiday when the gales hit therefore we were quite unaware of what was going on and that we had had left them at home, quite literally, roping the roofs on.  Fortunately the generator kept the power supply going as the farm uses a surprising amount of electricity, not just for the obvious uses of lighting and heating but more importantly for maintaining the vacuum to keep the machines on when milking the cows and for cooling and refridgerating the milk afterwards.   There were quite a few trees down round the farm and it will be some time before they are all cleared up as there is seasonal work pressing now.  The most dramatic result came from a poplar tree that we had considered felling or severely lopping and as if it knew and would have us one, came down slap on top of the glasshouse and completely demolished it.

READING ROADS

Getting replacement sheets and ridges for the roofing of the beef cattle barn that had been damaged proved to be difficult as the size is no longer made.   Our grain store also has the same roofing and we thought they were quite modern buildings.   I can only think that built-in obsolescence is getting younger these days.   When the pieces we needed were located at Stroud we set off with the land rover and cattle trailer to fetch them, going via Reading to drop off a part that needed mending at the agricultural engineers that somehow still has premises right in the middle of the town.   Getting to them is like going into Hampton Court Maze, as most of the side streets we knew are now stopped off with bollards across them half way down.   We could see the works we were aiming for but kept having to go back to our starting point and trying a different road.   This could have been quite an interesting challenge given the whole afternoon and without the additional problem of turning in narrow streets with a trailer in tow.   As it was, I soon realised that it wasn’t just for my company and a nice ride on a sunny day that John had suggested I come along.   The route was no longer his responsibility!

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE?

Apart from the exceptional winds we have not had a hard winter weatherwise, which has made the working conditions easier than usual.   There is just that niggling thought that it is too good.   The crops are very forward.   A spell of heavy wet snow or cold biting winds could do a lot of damage now and without those hard frosts that make life so difficult but do get rid of a lot of pests and diseases, there will surely be a price to pay.   There are already aphids about in quantity.   They not only feed on the crops but also transmit diseases that can virtually kill corn.   The pollen beetles are so keen to get active that they are boring into the back of the unopened flowers of the oil seed rape to get to the pollen.   This so damages them that no seed pod can form.   So, it’s been a good winter, except for the wind, but we shall probably find problems ahead that a harder winter would have solved.

MAY 1990

HEALTH & SAFETY

There are so many changes in the farming world at the moment that everyone is hard pushed to keep up with them.  Many are legislative, in particular the health and safety laws.   Fortunately the majority of them are already adhered to in good management, but some it seems are made by people who sit at desks and have never actually done the physical job concerned.   The result being that their requirements are so awkward that they are themselves likely to cause an accident.   Some, one agrees with but others are quite frankly impossible.   For instance, cobwebs.   Cobwebs collect dust which is dangerous.   With this we agree and do when we find time get rid of them, but to keep them clear altogether, particularly in the high old barns with the wood beams and tiled of slated roofs would be infinitely more difficult than painting the Fourth Bridge.   Spiders, as Robert the Bruce discovered are very persistent and fast workers.   No doubt with today’s chemical sprays they could be killed, but spiders on balance must come down heavily on the good side of the scale.  It is true that before the discovery of antibiotics the stable hands knew well the life-saving properties of a good thick cobweb.   However, now they are part of the laws that must be known and acted on.   When does one find time to study these documents never mind to implement them?

PEOPLE’S PREFERANCES

Farmers, like all producers, must make changes to suit their customers.   These are probably most obvious on pig and poultry farms, but it has also affected beef and lamb.   Firstly the general desire for less fat meat has altered the criteria looked for in breeding stock, coupled with earlier marketing.   The increase in the preference for white meat has led to an enormous rise in poultry production.   Not veal, which is not popular here.   The vast number of fields of yellow seen in the spring are oil seed rape and are a direct response to consumers wanting oils rather than saturated fats and are one of the few things that have not been in overproduction.  Having said that, there was more than ever planted this year so maybe that point will have been reached.  These are long term changes and can, with luck and good judgement be seen coming.

BUY CODE 9 EGGS

Then there are the really tricky ones.   First the salmonella in eggs scare shattered the public’s confidence in British eggs.  It has cost the industry a fortune in testing to make people realise how high our standards are.   Meanwhile eggs were being imported from all over the place with no questions asked.   At that time millions of British eggs were dumped rather than let stale eggs accumulate to downgrade our market.   The compensation was less than cost of production and many producers went to the wall.   Now British eggs are on the scarce side, so remember code 9 is the packer’s code for British eggs and buy knowing the flocks are monitored.   There will still be imported eggs about!

B.S.E. CRISIS

Second, B.S.E. in cows.   You, the consumer, have been bombarded by the media with such a mixed bag of suggestions that you must be as bewildered as we are.  What is needed is the facts of the case to be proved.   Meanwhile the farmers find themselves unable to sell their cattle, while beef is coming in from many countries and considered to be alright.  We had some very tasty beef when out which turned out to be from Botswana.   Now foreign competition is alright in my book, as long as all our regulations apply to them too.   Here, new legislation is covering feeding stuffs for ingredients and medicants and a slaughter policy is in operation for sick animals.   On our farm we are in the impossible position of having fifty beef animals ready to go in the immediate future and this week have been unable to find a market for any of them.   If we are forced to keep them they will be fatter than the public want and will be downgraded when they eventually do go.   Now these animals are from generations of our own breeding in which there has been no sign of B.S.E.   They have been fed on top quality foods and grazed.   Their mothers carried the calves two and a half years ago, they have cost a lot to rear ad we would have hoped to get around five hundred pounds each for them.   That would not give a big profit, if any, but it will be a big loss if it cannot be recouped.   There is a market for calves.   They are going to the Continent at greatly reduced prices, perhaps for killing, maybe to rear for beef.

1934 WATER SCARE

Have you heard of the scare when Lacey Green’s water made the 1934 news as being poisonous?   Of course in those days the water came from ponds and underground tanks that collected the water off the roofs.   After a very dry summer, when the tanks were low, they would be cleaned out.   The bottom few inches would be thick sludge which was caused by the sparrows and other birds sitting over the gutters.  What could be more convenient?  It transpired that locals reared on this brew had a stomach and head for it, whereas visitors fell foul of it.  No that wasn’t a sick joke.   I’m not in the mood for one.

JULY 1990

NOT THE WEATHER

Every time I face this blank sheet I tell myself “Now this time I really must come up with something interesting, different and whatever else I put I must not ‘rabbit on’ about the weather”.

TRITICALE

So, what’s new?   The unseasonable weather is new.   The only dull weather being in June when it should have been sunny for haymaking.   Sorry, I forgot ‘weather’ is taboo.   Triticale, now that is new for us.   Triticale is a cross between rye and wheat and we have grown it in one particular field because it is not liked by rabbits.   (If I’m not allowed to rabbit on about the weather I’ll bring in the little darlings themselves)!   When rabbits get well established in a bank or under a hedge they can completely decimate most crops.   This particular field is surrounded by woodland so they have plenty of cover all round, therefore growing something they are not keen on seems the solution.  To net the whole field would be too costly and we are not really into making rabbit pies.

MORE HEDGES THAN EVER

Having mentioned the world ‘hedge’ I can say that I have had more requests to write about hedges than any other subject.   So in that respect that is something new.   But to write about them wouldn’t be.   I have suggested to everyone that asked me that they write their thoughts about them themselves.   A recap from me just in case they don’t.   There are more hedges in this parish than ever before.   In the past people used to live, work and I’m not sure how much play they were able to do, in what in a much more open-plan way.  Certainly we have altered hedge lines on the farm.   This is 1990.   Of course the machines are bigger and more powerful.   What man would work all week on the old ones, nostalgic though they may be?  The clock cannot be put back and, much as it sometimes seems a nice idea, I doubt if anyone would want to live how our grandparents did.   So yes, we have reshaped fields so that the difficult corners have gone, but you won’t find any ‘prairies’ here.

THANK YOU to THOSE WHO DO NOTICE

On the same lines may I give an accolade to the person who noticed that we do also plant hedges.   And I will add that we only go to all that trouble because we still use them for what they were always intended for.   Trees we have planted in number also, but these are purely a luxury that we enjoy.   Quite an expensive luxury actually as they have to be fenced off and cared for some long time.

HEDGE LAYING

Hedge laying and hedge trimming serve two different functions.   The main stems in a laid hedge have been slashed so they can be laid down so they make a living fence.   It served a much more necessary purpose before easy fencing was available.  Hedge laying is not an art that has disappeared.   I know of two men who are skilful at it, one of whom works on our farm and has laid many of our hedges.   It does take a long time, which would be alright if people lived on ‘peanuts’, but they don’t, nor would we want to go back to those ‘good old days’.

HEDGE TRIMMING

Hedges have to be trimmed whether they are laid or not, if they are to serve their function of being thick to make a dense barrier.   Yes, we do trim them mechanically, it takes too long doing it by hand as those who have come and asked us if we could “Just, when our trimmer is along near their hedge, would we mind doing…….?   At least they admit it’s too much like hard work, so good for them for being honest.

WHEAT into WHOLE-CROP SILAGE

We have just cut a field of wheat, just as the ears were beginning to fill and made it into silage for the cows.   This is because of that unmentionable subject the ‘w…...’.   Because the fields are bare we are having to feed them on the first cut of grass-silage which was being stored for the winter.   To put a crop of wheat like that into silage is certainly a new thing for us and took much heart-searching before it was done.  Stands to reason, forfeiting a crop like that is bound to go against the grain!

ALICE

We then hope to harvest the rest for grain in the usual way to fill our store.   However this was not until LGP had put on this year’s show, “Alice” based on Lewis Carol’s Stories.

SEPTEMBER 1990

DRILLED IN DUST

Since the latest edition the corn fields have turned from green to gold to brown.   The harvest has been gathered in and the land cultivated and sown with next year’s crops.   Now we wait for the rain, seeds surely cannot grow in the dust in which these have been planted.

TRANSFORMATION

All through the harvest time there was that underlying feeling that the good weather could break so we must push on.   Richard, away working on a sandwich year from college, combined regularly till after midnight.   We didn’t carry it to that degree but the feeling was there.   Then, still with the feeling that the rain might catch us out, we pressed on with the ploughing and drilling.   When you do stop to take breath and look around you realise that all the others have been beavering away too.   You felt you were the only ones that were working so hard but all about you the transformation has taken place and the fields are a brown blanket with next year’s seeds tucked up for the winter.

JUST A MENTION

So how did the harvest fare?   Very badly if the ground was sandy or gravelly, which our’s thankfully is not.  Very badly if the crops didn’t get off to a good start when they were planted, but ours did.   Now the land up here is not good land but it helps if you know it, which of course John does, being born here, so we had some good crops.  (This is one paragraph that I shall not have to let John read before sending it in.)   The Chiltern Hills Agricultural Association covers an area of ten miles radius of Wendover.   There are competitions for all the crops and I thought first prize for oil seed rape, winter oats and overall best arable crops were worth a mention.   John usually does do pretty well, but he doesn’t like me to say.

MAIZE

One crop that is only just being cut now is maize, the whole plant being chopped up to add to the clamp of silage.   After a little trial last year we grew a whole field this time and thank goodness we did for never have we been so short of winter fodder for the animals.   It is only in recent years that varieties able to grow at the higher altitudes in this country have been bred and even then it is touch and go here.   Fortunately, once germinated it is a good crop to withstand the dry weather.

NEW YORK DRESSED TURKEY REPRIEVE

Last night we attended a traditional farm fresh turkey meeting.   I am glad to report that the method of producing turkey in the traditional manner is to be allowed to continue.   As we believe that this is the only way to produce a table bird as near to perfect as it is possible, it seemed unbelievable that the EEC could even contemplate stopping it.   New hygiene laws being brought in will make law what is already done by the best and will stop others bringing down the standards.   All producers will have to be registered, but again it is only those who are a discredit who are not already working with the authorities.   

GAS STORED AS FRESH

Some years ago tests were done gas storing poultry in the way many apples are.  The results were very satisfactory.  Chickens gas stored for five weeks came out of the gas bags as new.   These birds are not frozen, so they are sold as fresh.   All six supermarket chains have contracted to buy gas stored turkeys from France.   They are likely to be small, young birds, so they should be tender, and tasteless, but I wouldn’t like to predict how old they will be.   I don’t think they have to be labelled “gas stored” and as a producer of truly fresh turkeys I’d like to know “If not, why not?”

JANUARY 1991

INDIAN SUMMER

At the beginning of December we had remarked what a fine autumn it had been.   There were still beautiful colours in the hedgerows and the sloes had ripened till they were simply crying out to be made into sloe gin and surely to resist the temptation of such a prolific harvest must be a sin in itself.  Oh, if only we had more time.  But there was work to be done.  Christmas was coming on apace and we were far from ready for it.

GERALD’S HOUSE ALTERED

Throughout the autumn Gerald’s house was being extensively altered to such a degree that it was necessary for him to move out while the work was done.   His furniture was stored in one of the turkey hanging sheds, being the most clean and secure place we could provide.   Every year these sheds are washed down and given a fresh coat of paint in preparation for the turkeys.   It was touch and go.   Only in the nick of time did the shed get another touch of paint as the furniture was able to go.   It was a very close run thing.

