Stocken Farm Diary Part 1

LIFE ON STOCKEN FARM   Joan West’s report for Hallmark   July 1976-July 1986 inclusive

JULY 1976

STOCKEN FARM consists of 610 acres, 380 acres corn and 230 acres grass for our dairy herd.

SILAGE

June is one of the busiest farming months.  Conservation of grass for the winter being of vital importance – the greater part of our winter fodder is in the form of silage.   We like to cut the grass three times, while it is still quite young.   The first cut was fairly good, the second less than normal and unless it rains the third will be non-existent.

HAY

We do make some hay, mostly for the calves.   It was wonderful haymaking weather and it should be superb quality.   At the present we are down on normal conservation by 30% so we still need to make more.   However, due to this extremely dry weather, the cows are now having to graze the grass we had hoped to conserve.  

SHEEP SHEARING

Another important task at this time of the year is sheep shearing.   Although our own flock of sheep has been sold we did get involved in putting on a sheep shearing competition at the Red Cross County Fair at Booker.   It is much easier to shear when the weather is hot as the wool stands up from the skin better, but it’s a hot task for the shearer and a full time job keeping him supplied with cooling drinks.   The sheep must feel very strange at first, but as our local farmer doing the demonstration said “They be much more comfortable as streakers”.

HELICOPTER WORRY

If nothing else it is a great year for aphids.   The wheat – our most important crop – we sprayed from a helicopter.   It was due over the field next to the school at just the same time as the singing and dancing concert in the playground.  I dare say the children would have considered it great entertainment, but I had visions of a little wind-drift and all the parents of Lacey Green and District being ‘de-greenflyed’.   I must confess I was listening for that helicopter as much as to the singing and was so relieved when it arrived just as the concert ended.  The barley we have sprayed from a tractor.   It took all day to do what the helicopter did in an hour, and it’s a sad sight to see a machine driving through the corn.

BEE ALERT

Usually we can choose sprays that are harmless to bees, but if there is any possible doubt we contact the Bee Alert System, whereby all known local beekeepers are warned and can shut their hives.   This is a wonderful idea and can save much damage and ill-will.

ROGUEING WILD OATS

We are just starting one of the most unpopular jobs of the year – rogueing.   This entails walking through the corn, pulling out and destroying the wild oats – a crop that never fails to turn up.   They have no or little nutritional value and will downgrade your samples when it comes to selling.   It is a hot, tiring and boring job.   The alternative is very expensive spraying and again having to drive through the crops.   Whichever way you look at it, wild oats are certainly not a joke.

SEPTEMBER 1976

GLORIOUS SUMMER

What a glorious summer it has been.   We have dreamed of summers like this for years.  Now we have had two in a row, and personally we have enjoyed them.   Normally we have about three weeks grace after haymaking to get prepared for the corn harvest, but the crop could stand it no longer, dried out prematurely, and we were headlong into harvest.   Richard, our son, was born 7^th August 1969.   The combine was all prepared ready to start after lunch.  John was very relieved we got our little job ticked off his list before lunch, so he could get on with the harvest afterwards.   That was a very hot summer and most years we haven’t even started combining by