FOXES

We were having trouble with foxes.  There were several around the farm that we knew were very cheeky and showed themselves quite fearlessly.   The turkeys were penned in a yard but each night the foxes were on patrol and the birds only had to put a leg near the smallest gap, or an inquisitive head down to investigate and they were nabbed.  The foxes had found the perfect place in which to live and hide and that was in the stacks of big round bales which form small tunnels when piled on top of each other.

TURKEYS TOO BIG

As mentioned at the beginning it had been a lovely autumn, not only appreciated by us but also by the turkeys.  They had been ‘swanning around’ enjoying it and being lazy and using no energy to keep warm so ended up weighing twenty five per cent heavier than usual.   “What’s wrong with that?” you might ask.   Plenty, if you have taken orders for them in advance, basing an estimation of the expected weights on those of previous years.   This year I took the unprecedented step of ringing the customers who had ordered the smaller birds and telling them that we just could not supply them.

FIRST PRIZES

We won first prizes for both stag and hen birds at the annual fatstock show held by High Wycombe market, which was pleasing.   However the largest hen, which weighed 32.5 lbs we had kept back for ourselves, not having taken any orders for hens over 25 lbs.   We knew it would go in the Aga, being an extra-large oven.  Unfortunately, the lids of the cooker were accidently left open and with a high wind pulling the heat away it wasn’t hot enough to cook a shrimp, never mind that ‘Dolly Parton’ of a bird.

CUSTOMER’S GOODWILL

Desperate measures were called for.  Lucky that having the proper tools we were able to saw off the back-end and ‘parson’s nose’, which we duly stuffed inside the bird and it was soon done to turn in our electric oven.   I hope our customers had less hassle than us.  I must say they were noble in the way they responded to the various suggestions put to them as to why they really ought to take a bird that was, without doubt, bigger than they needed.  Real Christmas goodwill, it must have been.

WELLINGTON BOOTS

The farming world is full of difficulties at the moment which will no doubt still be there to mull over in the coming months.   The whole world seems full of problems come to that, what with war, riot and starvation to name but a few.   It’s all beyond me.   I just hope something good comes of it all.   Meanwhile, I would be delighted if I could keep my own patch straight.   It would be wonderful to be able to win the war on ‘wellies’, which is continuously waged just inside our back door.  Everyone gets so attached to them.  “I’ll just keep these split ones, they might be handy to wear on a dry day”.   “That odd one just might match another odd one someday.”   “A visitor might just be glad to borrow this old pair if they come without any”.   Do we have visitors that brave?   Bet they would never come back again!   So if you have occasion to come to our back door, be prepared to duck.   It won’t be a ‘scud’ missile, but if we start waging war on the wellies in earnest, believe me a ‘wanged’ welly could do a lot of mischief, and if we haven’t, you might be given the privilege of borrowing two.  They might not be a pair but rest assured they will be loved by someone, otherwise they would have gone to the ‘happy wallowing welly land’ long ago.

MARCH 1991

DON’T COUNT YOUR CHICKENS

Farming has long been renowned as an ‘up and down’ business.   There was even a long range weather forecast given in the Old Testament using seven fat cattle and seven lean cattle to represent the good and bad years.   Every farming family had some basic rules deeply instilled from an early age of the ‘don’t count your chickens till they are hatched’ variety.   These formed the mental code of practice that kept farmers from throwing in the towel too soon. They were expecting things to be bad and there was always the possibility that something might tide you over if all your eggs were not in one basket.

FARMERS – AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

That, however, was when it was only the weather that was the enemy.   Now, economic pressures have forced so many farmers to the wall that if you are one, you begin to feel like an endangered species.   So what, and why the changes?   Many of the farms are a one-man or more likely, a one family band.   Still the idyllic dream of many – the little farm with a few cows, some hens, sheep and pigs.   But to earn a livelihood from it is like living with a grindstone attached to your nose and if you don’t own it, a millstone round your neck at the same time.   There are not many of these farms left.   They have had to give up, leaving only a few hanging on with their backs to the wall, just waiting.   Why have they gone?   Simply, they are not economic.

OVER MILK QUOTA

Seven years ago milk quotas were introduced, cutting the amount each farm was permitted to produce.   This was effective but left small units too small, with overheads that could not be covered, resulting in many retirements, or moves from dairying.   The quota was saleable and was purchased by farmers that decided to stay in.   After the initial knock of cuts, then finding the capital to purchase more quota, the farms left settled down to produce the country’s overall quota, now in the hands of fewer farmers.   This process has happened twice more as milk yields increased and more cuts have been implemented.   There is yet another cut forecast for next month (the beginning of the quota year).   To make matters worse it has been a good year for the cows.   They have thrived and production has been putting many farms over their quota even before the quota year ends.   The penalty for overproduction is to pay back 13.6p for every pint over quota.   As the farmer gets 10.25p per pint this could spell disaster for some.   The Milk Marketing Board, anticipating this and to make sure of getting the money, have estimated each farm’s production and withheld milk cheques to cover the possible fines.   Some, rather than pay the penalty, have decided to forfeit the milk instead and have simply been spreading it on the land.   That way you get no income, but you don’t get fined for overproduction.   Anticipating another cut soon we had already obtained additional quota, at a high price, from a retired farmer, which will hopefully see us clear.   It does look as if there will be another shake up as some farms just cannot surface from this one.

ARABLE LOSS

What about arable?   The figures just published for last year show that on average in the south-east, arable farms lost £10 per acre.   No investment coming from that for the second year running.

EEC ANTI - POLLUTION REGS.

The next big knock is going to be the implementation of E.E.C anti-pollution regulations.   These are far reaching, covering anything and everything, be it human, industrial or agricultural.   Undoubtedly there has been pollution and something had to done, but the new precautions to be taken are of a standard that will be beyond the D.I.Y capability of farmers.   Time is short and they are going to be very costly.   For instance, all slurry from the cattle, their bedding, dirty washing water and such, has got to be stored.   This is because the application of that precious commodity, much loved by gardeners, farmyard manure, which we in our innocence continued to put on our land thinking what good traditional farmers we were, is to be banned in the winter months.  We have got to provide safe storage for at least four months production of the stuff.   Our dairy herd is one hundred and sixty cows, with the calves and yearlings so we are probably stocking four hundred animals.   Can you imagine how much they could produce in four months?   No?  Well don’t try, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.   Does it not seem better for us to spread it out on the land?   There are no streams up here for it to pollute.   Far more likely to get effluent from it when it is stacked up.   Or should we turn the animals out during the winter?   The fields would be a sea of mud and the animals would be filthy, but as yet there are no regulations regarding animals fouling the ground.   Have you ever seen milking cows wading through mud up to their bodies?   No?  Well that’s not a pretty sight either.  It might be traditional, but we wouldn’t wish those ‘good old days’ on our cows.   And gardeners, remember now, no F.Y.M to be used in the winter.

MAY 1991

A WAY OF LIFE

Despite the gloom hanging over the farming industry most farmers will carry on – carry on farming that it is – because it’s just not that easy to quit.   “It is a way of life” people will say.   They are right of course.   It is different and some of the differences have to be bonuses.   For one thing it only takes a couple of minutes to get to work – now there’s a thought!   How does that idea grab the commuters among you?   All that time sitting in the traffic fumes or fuming over the trains.  The workers on the farms may still be at work but they will be on overtime and on a beautiful May morning or evening what better place to be than in the Bucks countryside?   It is because it is so lovely that people pay a fortune for homes here, then they can spend hours travelling to work somewhere else.

EARLY MORNING IDYLL

Being extra busy just recently, fitting in time for organising the wedding of our daughter into an already pretty full programme, I took to getting up at half past five for a few days.  On taking out the dogs I found glorious blue skies, the birds were singing, for once the cuckoo didn’t seem to be directly giving me the hint, the blossoms were beautiful and it was so peaceful that I felt it was impossible to take it all in.   Pity I don’t discipline myself to do it every day, but I don’t.  It’s taken a fortnight to get over it as it is.   I hope you travellers have found time to notice the may blossom, the wild cherry, the chestnut and the beech trees.   I expect the drivers have cursed the cow parsley on the verges, but hasn’t it been fantastic?   And if you enjoyed the bluebells and cowslips I’m glad if you resisted picking them.

A NEW COLLIE

I only got up extra early those days because once the day gets going there never seems to be any let up and time is not your own.   We have a new collie who is delightful but as yet untrained.   She has tremendous instinct and if there is no work for her to do she makes a job for herself.   She practised for several days at keeping the milking cows in their bedding kennels.  She patrolled them so well that very few got to their food.   She is always ready to help if she sees cattle being moved.   It is a pity she is determined to take them the way she thinks they ought to go and ignores any idea to the contrary.   She has made the men cross on occasions!

CHASING CATTLE

It would have been a great advantage had she been reliable to have her to help when twenty young cattle got out at Walters Ash.   As it was we had to run across two wheat fields, as they were decidedly frisky and wouldn’t keep down to a walk.   Wearing walking shoes and two jumpers was not ideal, but there hadn’t been time to change into running gear.  Running is not my strongest point but it’s surprising what you can do if the alternative is twenty cattle veering off into an even bigger field.   Although it sought out muscles I don’t much use which must have done a power of good, such incidents are annoying and a trained dog can be a great help.

BULLS MERRY – GO – ROUND

An even less popular task as far as I was concerned cropped up one night.  John went to check the cows as usual, came back and called me to “just come and give me a hand” – really casual!  “With what”? – I sensed he hadn’t said what this ‘hand’ had got to do. “Oh, nothing much, I just want to move the bull.   “You have to be joking” I protest.   “They’re as quiet as lambs” – it’s already become plural I note.  “No way”, I say.   “Oh stop being silly and get your boots on.”   Well as my father would have said “You made your bed, you lie on it.”  And that is what I really wanted to do – it was past bedtime.   “I’ll go on ahead” John said as he headed out into the night.   It transpired that a very desirable cow in yard one was attracting the Hereford bull who was in with other cows in yard two.   He, feeling very amorous, looked like jumping the gate between them.   In yard three with the other third of the herd was the Limousin bull who should have been with the cows in yard one.   Do you get the picture?   John persuades Limousin to leave his cows, takes him into next (empty) yard.   I shut the gate.   “You’re supposed to be this side of it!!!!!”    I open gate again and go through letting John get well ahead with the bull.   John then persuades amorous Hereford not to jump gate, but to leave his cows and go with Limousin’s.   I strategically open and shut gates.   John takes Limousin to first yard of cows through another gate.   Peace is restored, indoors and out.   I think how brave I am.   John, no doubt, thinks whatever difficulty there was it certainly wasn’t caused by the bulls!

JULY 1991

READY FOR HARVEST

Despite the weather being all topsy-turvy, the seasons have come round as usual and the corn crops are now maturing.  The winter barley is actually ripe, the machines are serviced ready to make a start, just waiting for the thundery rain to stop threatening, so the harvest can begin.   The grain is not a good plump sample, so at some point it must have been dry when moisture was needed.   A week ago things were behind, as they have been all the year so far, but the last week of humid weather has brought everything forward by leaps and bounds.

GRAIN SAMPLING

This is the time of the ‘grain sampling syndrome’, when farmers get the urge to walk out into the corn, rub the grain’s chaff away, then carefully select a kernel to sample.   This is placed between the teeth and bitten.  This is a crucial moment when great decisions are made, the concentration required puts all other senses into oblivion.   After gazing into the distance with a glazed expression, it may be necessary to bite a few more grains.   This may be to confirm the ripeness, or to help decide further detail such as, is this field riper than that, or maybe simply for pure pleasure at having brought the crop to maturity.   Whatever the reason, all corn growers do it.   It is a necessary skill, but it is a compulsive urge that can get out of control.  Should you be driving along and suspect that the car in front is being driven by a farmer, especially if he is paying rather more attention than normal to the crops, be prepared for him to stop suddenly, having just passed a gateway, in extreme cases even putting the vehicle into reverse, and to jump out and dash into a field to sample the corn.  The field in this case will not be his own, but some other farmer’s interesting crop that has triggered off this sampling urge.

EXTRA ACTIVITIES

We have had a busy year so far, with a number of extra activities to fit in.   The beginning of May saw the wedding of our daughter Patricia, and a charity evening at the farm, followed in June by a party for my mother, to which we managed to get not only family but  friends, some of whom she hadn’t seen for years.   In July we had a party of thirty bankers for a farm walk and supper.  They seemed surprised to learn that farmers had problems, thinking they were the ones that had them all, while we thought the boot was on the other foot.   A typical example of how the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence.   Both sides learnt a lot meeting each other in this informal way.

ICELAND

Meanwhile the second cut of silage and first cut of hay was got home.  Leaving the second cut of hay in capable hands, John and I nipped off for a week’s trip to Iceland.   This was a very good break and farming there made our difficulties seem easy in comparison, although there did seem a lot of machinery for the size of the farms.   We hired a four-wheel drive vehicle and bed and breakfasted in farmhouses, so were we relaxed you might wonder?   For myself I can only think I must have been turned off.   I only wrote four postcards, three to our children and one to an elderly friend.   Any others was up to John, as he reckons to do any writing when we are away.   I signed mine from Mum and Dad.   The friend said it made her feel quite young, which is just as well, ‘cause it certainly didn’t do a lot for me, unlike the holiday which was a really good break.

SEPTEMBER 1991

MRS MORRIS

On Thursday 12<sup>th</sup> September the family and friends of Mrs Beatrice Amelia Morris gathered to say a last farewell.   She had seen so much during her lifetime, half of it lived locally, that she had often said to me that she could write a book about it, so to that end we made a start.  I propose to crib from part of it for this article.

BORN 1899

She was born in Cirencester at the Phoenix Inn, her parents reasonably comfortably off.   If others had more than them, their mother saw to it that it didn’t concern her children who were six in number including a step-sister.  Little Beatrice Amelia, hair and eyes black as jet, so small she could be put into a pint pot, was born 27<sup>th</sup> February 1899.

TODAY

Ninety two years later you would find her at Stocken Farm on two days a week, serving in the farm shop and cooking the lunch so that she wouldn’t be bored and had something fresh to talk about.  She still played a weekly bingo session and whist a couple of times a week.   She regularly seemed to be having a running battle with the Council if things were not to her liking at Woollerton Court, where she lived.   Our son-in-law Paul and Trisha took her for a ride in their beach buggy.   Not having any door it’s a climb-over job, open top, very noisy.   He went round to help her get over, only to find she had already hopped in.   When they arrived back at Woollerton Court and no one was about it was a toss-up as to ‘do we toot the horn’ or ‘drive round again and hope someone is looking next time’.  She didn’t like life to be dull.

KODAK, THEN SALVATION ARMY H.Q.

Just before the First World War she left school and went to work for Kodak, developing photos.   Then they moved and she worked at the Salvation Army Headquarters in London in their restaurant, where she stayed until she joined her aunt at the King’s Head at Holtspur, between High Wycombe and Beaconsfield.   She would have liked to work for the Salvation Army abroad, but in those days a missionary had to provide their own money, so that was out of the question.  Even in her nineties she would still comment with envy when she saw on the television, some children’s aid trip being set up.   How she would like to go.

THE KING’S HEAD, HOLTSPUR

‘Beat’ had her first taste of country life helping her uncle and aunt, who kept the King’s head.   She lived as family, helping with the children, in the hotel and on the farm.   She drove her first pony and trap there.   They tried to get her to milk a cow and gave her a stool and bucket, but she could only keep saying “Oooooh! I don’t like the warm feel of it”. Then, somehow, four little pigs got in with the cow and they managed to get the feel very well.

JACK

Beat met Jack at the King’s Head.  His very religious mother was no doubt having a fit, knowing her son was courting at the pub, but Jack knew what he was about.   He was thirty, he wanted a wife.   He took Beat to Red Barn Farm, where he lived and she cooked their supper, he showed her round the house including his bed room, but he didn’t say “Hop in”, he wasn’t like that.   He took her to meet his parents.   He took her on the back of his motor bike, he had sold his horse purposely to buy a bike to take her around, which meant that he had to give up following the hounds.  One day Jack was going to Wycombe and asked what sort of ring she would like.   “Oh, diamonds of course”, she said, playing a game, “but how will you know my size?”   “Stick your finger through this piece of card that will serve as a measure.”   And so Jack and Beat became engaged.

GLORY HILL FARM

Jack’s father and brother ran the adjoining Glory Hill Farm and both farms were part of Lord Burnham’s Estate.  The shooting luncheons for the King and Lord Burnham had been held at Red Barn before they were married.  Enormous shoots they were.   Jack sometimes went beating for them.   When they finished they went to the Saracen’s Head in Beaconsfield for a meal before they went home.   Lord Burnham was very much like the King in build, he owned all Beaconsfield and ever so many farms.

ESTATE SOLD

It was all sold up suddenly ye’see, cause as she remembered he came one day on horseback with his agent.  She thought it was Jack Brazil, the butcher and farmer, so she went down the long garden path, her belly huge with child, ‘cause they never got off the horses.   He asked if Mr. Morris was about, so she explained that he was at Glory Hill Farm with his father.   “Oh, alright”, we’ll see him another time.”   So off those two go.   When Jack came home she told him these two toffs had called on horseback and he told her that that was Lord Burnham.

PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS

He came again to look at the buildings, ‘cause he was going to do a little improvement.   He was going to build a proper dairy with churns in it.   It had been very primitive the way they had had to go on, she imagined it hadn’t changed for centuries.   She went to look at it not long ago. Says it’s a big farm now.

The saga of Beatrice Morris continues next time – with her early married life, then bringing up the children at Lacey Green and working at Stocken Farm.

NOVEMBER 1991

“HAPPY CHRISTMAS”

As we approach one of the busiest times of the year at the farm, I am pleased that my last contribution was too long and has to be continued this time.   It is one less job to worry about.    May I just take this opportunity of wishing all readers, “a Very Happy Christmas”.

CONTINUING THE LIFE STORY OF BEATRICE AMELEA MORRIS

THE 1930’S DEPRESSION

When she first married times were very depressed agriculturally.   They got 6d a gallon, that is, 2.5p for 8 pints of milk.   If you were lucky, that was.   There was no Milk Marketing Board to organise the collection of milk.  They sold theirs’ to a man who came from Seer Green.   One day he would take five gallons, another only two, according to what he sold round the houses.   What he didn’t take they fed to the pigs, so you didn’t get much out of farming those days.

"DREADFUL, DREADFUL"

People lost money, dreadful, dreadful, but at least the milk wasn’t wasted if you kept pigs.   You could sell pigs, but they were no price.   Do you know, they went on the first holiday Jack ever had by selling two pigs.   They fetched ten pounds for the two and they would have been much bigger and fatter in those days.

DON’T SHOOT THE FOX

But, she used to say, “Oh, I dun’no, I look back and they were not bad days really.   I know we didn’t have the money, but we never had to want.   We lived off the land.   Jack grew wonderful vegetables in the garden.   Great fields of turnips, potatoes and swedes, put them in the hopper to chop them for the cattle.   Never short of meat, bacon, pheasant, rabbit.   We had chicken and eggs.   Sometimes the fox got them, but we mustn’t shoot the fox.   Saved for fox hunt.   We could get some compensation from the estate agent.

LONELY BUT HAPPY

We worked hard, you could have said we were lonely, but happy.   Our family were born there.   We didn’t want to go to the theatre, pictures or dancing, that was the last thing Jack thought of, we didn’t need much money.   You could have said it was monotonous, but I didn’t mind being alone.  I saw the occasional tramp going along to the old workhouse at Amersham.   Jack never had a day off milking for years, until later they got a boy to come and help.”   And Beatrice Amelia?   She was in her seventh heaven.   Her children were born there, it was a wonderful place for them to grow up.  She had made some very good friends and married into a respected local family.   She adored motherhood, despite the fact that her firstborn screamed enough to put most normal instinct to death.

FARMS TAKEN BACK

Then Lord Burnham died, the farms were taken back in hand and the Morris families had to find new farms.   A farm was found for Jeff, the parents retired and a temporary job was found for Jack at Stocken Farm, till a farm should come up for rent.   It was not a farm that came, it was the Second World War.   Jack worked on the farm till after the war, then went gardening.  She said he was much happier then, although it was never easy to work for someone else after your own farm.  Jack had a bad heart and died in 1958.

HER MOTHER’S VOICE

When her mother died she had been living at Red Barn Farm with an infant that was a champion screamer and she had been very upset because of losing her mother.  The baby was pretty upsetting too and the doctor had suggested putting him somewhere out of earshot.   What she did hear – and always remembered was hearing her mother saying “I’m not gone, I can look after you and your baby.”   At least that stopped her crying as well as the baby.

JANUARY 1992

USING FOOTPATHS

One thing that farmers have to do is to keep their public footpaths open.   I compliment those who do, but generally the public do not use them for the purpose which created them, that of getting from A to B of necessity.   They are mostly used, by a few, for pleasure, exercise and walking the dog, sometimes in combination and let us hope always with pleasure.    However, although their use has changed they must be altered and trying to do so is more trouble than it is worth, if indeed possible. Yet in many instances it would be mutually beneficial to change them.   Where they cross fields it would certainly be simpler for us to leave a path round the edge of a field instead.   Sure, it would be further to walk, but isn’t that what you are out there to do?   We would lose more field that way, but we wouldn’t have to spray chemicals on our crops to kill them off to make a footpath across the field.   The headlands would be wider, which would be better for the wildlife and if the hedges, plants, birds and animals thrive that must be good.   Your walks would be more interesting and as we wouldn’t plough the path up every year it would be easier to walk on.   This could be the first parish to move it’s footpaths to edges of the fields to save spraying chemicals to kill crops and to improve the habitat for wildlife.   But, even if the whole community supported ‘conservation’ in this way, it would still be virtually impossible to reroute the paths.

CONSERVATION PRIZE

Every year there are competitions in our local area covering a ten mile radius of Wendover.   Not everyone enters but it provides a yardstick which we find interesting.  Having achieved first prizes in 1990 for winter oats, oil seed rape and overall arable crops and a second for our wheat, it was something of a letdown to get no red cards in 1991.   We did get a number of second prizes for arable, winter oats, hay and in a new class for farming with concern for conservation and wildlife.

FARM GARDEN COMPETITION

Another class introduced was for farm gardens.   John entered ours.   I suspected it was to get his own back on me for insisting that we enter the conservation class. Farmers are not renowned for good gardens, rather like the cobbler’s children being the worst shod, but there are some that are keen.   A card came saying the judges would arrive about four o’clock one Monday afternoon.   I planned a concentrated effort in the garden on the day so that it wouldn’t be too embarrassing.   It rained all day.   Making the most of a bad job and as the rain prevented any field work, I begged some manpower to trim the hedge, so that, at least would look smart.   The judges had misjudged their schedule and arrived early to find us beavering away at this task, upon which they duly commented.

FROM DAMP TO SOAKING

They were already rather damp when they arrived.   After I had tracked them round the pathways which were draped with sodden overhanging shrubs, they were soaking.   This may have been of assistance in making them want to hurry, so that hopefully they didn’t notice the deposits left on our lawn by the dogs that had been visiting over the weekend.   With one thing and another I hadn’t been out earlier to notice.   I escorted them round, keeping between them and the offending items, whilst avidly distracting their attention.

THE RESULT

I felt quite exhausted when they had gone, with all the enthusing.   When the results came and we were fourth I looked to see if there had only been four entries.   As this was not so I can only think there is some truth in the cobbler’s children saying, or maybe the others, like me, hadn’t got their act together on a wet Monday.

CONSIDERATE WALKERS WANTED

I feel that in having the courage to enter our farm to be judged from a conservation point of view, we were standing up to counted.   We have always welcomed people who keep the country code.   There are footpaths in virtually every field of our farm.  During the winter they have all been cleared for you, it is something we have to do, whether they are used or not.  What we now want is a steady supply of walkers to keep them open.   There are a lot of paths and it is very hard for us to be going round keeping the weeds down.   Please use them and that way we will know our work has not been in vain and they will stay open, not because we are compelled to, but because  you want to use them.

MARCH 1992

SOUTH AMERICAN FARMS

Late March 1992 – since I last wrote we have spent two and a half weeks in South America visiting farms there.  Quite an experience!

BEUNOS AIRES CATTLE MARET

Buenos Aires cattle market was well worth the effort of getting up for, despite the early morning and jet lag.  Forty seven thousand cattle sold there in three mornings.   The market men and the buyers on horse-back and the cattle handled so quietly.  Mainly Herefords.   A well trained horse is as important as a good cattle –dog is here. Makes English markets look like child’s play.

THE PAMPAS

They cannot be producing as many cattle as they did because much of the pampas, which is the traditional grassland, has now been turned over to crops.   They can grow almost anything, the ground is flat to the horizon, all the way, with every appearance of continuing at least as far again.  There, as here, the farmers are changing their production as consumer taste demands.

2 LB STEAKS

They used to eat steak for every meal, now they have even got some vegetarians.   Being so far away from everywhere else, they do their best to live off their own produce, so if you ask for a steak in a restaurant it will weigh about two pounds and a mini-steak about eight ounces.

CHILE & RIO, BRAZIL

So much for Argentina.   We spent the second week in Chile and one day in Rio de Janeiro.   There is so much I could say about it all.   But suffice to say that although the farms were very interesting and we met many people and learnt a great deal, the instability of the politics and the currency, the poverty and the danger, especially in Rio, made us glad we lived here.  It is better than it was, the value of the currency only changes three times a day now in Brazil, not every other minute!

PAYING THE PRICE

We returned to have an election looming here, with, it seems, every party promising alterations in the taxes.  Having been away I was paying the price with a backlog of paperwork in the farm office.  Much of this consisted of P.A.Y.E., N.I.C., V.A.T. and the farm accounts – all designed for tax extraction.    Taxes in any way, shape or form are not amusing at all.   I know they are necessary, but having to work them out as well just seems to be adding insult to injury.

RETIREMENT PARTY for GERALD

I was much more excited about a party we gave here, where we had lunch, inviting past and present staff, students and his family for Gerald who has retired after spending all his working life here.   We tricked him into coming because he didn’t want a fuss.   Fifty five people came, not only from locally, but from Cornwall, Lancashire, Essex, Hampshire and Sussex.   One from Eire, who couldn’t get here and hates phoning, rang for a chat with him.   I could try to say compliments, but I think their presence that day says it all.

THANKS

Thanks Gerald, long may you keep your experienced eye on Stocken Farm for us.

MAY 1992

‘SAYING’ OFF TARGET

I’ve always been prepared to give a lot of credence to the old country sayings, but the heatwave of the past couple of weeks has certainly put ‘ne’er cast a clout till May be out’, right out of court, whether it means May the month, or May the blossom.   Looking around at the comfortable clothing being worn in the heat, it did look as if ‘make hay while the sun shines’ has been the order of the day.

MAKING SILAGE

On the farm we have not been making hay but silage.   However, the same adage applies.   If the weather is right the product is better quality and it takes less time to make.  The more it is messed about the more it costs and the worse the quality.   If it rains on silage it runs effluent that smells, if on hay it rots.  Therefore ‘make silage while the sun shines’ in farming terms is equally important, even if it doesn’t quite have that ring of gay abandon that ‘making hay’ does.   We hope to be making hay next month.

LINSEED

So, I’ve gone on about the importance of these grass crops before, but they are just as important as ever.   Our animals live off them all the winter.  But, what is new?  For us  - linseed.  We have not grown this oil seed crop before.   In the late spring we acquired a bit of overgrown land to rent.   Not many crops can be grown so late in the year.   It has always been a tricky crop to grow.  Difficult to harvest with an ordinary combine.   However, new equipment has been developed for this which we shall have to get a contractor to harvest it for us.

EU SUPPORT

I know linseed oil as the gooey stuff used in the putty that kept the glass in my father’s glasshouses and in our windows.   We also put it on our oak door.   I can only imagine there are other uses for it in these days of UPVC windows, as there seems to be a shortage of it in the Common Market.   Because it is a crop that is difficult. The EEU in its wisdom, decided to give a support price for growing it.   This is acquired by filling in the most confusing maps and forms that have ever been invented, or so it seems.   The Ministry of Agriculture is having a terrible time trying to get everybody sorted out.   Our field is not in the parish here, but you may notice the pretty blue flowers around the countryside later in the summer.

HAIL AND WIND THREATEN

Yesterday there were very heavy thunderstorms which we missed.   Today it is rumbling ominously all around us.  Thank goodness the first silage is in.  So far we have approximately 750 tons in the clamp, which is about half of what we need, but the grass has to grow before we can cut any more.   Some storms have had huge hailstones and strong gusts of wind, - all very bad for the corn and rape crops.   It is not in our hands, we can only make sure that we do make hay when the sun shines – or something like that.

JULY 1992

THE RAGGED CHILD

Since the last edition all sorts of things have been going on at the farm.   It was not until the middle of June that Lacey Green Productions arrived in any number to start rehearsals for “The Ragged Child”.   Knowing what a lot of hard work is put into their performances we were not surprised, when we eventually got to see the show, how good it was.   I do think they should consider freebie hankies though, if they ever decide to put on another tear-jerker.   One little girl certainly got caught out and had to use her sleeve.   I haven’t yet heard how it worked out financially.  They appeared to be playing to full houses so I hope they did well.   Knowing how professional their staging and lighting is, we arranged to borrow it, for which we were very grateful.

CHARITY EVENT

The evening we organised consisted of a concert given by High Wycombe Orpheus Male Voice Choir followed by a supper.  It got quite cold later in the evening so we appreciated the warmth of good spirits that everyone brought to it.  We couldn’t have done it without a great deal of help from numerous people.   Our thanks to them and just to let them and all those who supported our evening know that we sent off one thousand, three hundred and fifty pounds to various charities that they chose.

HARVEST EARLY AGAIN

This year’s harvest is ripening early again.   Three years in a row that is, so we begin to wonder whether the ‘norm’ should change.  The winter barley (sown in the autumn) has already been combined, so has the oil seed rape, most of the oats and the wheat is ‘swan-necked’ ready for cutting.   The maize is growing so fast it is truly ‘amazing’ and the linseed is coming on.   This was planted late.   If you walk through it, it will undo your laces.   We are told that it will reach a point when if you walk through it will take the laces right out of your boots, but we shall see.

CHRISTAL BALL WANTED

All the arable farmers are having to make decisions on what to do next year.   There are definitely going to be restrictions, the final details of which are not yet available.   This makes it double difficult as seeds have to be ordered and it is getting late to do it.  It looks like a compulsory fifteen per cent set-aside minimum, on a rotational basis.   If a permanent block is chosen instead of rotating it each year, it will be more, or so we understand, as much as one can understand!  Linseed will not count, so there could be vast quantities of linseed grown, then that too may be overproduced.  It is essential that we do get it right, though goodness knows how it is all going to be policed.   There are numerous meetings about it, just at a time when we are really busy with the harvest.   Even the Ministry of Agriculture’s Advisory Service hardly know what to advise.

HECTIC

So it has been a really busy time.  First silage making, then hay followed by the corn harvest, the end of the farm financial year with all its paperwork and stocktaking, the performances in the barn, lots of agricultural meetings and best of all the birth of two grandchildren just five weeks apart.

LIFE has been hectic, down on the farm.

SEPTEMBER 1992

IT’S NOT HOW YOU START IT’S HOW YOU FINISH

It has always been our farm policy to push on whenever possible, even though the weather may seem so good that you think it is set that way.   This year the summer turned into a nightmare, and it was only that we were well up with the harvesting that made it possible to get all of it in.   A good start was made in July, the oil seed rape and winter barley ripened early and was quickly caught up by the oats and wheat.  It turned out that the dry weather earlier in the year had produced a poor quality grain, not plump enough, the bread making wheats not glutinous enough and the rape seed not oily enough.   Penalty clauses are built into all selling contracts, so prices are well down, even if a merchant can be found to take it. As it turned out this was probably the better of the two evils, as the weather broke, the bulk of the harvest was snatched from the rubbish.  Altogether unsatisfactory on the whole.

LUCKIER THAN SOME

We are luckier than many, we have the driers and we have a cleaner and our own combine, old though it is.   Some farmers have not got these facilities.  It is no good bringing in a load of wet grain if you cannot dry it.   It is virtually impossible to sell if it is not clean.    If you rely on contractors you are probably in trouble, because down crops take much longer to harvest, so they are all behind, and just cannot get round to all their customers.   There are still some crops out in the fields unharvested.   This could mean the end from some.    A great many farmers have been losing money on corn crops for some years hoping for things to get better.    For them this is likely to be the last straw – literally.    Any profit that is to be made is only in getting one hundred per cent of the harvest in in good condition, and even then it won’t go far enough if your overheads are high.    Just a disaster summer.

THIS BLACK COMEDY

Putting the doom and gloom to one side, I must say something about the Common Market Agricultural Policy for the future if I am supposed to give a true picture of farming.    I only say “put the doom and gloom to one side” because it really is laughable and black comedy is hardly the thing for Hallmark.   And black it is.    It is accepted that fifteen percent of all corn land must be put into set-aside, to reduce the amount produced in Europe.    At the same time the United States of America, who have for years been trying all sorts of set-aside, have decided it does not work, so are going to do away with it, and for good measure give extra grants to anyone who sends grain for export.    So the huge prairies of America can now produce corn and then export it at a subsidised price.    You ought to get cheap bread next year!    Mind you, you may be having to support our farmers on the dole, for to go working eighty five per cent of the land, when the profit is only on the last little bit, just cannot pay.   Yes it is true that eighty five pounds per acre will be paid for doing nothing with the land, but our overhead costs are over two hundred pounds per acre.    No way will that be covered.   Right we thought, if we can grow nothing we can clean it as a fallow, but no, we are not allowed to clean it till just before planting the following years crop, so chemicals will have to be used to get rid of the weeds, bugs and diseases.    Who makes these rules?

STUDY THESE CONTRADICTIONS CAREFULY

There have been several directives published over the past few months, on how it is to work.    Each different.   The last has just arrives.    Forty four pages.   And having studied it, it says, and I quote “PLEASE READ THIS BOOKLET VERY CAREFULLY.   If there is anything in it which you do not understand, you should seek professional advice.”    “THE COMMISSION ARE STILL DRAWING UP DETAILED RULES ON CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE NEW ARRANGEMENT.    These may affect some of the guidance given in this booklet.”    “THIS BOOKLET APPLIES TO CROPS PLANTED FOR HARVEST IN 1993 ONLY.    We expect there will be different rules for rotational and non-rotational set-aside from 1993/4.    You must not rely on the information in this booklet when planning cropping arrangements for that year. Further information on the rules will be made in 1993.”    “Further information on this is available from the Ministry’s Regional Service Centres”.

LAUGH or CRY ?

Any suggestions what we should do with them?    And this is to plan a farm programme where it is necessary look at least several years ahead.    What we would like to know, when we have worried ourselves silly, is, just how are they going to police it all and how will they make sure that every country involved goes to the same amount of trouble to get it right? You have to laugh or else you would cry. And some will.

NOVEMBER 1992

FARMING by TRAIN

There is nothing we like better than a day off the farm, looking at other farms.    As you might imagine there are distinct advantages to doing this from a train window.  Not quite as good as a proper farm visit nor so many other enjoyable distractions as those seen running down the roadsides, but probably all the safer for that.    We find the Chiltern Train excursions both reasonable and a good opportunity to do this and meet a goodly member for locals, off, not to Bangor, as in the son, but Carlisle, York, Bath, even anywhere..    Farmers just cannot leave farming alone- I think they must be addicted to it.

MOURNING the MARKET

Maybe they thought it would be an escape from pen-pushing when they began, but it is no escape from paper-work.   We are wallowing under a welter of it.  The nice old-fashioned market day has all but disappeared.    Every town had one.   Now, Thame is the only one in this area.    Auctioneering by video and telephone has arrived.    Hi-tec, yes.   Less stress for the animals, yes.    Boring, yes.    Progress, yes.    A relaxing trip for the farmers, no.   With any luck, in a few more years we will have progressed from paper-work and got rid of some of the really boring things that are keeping them desk-bound, when the true work of farmers is with his stock and crops.

MY FIRST PORTABLE PHONE

The telephone has become invaluable.   We have three, one is portable, which John bought me for a present.   Now it’s even more difficult to get away from it all.   It is rather crackly since I left it out in the garden in the rain.   A lot of water did come out of it, but it obviously isn’t happy.    I used to take it everywhere, but I do draw a line now- ever since some-one said she had rather a long message, so was I sitting comfortably.    Of course I said “yes”, didn’t like to say it was somewhat personally “inconvenient”.   CRAFTY TURKEY CUSTOMERS

I spend many hours phoning at this time of the year, ringing the turkey customers.    We used to send them postcards to return to us, but they mostly got forgotten on the mantelpiece.   Now I ring those who have not contacted us.    Getting wise to this, many say “we thought it was about time you rang”. One family had even laid bets as to which day I would actually ring.    It has been really frustrating this year.    So many changed numbers.   The voice “The number you have dialled has been changed, please dial again” It’s enough to drive one to drink.   It does me anyway!

SURVEYS

Some of the office work is necessary to run a farm.   Much of it is bureaucracy gone mad. Then there are the surveys.   Some are compulsory, some are from students, and some are from companies.   They don’t like telling you who they are working for.  ‘It is always only going to take five minutes’, and it’s always nearer half an hour – longer if they offer you a bottle of plonk as payment.   If it’s some-one young, blond and female wanting an interview, I tell her my husband’s hourly rate, high enough that their expense account cannot run to it!

INTERESTING PRODUCTS

Growing the linseed stretched the harvest into November.   It was an interesting exercise.   A bit tricky. We certainly had some honey that tasted as if it would do our oak door a power of good.   What with that and driving on fuel made from rape oil, which gives the smell of chips frying.   That ought to make it popular.   What next I wonder.   I did just hear that the Post Office has agreed to deliver bags of elephant droppings as long as they are well wrapped.   If you are interested contact Chester Zoo, not us, we have plenty of a similar substance, though not, I fear, quite as dry.

BRINGING ‘IT’ INDORS

John has just slipped over in the cattle yard.   I was feeling quite concerned for him at first, till I was given his overalls to clean.  I’d like to see them make a T.V soap powder ad. with our washing!   One of the dogs, gave me the ‘compliment’ of bringing something very undesirable into the hall.   John also pays me the ‘compliment’ of bringing the farm indoors, ears of corn to rub out, maize roots to inspect, silage to sniff – I tell you they are addicted to it.    It used to be orphan pigs and lambs to rear, but we don’t have them anymore.

THOUGHT FOR THE SEASON

Thank goodness the calves are too big for the house.    Mind you, I do get asked to go out to the cattle shed to give a cold calf a brisk rub.    Kneeling out in the shed with a calf recently, I thought we still haven’t got too far away from what life is all about, and it seemed appropriate for the season. Happy Christmas.

JANUARY 1993

A CHANGE IN THE ORDER BOOK

Time running up to Christmas was as usual very hectic, preparing and selling the turkeys.   By its very nature it has to be a last minute job, and by the same score has to be done on time.   No-one would appreciate it if we said that we were sorry but they’d have to come back another day if we were behind.    Over the years I could almost have written the order book without consulting the customers, so regular were the orders.    However, this year saw a significant change which I can only put down to the recession.   In the past a fair proportion of birds were purchased by companies for staff Christmas boxes, but they were considerably reduced due to staff cut backs and economies.  To counterbalance this we had a big increase in personal customers.

REASSURANCE

People showing concern about the way the birds were reared and prepared – a desire for the traditional methods, flavour and tenderness. We hope that, reassured that the birds had a good life and a swift end, and if it hadn’t been for Christmas they wouldn’t have been hatched at all, they were enjoyed as pride of place on the festive dinner tables.

TURKEYS THEN & NOW

One old fashioned thing we don’t do is keep them outside with the turkey equivalent of a goose-girl in attendance and then walk them to London to be killed, first having tarred their feet to protect them from wear and tear.   Can you imagine walking to London now-a-days let alone with a flock of birds.   Anyway we couldn’t afford it, and with the foxes about we could hardly let them free.   Luckily they are birds that are happy to flock together and they are kept in straw covered yards with netted doors and windows.   They like it dry and sunny and are not keen on a lot of exercise.   The weather last autumn being wet and windy was just what they hate.

SOAKING WET

It still is wet and windy, and I can’t say any of us like it very much.   The whole farm is soaking.   Try to walk across it to inspect it and you’re likely to bring home ten pounds of mud on each boot.   The soil structure would certainly be ruined if machines were to be taken on it, doing damage that would take years to correct.   So it’s an opportunity to get the machines overhauled ready for the seasons ahead.   They all have to be serviced and some are damaged, like the combine which had a part of a branch picked up in the auger.

MILES OF HEDGES

Luckily the hedge trimmer managed to get round before it got impossibly wet, so they have been tidy and thick for the winter.   The only snag with getting it all done in good time, was that the bill came in too, which came to over fourteen hundred pounds.   He charges by the hour, but it would be interesting to know how many miles he does.

SET ASIDE

It was eventually decided which 15% of the farm was being left uncropped for the set aside. It’s going to make the countryside look very untidy, not the tidy patchwork we are used to seeing.   The government are paying eighty pounds an acre for set-aside land, but as we need to take two hundred pounds an acre to cover our fixed costs, we shall be losing out heavily on that.

TOO DIFFICULT.

Being practical, what we ought to do is make one in six of our men redundant, but the farming industry is of a rather more personal nature than most, the management and staff work as a team and that makes such decisions very difficult to carry out.   Some farms will though.

CHOICES

Some will not realise the economics of what is happening and go to the wall.   That leaves those like us who hope we can see the pitfalls and can work round them somehow, and the small farms which are exempt from the regulations, many of which earn their living also doing something else.   The sum total must be still less people working in the countryside in agriculture.   More room for diversification and leisure pursuits perhaps?    What do you fancy?

MARCH 1993

NO SMELL MANURE

In these days, when “organic” is the “in” word you will naturally understand that farm yard manure is an organic environmentally friendly product and highly desirable. This month the yards in which the beef cattle over-wintered, have been cleaned out.   A winter’s bedding-up, feeding and treading had established a good warm depth of this “fertiliser” as somebody politely put it.    When it is newly moved it is particularly pungent and makes one think “By Gum, that’s given the lungs a good clear out,” as a breath is inhaled.  After it has sat in a heap for a while it loses it smell.   We even had a phone call once from someone who had bought a load, concerned that no smell meant it was no use.   That phone call stands out in my memory as refreshingly different.

UPGRADED

I was really glad to hear something as basic as farmyard manure elevated to fertiliser.   The old farming fraternity spoke of “muck-cart” or “dung-cart” and as one wife said it had taken many years to get her husband to call it that, never mind “manure”.   Nice to find something being up-graded.

POLLEN

The other commodity going out this month has been grain from last year’s harvest.   Loading it is a dusty job and masks are worn when moving it.  Grain is dusty because it is dried and threshed so it is inevitable.   It also has masses of pollen when it is in flower – masses of pollen because it is wind pollinated and needs to blow about.    Grass is the same and hay fever from grass pollen is a well-recognised misery- that also is wind pollinated.

OIL SEED RAPE!!! ???

We have recently been receiving phone calls (not from the Hallmark area) about oil seed rape.   The neighbouring field has for some years been grass and the children already have to use inhaler puffers (hay fever?).    We have apparently upset their apple cart because they thought we had planted oil seed rape and they don’t like it.    It is true it has a pollen, but it is spread by the bees so it needs much less than grass, therefore doesn’t need to blow about as much.    I fancy that maybe they just don’t like the look of the bright yellow flowers.   No Van Goghs living there obviously!   The funny side is that rape seed oil is another “in” product, grown to make healthy unsaturated vegetable oil and environmentally friendly diesel fuel.   It is being encouraged.    Furthermore it is not rape that is planted there, it is linseed.    They don’t believe me, they even say linseed and rape are the same thing, they always say they want my husband, it’s him they’re after.   Well, next time, have him – the cheek of it – what will they ask for next?

MAY 1993

WORSE THAN CRAZY

If you have heard it said that the crop registration, map marking and form filling that the farming world has had to go through in the past few weeks has been enough to drive them crazy, just don’t you believe it, it has been worse than that.

PROFIT

You could argue that they already were crazy anyway, and sometimes when I consider the round the clock commitment that goes into it, especially on small livestock farms, I must concede you could have a point there.   But that is just it.    A farmer wants to farm.  Profit?   Yes, of course you try to make a profit, but that is not the all of it.   There is also a need to grow crops or breed cattle, or just work with the animals that is inherent, and it cannot be denied.  Without that, nothing will be any good anyway.   It is this same over-riding factor that can get you into difficulties, by just going on working, and because you’re tired at the end of the day, assuming that what you’re doing will pay.    It ain’t necessarily so.

VALUE OF THE POUND

Fortunately the change in the value of the pound against the other currencies this year is a big help, and we are hoping to be able to update some of our machinery, but more about that next time.

A DOMESDAY BOOK

So, as I already said “farmers farm because they want to farm”.    They do not want to be salesmen, doctors, dentists, solicitors, or accountants – they would prefer not to have anything to do with them given a choice.    But most of all I suspect they would least like to work in offices.    And suddenly, there before them was this need to supply the information for a 1993 Domesday Book.

“IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED THIS PAPER SEND FOR IT”

It was perhaps fortunate that John started working on this in good time.  It shouldn’t have been difficult to do, he thought, before he started.    But how wrong can you be? Our farm is very fragmented and the maps required were in several different areas.    They are also expensive and on some of them only small corners were needed.   Some maps were different scale from others, and the boundaries didn’t coincide.    Sometimes it was acres, sometimes hectares and the newest maps didn’t put the scales on at all (how is that for progress).    Some fields are being cropped part one crop, part another.   Some fields had to be surveyed because they had been reshaped, or had conservation areas planted in them. Fields have been set-aside, farm roads have been concreted in, the permutations seemed endless.   Carefully referring to the example given, which was a map and the explanation of how to fill in the accompanying form, it became apparent that the explanation did not refer to the map.   This piece of confusion came as almost a relief, comic relief perhaps, black perhaps.   And so it went on until as a final word of advice it said that if this paper (which you were at that time reading) had not been received, please send for it…. I suppose there is method in the madness, isn’t there?

JULY 1993

TIME

Because I have a particular interest in local history, I have spent a good number of hours talking to people older than myself.    Without exception, when I complained how the years flew by, they told me “It goes quicker as you get older”.   I can only conclude that I am getting older very quickly.   At the start of the year I have a desk dairy, in which I write the appointments, birthdays and things that must be done, such as the monthly accounts and V.A.T return, staff wages and Hallmark article.   Then other personal appointments to get juggled in between.   Meanwhile daily life goes on with home and farm and I try to write daily about anything significant that has happened.  Thus, when I come to write this article there should be plenty of material to build on. Today, I haven’t bothered to look, I know I haven’t written in it for ages.    There just hasn’t been time!

NO HAY

During the last two months the usual yearly things have been done.    Two cuts of grass for silage, six weeks or so between.    Hay making if we decide to make any.   This year we decided against hay, the weather in June is often so precarious, so we put all the grass into silage.    It turned out therefore that early June and early July were glorious hay-making weather.    By late June all the barns must be empty, and cleaned out ready for harvest, which starts with winter sown barley anytime from mid-July.   And all the machinery must be ready.

PROMISES, PROMISES

This year there was “Village Day”, held alternate years with Lacey Green Productions big musical in our barn.  Though as the fame of the latter goes from strength to strength I wonder how much longer our barn will be big enough.  Naturally, we are much more aware of the enormous preparations that going into that than we are of the Village Day, as much of it happens under our noses.   Or as they might put it, in the West’s ear and in their noses, as the cattle sheds opposite are cleaned out prior to it.    But Village Day did bring its little traumas to us, as no doubt to others.    We gullibly said ”yes” to loans of trailers, tractors, drivers and fencing stakes, only to find that between us we had been talking to different organisations and had promised more than we had got.    We then had to go to other farmers, for example Mrs King at Grymsdyke Farm lent us a trailer, and a farmer at Long Crendon lent more fencing stakes.   So our thanks to them for bailing us out, and congratulations to the Village Day Committee, who put it all together.

“OLD TENNIS COURT”?

On a purely personal note, and I admit I have only myself to blame.    I had assumed when suggestions for a name for the new close of houses on the site of the old tennis court were requested, that they would be something to do with this historic building,   Maybe I wouldn’t have thought of a name that others would have liked, but I didn’t even try.   Why didn’t I find just that little bit of time, to write, ring or speak to someone to try to keep at least a reminder of and a little historical interest in that unusual building.

LOCAL HISTORY

And what has local history got to do with the farm?   It was the farm that first got me hooked on it.    The history of the farm is so bound up with the villages that they cannot be separated.    And by the villagers, don’t think just of houses, they are important, but they have come and gone even more than people.   There are one or two of us interested specifically in the history of Lacey Green and Loosley Row, so if you have an old house and you know its history, or your ancestors have lived here, we would be glad to hear from you. We may even know more about yourselves than you do!

1843

Meanwhile the harvest is ready, the forty labourers have their sickles sharp, they are ready to reap, stook, and cart, the women and children are ready to go gleaning, there will be work and food for the winter, if it would only stop raining.   Sorry, got carried away, it is not 1843, its 1993.

1993

Meanwhile the harvest is ready, the farm is five times the size, the combined harvester with it’s one driver can bring corn in to EEC storage standards, he and two men carting the grain with tractors and trailers just need the rain to stop for a while.   The combine harvester is crucial.    Ours was twelve years old. The changes in the value of the pound and the green pound have been a big help in this past year, and we have at last updated our machine.   Now we would really appreciate some sunshine, so that it can earn it’s keep without too much hassle.

SEPTEMBER 1993

“ENGLAND” OBSOLETE

Harvest is over, and next year’s crops are being planted, no time between, in fact the two things overlap.  We are really busy.   It isn’t just the ploughing, cultivation and drilling, there are so many calves born at this time of the year.   Ten in one day last week.   I think that is a record for us.   They also all need a passport.   These are identification records which the E.E.C, in its wisdom, thought we could while away the odd hour filling in.   They also have ear tags.   The dairy herd consists of about one hundred and sixty cows, each of whom calve every year.  In order to be organised we ordered 500 number tags a month ago, only to have a phone call today saying that they cannot be used after November.   It seems they read ‘England’ and they much read ‘U.K’, or vice versa, I can’t remember which, I was so annoyed.   What happened to ‘Great Britain’ anyway?

NEW REGS. TIGHT-ROPE

A new set of set-aside regulations has been made.   The book of them dropping on the mat as another thing to be studied in that spare hour.  It isn’t surprising that there are changes, as the whole common agriculture policy has been put together so quickly, and in any case when production is controlled something always goes out of balance.   Keeping to the if’s and but’s, the do’s and don’ts is like walking on a tight rope.

AGRICULTURAL SHOWS

The run of Agricultural Shows is coming to an end.   The Royal Agricultural Show of England, four days in early July is one we reckon to go to, the first day if we can. This is held on a permanent site at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire, so it is well established with proper roads, buildings and good facilities, and well worth a visit by anyone it is so diverse.   It used to move around the country, the stock exhibitors sleeping in their lorries and trailers, and from the tales I have been told, a good deal of fun was had, of the “hoist someone’s clothes up the flagpole during the night” sort of thing.    I hope that with all the smart accommodation they still let their hair down, at the end of what are very long days with their animals.   My father was a judge of pedigree pigs and he would say how moved he had been when at the Royal Welsh Show, how after dark, the men had spontaneously gathered up on the hillside and sung, their voices carrying down to the showground in the valley.    He made many good friends on the showing and judging circuit.

SHOW JUDGING

John had judged the corn crops for Thame Show this summer, and was given two tickets, so we went to that one this year.  Richard judged beans, peas and linseed crops at Newbury and was given two tickets for that, which is a two day show and has a good reputation, though John and I haven’t been to it for years, you just cannot go to them all.   One we have never missed is Bucks County show.   Very much a trade hospitality afternoon as far as we are concerned.   Nice to get treated by those you have traded with, though I guess we have paid for it times over in a roundabout way.    All though the summer the Chiltern Hills Agricultural Association hold their competitions for growing crops.   We managed first prize for grassland, but only third for linseed in the crops.   We got fourth for the best farm garden.   I think even this was lucky as the garden was nowhere near as good as I would have liked.   The roses saved our day I think, as it seem that Black Spot was rife this year when it was judged in early July ours were still looking really good.

PLOUGHING MATCH CATERING

The final show of the year is Smithfield in London in December.    But the last show for us is the Chiltern Hills Ploughing Match in October.    John is on the committee and some years ago when things were rather down, volunteered himself to run the bar and me to do the catering, and we’ve done it ever since.  It really is a busy day but it is a good atmosphere, even if like last year when it poured with rain, it can get a bit steamy as everyone squeezes into the marquee.    Good to see the regular competitors from year to year, and nice to find some new faces among them. I suppose we really enjoy it, else we wouldn’t do it. And I guess that’s farming anyway!

NOVEMBER 1993

NIGHT WANDER

As nobody has asked any farming questions since the last edition, I will continue letting my mind wander over the “good life” of the farmers.   In reality my wandering had started in the night. John had got up at two o’clock to look at a cow that he thought might calve.   I went to sleep again, knowing he would call Richard if necessary.   I woke when he returned, icy cold, to bed.   Then, not able to drop off again, thought a trip to the bathroom might help.   Without putting on the light, so as not to disturb him, I wandered round the bed, tripped over and fell headlong inside the wardrobe, the door of which had swung open.  I’m just thankful it didn’t swing shut on me; as it was John had a job to make out where all the racket was coming from as he was dragged from his sleep yet again.   He has spent a lot of broken sleep this autumn getting up to the calving cows, but the calves have been overlarge and many needed help and some had to have caesareans.

EXHAUSTION

Getting exhausted is always risky, because it is then that accidents are more likely to happen.   On returning from a friends birthday lunch one Sunday, tired and full, a dangerous combination as far as concentration goes, John filled the paraffin tank of the burner to the grain dryer, spilled the paraffin, which ignited and immediately sent a sheet of driven flame onto the old wooden barn.   Quick thinking and efficient fire extinguishers put it out, but it’s the sort of thing that shouldn’t happen.  The fire brigade arrived within ten minutes, all credit to them, but they only had to check that all was well.

UNIQUE INCIDENT

It is after such an incident that great care must be taken, as being shaken by what has happened something else equally silly can occur.   Some years ago, in somewhat similar circumstances, a man went to do some quiet cultivating to get over the strain of the crisis just averted.   After a while he got off the tractor to clear some rubbish that had built up in the cultivator.   He had not put the brake on the tractor and it started to move.   The ground was fairly flat with a slight ridge ahead.  He didn’t fancy trying to get on the tractor and judged that the ridge would stop it.   It didn’t.   Gathering momentum as it went down the hill the other side it headed straight for the only house in sight.   In no time at all it had gathered up the line of washing as it passed and delivered it right through the house wall and into the kitchen.   I knew something was very wrong when I answered the phone to be told “No, no nothing was wrong.   Just get John to come straight away.  No, no need to bring anything, it wasn’t a puncture”.   It certainly wasn’t!   It’s not every day that you see your washing being brought in draped round a tractor, and I imagine this householder, who in my book deserves a medal.   It could qualify for the Guiness Book of Records.

A GOOD LIFE

So, yes Ted, it is a good life, as long as you can successfully keep burning the candle at both ends.   We are now looking forward to Christmas, which with all the turkeys we rear and prepare is an extra busy time. But it’s also a good time seeing so many familiar faces, and getting the family together over the holiday is great and every one gives a hand with the work.   I don’t think we would get though it so well if we didn’t have a sense of humour, and we wouldn’t feel we had earned Christmas if we were not exhausted.

HUMOUR

Mrs Morris, who was a farmer’s wife, now 92, still enjoyed a good laugh.   She said sometimes she laughed a bit late, because at her age it was a long way back to remember what some of the joke were about.   She came to a lunch party we gave for our daughter’s 21st.   She was saying her false teeth had got a bit loose, and at a performance the Risborough school had given she had laughed so much that they had jumped right out into the lap of the man next to her.   She had to grab for them, and he had said “Hey, what are you after?”  I never did hear the end of it, because in the telling it had happened again, and if anyone thinks it is only youngsters that create any uproar, believe me she would have given anyone a good run for their money that day.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

So, we wish all readers a “Very Merry Christmas”. Thank you for all the help and consideration given to us over the year, and may you have many laughs during the new year, hopefully not at silly things done by Stocken Farm.

MARCH 1994

PLAY GROUND

1994 is the “Year of the Family”.  In Lacey Green and Loosley Row a few families have resolved to make this a better place for children, so this is indeed an appropriate year to put words into action.    Their enthusiasm has certainly impressed me, but, as with all things it seems, they will have to do a lot of fund raising as their project is the construction of a new public playground for which they have permission to build in the corner of the Sports Ground.   But as I recall, over the thirty years that I have lived here, the best times the village had were when everyone was pulling together for something.  I am also aware that the population is compelled to move much more than it used to, so to find people voluntarily putting a great effort into something they may have to leave, I find impressive.

RAISING MONEY

“What?” you are probably wondering “Is she going on about this for?” when she is supposed to write about what is happening on the farm.    Actually, I am wondering myself.   I sat down, pen poised, all prepared to write about scientific developments in pregnancy testing – of cows – I hasten to add, but the article ran away with me.  But as I’ve started I’ll continue and tell you what is planned to be happening this spring. And that brings me back to raising money and the playground.

AN EXTRA PERFORMANCE

This is one of the years for Lacey Green Productions to stage one of their “not to be missed” musicals.   It only effects the farm in that we have to make sure the grain store is emptied in time for rehearsals to start.   From then in it is music while you work for us while they practice.   With money for the new playground in mind we have asked them to put on an extra performance for us and will endeavour to sell the tickets to the farming community outside their usual audience catchment.   They are also planning an extra matinee on Sunday 3<sup>rd</sup> July, which seems a good idea for children and those who prefer not to go out later in the evenings.   The other usual shows are later that week.    After that it is stages away and on with the harvest by then waiting impatiently in the wings

MAY 1994

MINISTRY ERRORS

The past couple of months have been really frustrating.    Firstly because there is a lot of extra work in the office due to the end of the farm financial year with its attendant stock taking and accounting.    Also the second annual return of the IAC forms the maps which though not such a nightmare as last year were certainly enough to cause some headaches, not helped by some of the forms having wrong figures put in them by the Ministry.

FARM TAX YEAR

The end of May is the end of our tax year because there is less stock-taking to do then.    Last year’s corn has been sold, the hay and straw used and the beef cattle have gone.    The barns stand empty ready for cleaning for the coming year.   This leaves the dairy herd, the herd replacements, next year’s beef and the growing crops to evaluate.   They always seem to make it take all day, which means lunch has to be provided when I’m sure a good mornings work could see it done, especially when a lot of the figures I give them straight out of the accounts.

COSTLY ‘FREE’ LUNCH

There is one good thing for sure, the lunch won’t cost us as much as the one we had the other day.    It was a hen pheasant which for reasons known only to itself flew right through the window of one of the farm houses, smashing the window and its head into the bargain. It costs us fifty pounds to repair the window.   Actually none of us are over keen on pheasant but on this occasion thought we had better savour every morsel.

LOADING LORRIES

The lorries that have been coming to collect the grain get more and more sophisticated.   The drivers go off for a week at a time living in the cabs, ringing ahead to arrange their stops and collections.   A few shovels full with the loader and twenty five tonnes is loaded ready for the off.   The little bags of 1 cwt size which are so handy are now a rarity, and we ration them out as if they were something precious.   Pallets, shinkwrap and half tonne bags are now the norm and waste plastic is a scourge around the farm and is always having to be picked up.

CATTLE SOLD ELECTRONICALLY

The last of the beef cattle were taken to Thame market but more and more we are selling electronically.    A video of them is filmed on the farm, shown at the auction and they are collected by the buyer straight from the farm.    It seems to work very well and the system is gaining popularity.

OVER QUOTA

The other really frustrating thing that happened was that we produced more than our annual quota of milk.   We could see it was going to happen.  National quota is so much, of which we are allocated so many litres.   Those under balance are set off against those over balance nationally.   This is the threshold balance.   This year it is estimated that the national threshold will be two per cent.   Our milk production turned out to be three per cent over our quota.   The alternative was to surreptitiously get rid of seventeen thousand pints of milk, which we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do.  It is true that many did throw milk away and the MMB appealed to farmers not to do this all in the last two or three days as there would be a shortfall of fresh milk for the public at that time if they did.

WEATHER GAMBLE

Most frustrating of all is the weather.   The silage should have been made ten days ago.   The forecasters keep promising an improvement.    Holding back waiting for this has been an anxious time and will only be a gamble paid off if the better weather comes.    Dry silage is good silage and much more socially acceptable, but it is getting very late.

JULY 1994

HOLIDAY JOBS

Children used to spend their summer holidays working on the farms.    Now it is difficult to find suitable jobs for even the older students to do.    Now the parents have to keep them occupied and I dare say they are watching the weather forecast as avidly as we are.   Making the right farming decisions – should we push on with the combining or dare we wait to get the corn that bit dryer – can we get away with having a weekend off trusting it won’t rain or should the farm staff work to get the straw baled and in while the going is good?    The answers can make the difference between an easy operation and at worst a long-drawn-out, expensive poor quality season.

JUST IN TIME

We do watch the weather forecast and in general find it very accurate.   But forecasters were right about the wet weather we had from mid-May to mid-June.   We kept hanging on waiting to make the silage, keeping our fingers crossed that it would improve.    It did, but only just in time.

POWER CUT

We sat watching a thunderstorm at eight o’clock one evening in mid-June, when it was so dark we had to light candles, the electrics having blown.    We were wondering what it was like living in the house before electricity and how many tales it could tell if only it could talk.   For sure they wouldn’t have had Chinese take-away supper, which is what we were eating.   There used to be a fish and chip van in the village but I don’t think Chinese was one of his lines.    The storm did knock the crops about quite a bit and where it went down the pigeons have eaten the grains.

WHIRLWIND

Last week, with temperatures rising, the wind picked up the rows of cut straw and carried it in a whirling funnel across the village, as if in the Caribbean not Lacey Green.   This was unlucky for us as we were about to bale it, and unlucky for the gardens it landed in – unless, of course, they had a use for a layer of straw.

FINE IN NAPHILL

Then another storm, just when the oil seed rape was ripe.   The tiny seed are in brittle pods which easily shatter in rough weather.   They had started to combine the rape at Naphill, when the storm broke, and the wind, rain and hail pelted down. “Good-bye to that crop” we thought.   When it has eased we went to Naphill.   The road was awash as far as the garage in the centre and beyond that it was dry.  The combine had not even had to stop – it just seemed unbelievable.

SERIOUS ABOUT WEATHER

I know that it is a standing joke that the British always talk about the weather, and what would we do without such a safe conversation ice-breaker.    Especially for some-one like me who is hopeless at remembering names and not good at placing faces, “the weather” is a reliable friend.   But when farmers discuss the weather it is not just as a social nicety, but a serious subject round which to plan each day, hoping that luck will be a lady for them too.

SWEENEY TODD SHOCK AND ROLL SHOW

This year’s musical put on by LGP was “Sweeney Todd Shock and Roll Show”.  As usual we asked them to leave their stage and lighting to use for a charitable evening of our own.   This time we also asked them to put on an extra performance for us for which we paid the ticket value.    We then sold tickets for a dinner/theatre to include drinks.  Another big cattle barn opposite was used for the meal.   Food heated in two field kitchens, old London tavern signs hung from the rafters and sawdust on the floor.   We sent away about £1,300 to charities.

SEPTEMBER 1994

“GOOD BYE M.M.B.

One thing that has without doubt been brought about by the E.E.C. is the disbandment of our Milk Marketing Board.   It has been classified as a monopoly and as such is not allowed. Whether all this upheaval is good or bad remains to be seen.   There seems to me to be a fine line between it and a co-operative, of which there are many.    A milk producer could contract with the M.M.B. to sell his own milk, even raw (green top) milk if he wanted to, so although the industry was under the overall control of the Board there was some flexibility.

BEFORE the E.E.C.

Before the Board was set up milk production was a risky business.   The dairies would come to the farm when they needed milk and buy what they wanted.  If they didn’t call or didn’t take it all the milk was fed to pigs or tipped away.   The board did away with all that waste. Their contracts were to take all the milk daily and any surplus to fresh milk requirements they manufactured into cheese, butter, cream or yogurt.    Everyone knew what price they would get and that the milk would all be sold.    When quotas came in the M.M.B. monitored each farms production and penalised them if they went over their limit.   It all worked very well.

NEW MILK SET UP

Now the dairies will be able to buy direct from the producers.   The M.M.B. has separated its milk side and called it “Milk Marque” and its products company will be called “Dairy Crest”, its old brand name.   There is also a breeding company called “Genus”.

VERY WARILY

Only the very largest dairies and co-operatives are big enough to tempt producers to leave the Board management but a handful are putting up quite a challenge.    Lots of promises. Northern Dairies, probably the largest, had guaranteed 1.9p per litre more than Milk Marque for the first five months.  They don’t say what happens after that!    As you can imagine farmers are holding back and only gradually are they signing contracts with one or another.

A BETTER DEAL?

You may wonder why this should interest you, but without doubt it will affect the milk consumers amongst you.    It is said that competition will give the purchaser and the producer a better deal, but now there will be shareholders to please as well.   Milk is good value both as a drink and a food.    The standard has improved so much that it now keeps for days.    The Milk Marketing Board has a record that will be difficult to better.    It will be interesting to see what the price and service to both consumer and producer will do.

OCTOBER 1994

STUCK FOR WORDS

I am in the position of sitting on the deadline totally uninspired for words. This, you may imagine is a somewhat uncomfortable position to be in.    It isn’t that nothing has been happening.    Rather the opposite.   This autumn seems to have been one long slog, both on the farm, the office and also helping John’s uncle who lives alone and had a severe stroke. The difficulty is that with this being published just before Christmas I can’t think you want to read all that in the season of merriment and good will.    Hence the shortage of inspiration.

PUTTING MY FOOT IN IT

We had three parties from the school to look round.   No doubt the parents were well aware of this considering how much of the farmyard went back to school on their boots.    It was rather “muddier” than usual as we have had two buildings altered and numerous lorries loading grain and bringing feeds.   It also managed to rain just before they came.   The only two that really managed to put their foot deeply in it were one of the adults and me.   Talk about setting an example!    It was only just before that that I had warned someone to be careful on the paving stones round the house as they were slippery when wet, then promptly sat down in a puddle myself.

5 LORRIES

With so many lorries in and out and the road works going on it has needed co-operation all round to keep things running smoothly.    Luckily the lorries all have phones and invariably ring for directions, and the men working on the road have kept us informed with regard to the position of the traffic lights.    One night two twenty five tonne lorries parked overnight down the yard ready to start loading early in the morning.    At eight thirty a.m. they were joined by another and fourth delivering cattle food.  Then the milk tanker pulled in.  To say the yard was congested would be putting it mildly.   One of the drivers wandered up to the house with his washbag saying that he couldn’t seem to wake up that morning.    Just shows what an evening at a local pub can do for you.   Everyone else was certainly wide awake.   It seemed as if a day’s work had been done by mid-morning.

CATS

The other thing we have are masses of cats.   There always have been lots of farm cats and we’ve always given them milk.    However about eighteen months ago Richard rescued a tiny black kitten which to all appearances looked dead.    It survived, matured and was reintroduced to the wild ones outside.    Mission accomplished you might think.   But no.  He was tame and would come back in the house, so when the dogs were fed at night he had some too.    So he spread the word.   First he brought a friend, then two, now there are at least a dozen.   Open the door at night and between twenty and thirty green eyes glow in the dark across the doorstep.    The collie who happily chases them in the day, has to be ordered out past the eyes when it’s time to check the cows at night.   So now it’s not only the dogs but umpteen cats being fed.    At least they make a marvellous job of keeping down the vermin.

HAPPY 1995

We are hoping to take our grandchildren to see Dick Wittington this Christmas so we have been getting jenned up on the story     His cat brought him a fortune.    So far Richard’s kitten/cat has brought us a lot more cats.    So we live in hope, and meantime, like the cats, keep working for our living.   And perhaps it is an appropriate time to say once more how we appreciate your help, interest and tolerance, and to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a Happy 1995 from all of us at Stocken Farm.

JANUARY 1995

WORK FROM HOME by 2000

An article I was reading recently predicted that by the year 2000 a large percentage of people would work from home rather than offices.  Things are already moving that way in the agricultural world.   The companies we deal with and the advisors we consult at the Ministry of Agriculture are examples.      They use private homes and cars, using computers, fax machines and telephones.   Increasingly if we want to talk face to face they come to us, often at lunch time as that is when we are all in and they don’t seem to object to talking over a meal.    It cuts out the cost of running an office and the distance one man can cover is enormous.

COMPUTERS & LAPTOPS

Certainly touch typing is going to be a distinct advantage and I don’t mean just for female secretaries.    Many men will need good finger touch for their laptops.    Letters will become unnecessary as fax machines and emails take over when the bulk of it is done from the home.   As a personal recommendation from one who certainly started how she did not mean to carry on, make sure you establish the ground rules right from the start, if your man starts working from home.    Make sure he knows the place, in which to do his paperwork that is, for he will produce mountains of it before he realises half of it isn’t necessary.

KEEP OUT OF IT

Whatever you do, don’t have anything to do with it.   Eventually you may have to search for him under the lengthy printouts.   Drag him out when you need him.    This may not be ideal but it is better than tidying it up.  If you do you will be stuck with it and he will continue piling it up.   He will also have someone to blame when he loses or hasn’t done something.  If appropriate, please read “man” for “woman” and vice versa in this paragraph.

FARM IS THE BOSS

Many of our friends are coming up for retirement and the partners are just not used to being at home together.  Not a problem in the farming community as they will have worked it out all along, or they would be no longer together anyway.    Funnily enough most farming couples do seem to stick.   Maybe it is because they are pulling together and both are being dictated to by the farm.   What you do is governed by the animals and crops and their needs.   It’s no good saying you don’t feel like doing things today.  That way, tomorrow would find you broke.   So when we say “We run a farm”, perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say “The farm runs us”.   And perhaps that makes the discipline of working at home easier for us.

DISCIPLINE

It must take a lot of self - discipline and motivation to work from home, so I’ll say “Congratulations” to those who do and “Good luck” to those who are going to, while I go back to the paper mountain we call “the office”.

MARCH 1995

N.F.U.

Some non-farming people will have heard of the Nation Farmer’s Union – the main voice for agriculture.   It is not as powerful as some European organisations, simply I imagine because there are getting so few farmers.    I’m not sure at what stage we will become an endangered species, but it must be getting close.    The numbers of farmers has dropped dramatically over the years and that drop is expected to continue.    The N.F.U. is not an organisation with teeth but its lobbying has had some important success.

W.F.U.

Also working quietly, with a good deal of common sense, is the Women’s Farming Union. They are currently promoting several ideas.    One fact that they are trying to bring to notice is about veal.    Although it is not the most popular meat here, nevertheless a considerable amount is eaten, and 20,000 of the calves exported from the U.K each year are re-imported as veal.

CRAZY

Is that crazy, or what?    The W.F.U. is monitoring which European veal producers are using loose housing and producing pink not white veal.    That is, not using calf pens, not giving daylight and not an all milk diet.   This method of calf rearing is banned here, so question the source of veal in catering establishments or make sure you buy British.    Across the Channel, veal is the favourite meat.   If the welfare of calves is your true concern lobby for better welfare for the calves throughout the European Union.   If we stop sending from the U.K. the shortfall will simply be made up from the eastern block – with even longer journeys for the animals, and looser controls.

NATIONALITY CHANGE

One of the strange things that happens when animals are exported live is that they change their nationality.    English Beef animals sold into Scotland become Scotch beef, Welsh or Romney Marsh lambs become French or Dutch lambs in France or Holland, French eggs become English if packed here and so on.   It’s all a question of labelling.   Strange isn’t it?

MAY 1995

USUAL CHALLENGE

So, what’s new?    What adds that extra challenge to life?   Correct!     It’s the weather – again!

The April showers were non-existent, so the flowers that bloom in May, were over before they had hardly begun.   But, much worse from the farm’s point of view, was that the grass for the next winter’s silage fodder was down in quantity about 50% of normal.   Not a good prospect and the maize, also for winter conservation, which only just has a long enough growing season here at the best of years, lays in the ground not germinating.

GOOD FOR THE BIRDS

It was another mild winter, which makes life easier for us, but also means that the pests have survived and are now multiplying mightily.   The song birds and ladybirds are having a bonanza on the greenfly so, as usual, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.    The wild mallard are nesting, as usual, and we have a green woodpecker in the garden.   I am a little concerned as I thought it was dead trees that attracted them and I don’t know where it lives.

TOUGH CHICKS

Our grandchildren, coming up three, are very cross with the fox that has eaten a bantam hen.   We had to have her chicks in the kitchen to keep them warm.  Protecting these orphans from the over-affectionate cuddles & kisses bestowed on them by the children is somewhat difficult, and if these chicks survive both the jaws of the fox and the adoration of the children, they will certainly be some really tough chicks!

OAK SAYS “DRY SUMMER”

We are delighted with a new grandson, Nicholas and are looking forward to Maxine and Richard’s wedding.   We won’t start worrying about what to feed the cows on next winter ‘til after that.   Maybe the grass will grow well for a second cut of silage.    If the old saying is true the oak in leaf before the ash means a dry summer, well one of the ash trees is still not out.     Or does the woodpecker know more about that tree than we do?

JULY 1995

THUNDERSTORMS

The dry year continues which is a mixed blessing.   We have started combining and the grain is dry enough to store without further drying and that is a big saving in work and cost.  Qualitywise it hasn’t affected ours as much as those on sandy land where the crops have just shrivelled up, but for really plump grain we did need rain earlier on.   Now with one quarter of our crops in, there are thunderstorms forecast.  This rain will be too late to help them and we just hope it won’t knock them down.  

BROWN GRASS

Rain would however help our grass, which is in a desperate state.   It looks almost dead, but it does have a remarkable way of recovering after rain.  In the meantime the cattle have no grazing and we are feeding them the conserved fodder which we had put by for the winter, and we only managed to get about half the usual amount of that, because the drought had already started before it was made.   The animals like the hot weather and look really well, but it isn’t good for milk production.   The cows ideally have a calf every twelve months, the last two of which they are dried off from giving milk.   To save feed we have resorted to drying them off a month earlier than usual, so they sit around enjoying the sunshine.   It’s not what we’ve got them for but it seemed the best option.   What we feed them on when winter comes having used that food in the summer has yet to be conjured with.

ROYAL SHOW with SAM

The first week in July is the Royal Agricultural show at Stoneleigh in Warwickshire.   This four day event has something for everybody, not just farmers.  This year we took our three year old grandson, Sam, who found things fascinating and his enjoyment added to our day too.

BULK MILK TANKS

John and Richard were seriously looking at bulk milk tanks as we plan to replace ours.   The tanks are stainless steel refrigerators and not cheap so of course price comes into it.   But there are other considerations.   Since the Milk Marketing Board was done away with, no one company competing for the milk goes to every farm. This makes them more anxious than ever to collect milk every other day instead of daily and for this they pay an incentive.   It then means having a much larger tank and in our case could mean our dairy would need extending.   It would need a very good incentive to make that worthwhile.   The new tanks are much cheaper to run than the old ones, and ours is still young enough to be saleable, so we will certainly update it.   So do we go for a big enough tank to go for the alternate day collection bonus?  What a toss-up!    Heads or tails?

NEW RUMOUR

After looking at different makes, sizes and shapes and nearly deciding, another possibility was rumoured.   Some supermarkets and shops like Marks and Spencer, who want to use ‘fresh milk’ as a sales line, are proposing an incentive to larger producers, if their milk is collected daily.   Can we qualify as a large enough producer if this came about?    Maybe, but at this stage we don’t know what that means and we don’t know if it will become anything more than just a proposal.   So right now we’re back to the drawing board, so as to say, with less idea than ever of what we are trying to draw.

SEPTEMBER 1995

CATTLE BREEDING

Cattle breeding used to be a very haphazard affair subject to whichever bull happened to be doing the rounds at the time.   Now it has become as sophisticated as it used to be simple.   The pedigree breeders show their animals and look for perfection and, although we do not do that, we have been breeding ours carefully for many generations.

COWS FAMILY TREE

We keep all the Friesian female calves for the milking herd.   They have their first calf at two years and annually thereafter, and as the oldest can be, as now, fourteen years old and we’ve been keeping them for sixty years, we have quite a family tree on the female side.

TOP OF THE ‘POPS’

During those sixty years, commercial dairy farmers were by now keeping their own bulls but they no longer do that, having changed to artificial insemination (AI).   Now, only the very best bulls are kept and they live at AI centres.   Their daughters are monitored and the production, ease of calving and certain confirmation statistics of these are published in a catalogue from which the bulls are chosen, thought to be most suitable for each cow.   It is ironic that in order to get the required facts at least four years must pass, meanwhile the semen is frozen, stored in ‘straws’.   By then the bull has the frozen potential to sire millions of calves, but is possible that by then he is dead and gone.   Tough if he turns out to be “top of the pops” and isn’t around to share the glory!  These super bulls are expensive to use and if, for example, the cow might not conceive, the ‘bull of the day’ rather than a nominated animal would be chosen.   Needless to say that having the use of these proven animals all herds have improved immensely.

PERSONAL

Therefore when I say that our animals are personal to us it is because we know them so well.   They have been planned, their potential discussed, any weaknesses improved.   They are born in the field in front of the house so they can be constantly watched.  There is immense satisfaction in hearing the gentle lowing of a cow as she nuzzles her newborn calf.   On the other hand comes the sorrow of losing a cow or a calf – a sense of having let them down – that you ought to have been able to do something more.   Worse still making the decision that must be made when the animal is no longer commercially viable.   A farm cannot be the equivalent to the ‘Horses Home of Rest” for cows.   They have to go and making that decision is hard.  The old-fashioned knackerman is the least distressing way out.   The animal is put down on the farm – the meat used for zoos and pet food.   It is the worst part of farming.

‘SHAMUS’

All this summer we agonised over our old long-retired riding horse,’ Shamus’.  He had lost condition but the vet said he was in no distress – just old.    He is a sociable horse, enjoying the children going past his field, still enjoying a roll on the grass, although a bit stiff in getting back up.   Then someone contacted the League for the Protection of Horses and a man duly called.   He too said the horse was alright, just old, but he suggested we have him put down to prevent more calls about him.   What?!!!    I don’t know what the man reported back to whoever called them out.   I asked him to thank them, tell them we would have the horse shot, and that I hoped they would have someone who cares for them in the same way when they get old.    No doubt Shamus’s day will come, but that will be when we and our vet decide the time is right. 

  

NOVEMBER 1995

OUR TELEPHONIST

“Stocken Farm. Who do you wish to speak to?” said our three year old telephonist as yet again he beat us to the phone.   Very nicely answered, except that unless the caller specifically asked for you he would be told that the person wasn’t in and the phone firmly replaced.    It was a mixed blessing.    At least it made sure calls were answered but it ruled out taking messages, which was often all that was needed.    Certainly if John or Richard were down the farmyard they wouldn’t want to be fetched to the phone, and they would have left information for anyone they were expecting to ring in.    Likewise, if it was a query about Christmas turkeys, I would have briefed everyone so orders could be taken or discussed by anyone in the house.    Now I find the facility for getting back to the last caller increasingly useful.    Yet another improvement in communications.

USED TO TOGETHERNESS

Communication is such a vital thing, and “improving” all the time.   I imagine that talking is still the best way to sort things, bouncing ideas off each other.   It leads to some strange conversations though.   Because the family is so used to working or being together the replies are often left unspoken so a “conversation” is a series of statements, ideas thrown into the melting pot, comments, everyone assuming the others have picked up their point.   Sometimes this circle of talk goes astray but usually everyone gets their ideas on board and acts or thinks on what has been said.   Farming families are around each other more than most.   So there’s one thing that won’t be a problem, such as many of our non-farming friends are having as they get to retirement age.  They are just not used to being together all day.   At least this is something we have lived with all the time, so we’re used to it.

CHINESE FARMS

Actually, I’m not sure that farmers ever truly retire, it’s so much part of them that they can’t help being always interested.    John and I do go away more than we did, but we are always “farming”.  Very often the tours are specifically arranged for farmers to look around other farms.    We have this year been to China on just such a visit.   This vast country is in a position to make a huge difference to world food supplies be they importers or exporters. They are making rapid progress but they have plenty of scope for more.   We found wherever we went we attracted a crowd and were invited in proudly to see their stock, which was often a pig living contentedly in a sty in with the copper boiler and which was also the bathroom.   This would be off the kitchen area and very useful for giving the scraps to the pigs.    One thing is for sure, they grow superb vegetables, double cropping the fertile land.   Most of it is grown in strips much as it was here before the enclosures.   They have a massive population to feed.   The potential is enormous, but if their standard of living improves, so will their demand.

JANUARY 1996

COLD & DAMP

When I first knew the farmhouse it was obviously old, even though it had electricity and a telephone.   The telephone was in a hall in the middle of the house, but in bad weather you needed to put on an overcoat before using it, as it was so cold and damp there.   Since then a damp course has been put in.   The council measured the damp and the reading went over the top of the scale even in the fireplaces in the centre of the house.  We also put in central heating.  We retained the Aga cooker and opened up the two big fireplaces, which had been modernised.   Just as well we kept them as this weekend we had a feel of the good old days when the heating went off.   In truth, the fuel oil had run out.   It was cold damp weather outside and in.   The walls are single brick with no cavity, so a hand on a wall inside is a good indicator of what is going on outside.  This weekend a hand on the wall said “cold”.

UNDERSTANDING

The big fireplaces are temperamental, also the Aga. You have to build up an understanding with them.   The chimneys are very big and wide and it takes a lot of air to make a good draught for them.   When we first lit the fire in the sitting room,   it recycled the air by pulling the smoke straight back down the next chimney into the dining room,   then back through the house. We tried lighting both fires at the same time.  This worked, but together they drew so much air that within minutes they had put out the Aga in the kitchen by pulling air down that chimney.   Putting a wood burning stove in one room solved that problem.

CANDLES BLEW OUT

This weekend found us huddled round the fire wanting to go to bed with all our clothes on, the house was so cold.   No wonder people used to wear so much in the way of bed socks, night caps and so on.   The worst trouble was the wind, which found every nook and cranny and whistled though doors and secondary glazed windows like an orchestra playing.   I knew it had the reputation for being a cold and draughty house where the candles would blow out.   I can surely believe it.   At least we have electricity now.   Perhaps all the houses were like that or were the farmhouses in the nature of the cobblers children going worst shod – the farm buildings getting the most attention.  The back of the house is exposed to the N.E. wind and it felt as if there was nothing between it and Siberia.

ANIMALS JUST KNOW

It is amazing how the animals know how to shelter from the wind - back to the hedge or a tree, yet in a severe gale out in the open for safety from falling trees.

The farm animals all live inside throughout the winter and eventually go out when spring comes.

BY-PRODUCTS

This winter we are very short of food for them so that may be the deciding factor for when that has to happen.    After last year’s dry summer the hay, silage, corn and straw is all so scarce that the rations are being made up with by-products from human food stuffs, such as sugar beet pulp, citrus pulp, Ovaltine and coffee grounds, which we are familiar with.   But this year we are having to look at other ingredients and having to get expert advice on the analysis in order to keep the rations balanced correctly.

SPRING

The cold weather makes working more difficult.   Hopefully by the next edition spring will be well on its way and this problem will have been resolved somehow or another.

APRIL 1996

B.S.E.

I suspect that you are heartily sick of hearing about B.S.E.   Well, you can’t be more than we are.   I could have called it “Mad Cow Disease”, it sounds so much more dramatic, but it’s not like that.   We have had some cases and the herdsman can pick them out at a very early stage, as their temperament changes.   Those cows were seen by the ministry vets who arranged for slaughter and testing.   Compensation was paid so there was every incentive to come forward with them.   We used to joke saying here it was B.S.E. but other countries called it J.C.B. disease.   Now, with talk of whole herds being destroyed if a suspect turns up, a six foot hole would be tempting.    Luckily the number of cases has been dwindled right down in England.  Unfortunately, there is not yet a way of testing live animals to tell if they are carriers.   It is believed it came from meat and bone meal, not properly sterilised.   This was stopped seven years ago, but there are still some breeding cows old enough to have had some, however unlikely.  Those animals will not go for human consumption.  They will be slaughtered when there are enough facilities for cremation which at present there are not.

WIERD RULES

The hasty rules brought in to try to appease the importers of our animals have thrown up some weird situations.   For example all animals over two and a half years will not go into the human food chain.  This generality will catch the very best beef animals.   The strong land in the Vale of Aylesbury, for instance, produces wonderful cattle.  Because they are fed entirely on grass they mature slowly at about three and a half years old.   There is your “Sir Loin”, worthy of a Kings Fare - banned.  So what about this export ban?  They can keep their bans I say.  British beef is renowned for its excellence.  They’ll soon be back wanting our breeding bulls.   And as for the calves – who wants to export them anyway – not me.

CHEAP BEEF

Meantime, I thought I’d stock the freezer with cheap beef.   Not a bit of it, everyone had the same idea I guess.  I consoled myself with a delicious steak at the “Whip”, with our daughter, son-in-law and friends who had been working on their house.   We are so pleased they have managed to move into the village, although it was a lot of work for them.   I mentioned the steak because the complement is for Brenda’s cooking. Just in case Dick, who was holding court in the bar, didn’t pass it on to her.   Of course the beef had to be good in the first place.

QUOTA PENALTY

The end of the milk quota year came. The cows have milked so well that despite cutting back their rations we were over quota and will be penalised. All work for nothing.  It’s illegal to tip it away but I guess some people will do.

GOOD -BYE to STUART

Stuart, our herdsman is leaving after 32 years. In that time the herd has grown from 50/60 cows to over 170.    We have been interviewing people to take his position. We hope we get it right.    It’s a big thing when you are uprooting a family.    Kathleen and Stuart were married soon after he started here, and I think it fair to say that this parish has benefited from their living here.    I understand that Kathleen will continue to teach at the school, they are members of the chapel and Stuart has done much for the scouts.    Far be it for the farm to take any credit for what they have done.  With a job when you start at 4 am.   I wouldn’t ask any extra of that person.    But they do live very full lives and I felt that now would be an appropriate time to say “Thank you”.

BEEF EATERS ?

I’ve written this watching the London Marathon. Such a hot day. They must be super fit, or mad, or both – perhaps they’re British beef eaters. What an example!

JULY 1996

DAZZLE

As “Dazzle” supershow shoots away into space the farm should be hurriedly getting back down to earth, now being left to itself.   The show was as usual, superb and after hearing the sounds of rehearsals for weeks we finally succumbed and went to see it.   By this time the cows were perfected in mooing in the silences and prancing during the interval.   The bull was always the first into the bar and the ridgeback dog reluctant to leave the theatre, having chosen the position with the very best view of the stage, that is, in the main aisle.   This enthusiasm by the animals was no doubt no help to the players whatsoever.   We also did our bit to make life difficult for them by letting an oil tanker bring down their electric cabling to the toilets.  But, they are nothing if not versatile and the loo cleaner transformed into the electric cable minder in no time at all.

LAST SHOW in the BARN

This is probably the last time LGP will be using our barn to stage their musical as the new village hall is now promised to be on it’s way.  

PHONE CALL OVER the BARN

Now we have certainly a lot to do getting ready for harvest.    The staff are also trying to get holidays fitted in, so we are a bit pushed, but they need to be taken and once harvest starts it is all systems go – or we hope it is.    Right now everything must be serviced and repaired.   Technology is so wonderful nowadays, isn’t it?   A long overdue repair at last got John to the phone to ask when on earth was the man coming?     Where had he got to?    The man answered on his mobile phone.  “I’m the other side of the barn, mending it” was the reply – he had just arrived.   So had John’s question bounced by satellite over the barn?

CRICKET MATCH

Meanwhile John and I as presidents, have challenged the Sports Club to a cricket match.   This, we hope, is becoming an annual event.   True, we have never beaten them, but this we feel could be the year to do it.   It is followed by the President’s Pig Roast, when hopefully an evening of family fun takes place.   We said it could all come down into the barn if it was wet and they are forecasting a deep depression, so I’m getting ready to change the barn from ‘space ship’ to ‘wild west’, which is the theme of that day.   But let us have a fine day and we’ll give those cricketers a run for their money.

OCTOBER 1996

MIXED FARM BLESSING

This year’s harvest is in, apart from the maize and that should be done any day.    The yields were good so the prices have come down and, although that means more work for the same return, it is a much more satisfying feeling than poorer crops with a higher scarcity price.    Most of the land is already sown for next year and so the cycle continues.    I will not write about cattle although they are uppermost in our minds, for that would make this article just too depressing.   We are fortunate we have a mixed farm

GLORIOUS AUTUMN

It has been a lovely summer and so far the autumn has been beautiful.   We are so lucky on these hills that we don’t get the early frosts.    There has been a marvellous crop of berries in the hedgerows and they still look dazzling.    During the winter the tables are turned and it is much colder up here than in the valleys.    Our visitors say they have to put on their thermals when they visit us then, not an enthralling thought.   We light the log firews and what could be nicer than to come in from the cold to a warm fireside?    That is if you can get near it for the dogs, who always seem to know the best pace.

NO TURKEYS

It will certainly seem different this Christmas as it is the first year we are not producing turkeys.    That has always made it one of the busiest times of the year.    Extra staff and so many people coming!   We shall miss seeing them all, but it will be good to have a more normal life.

UNIQUE RESULT

In the last Hallmark I mentioned that we had challenged the Sports Club to a cricket match.  They have beaten us in the past, so hoping they might be feeling complacent, we put together a strong team and knocked them for six.     I doubt if they will let us get away with it again, but we shall see.   We were lucky to play at all.    At 2 o’clock it was raining, but it was forecast to clear and sure enough it did.   It turned into a lovely afternoon and evening as good as any could wish.    We set great store by the weather forecasters who rarely let us down, for all that people may say.

OUR TREES

I have been told that the horse chestnut tree at the end of our drive was mature a hundred years ago.    There are other big trees also, of ash, oak and holly, and they make the backdrop of our views.    Over the past thirty years we have planted so many hardwood trees that we have lost exact count and the older of these are now making a substantial contribution.     Surprising though it may sound, buying and caring for these trees is quite costly in time and    money.   We do it because we like them, but I just thought I would blow our trumpet for a while on the subject.    We have also established areas of ground cover and wild shrub trees in awkward field corners.    It was unfortunate that one patch we planted was cleared by some well-meaning people doing some community service.    That gave us quite a surprise!    HEDGES

There are of course many hedges around the fields.    They are there for a purpose and one we planted a few years ago is nearly ready for laying.    Having said that, we dislike high hedges that prevent the wonderful views from being seen.    This is rightly designated an “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty”.    The Chilterns will never be completely returned to what they once were with woods, valleys and open hilltops.    There are just too many people and houses.    This is 1996, let’s face it.   But the hills and valleys are still there.    Let’s keep the hedgerows low enough that the views can be enjoyed by everybody and the farmers can see what their neighbouring farmers are doing, for that is a favourite pastime.    There are more hedges than ever before.    Just think how many there are around houses alone. Let’s keep hedges in perspective and make sure that we can see this A.O.N.B in which we are privileged to live.{{Property
|Type of Property=House, Farm, Cottage, Land, Pond
|Use of Property=Residential, Business, Charity, Shop
|Village=Lacey Green
}}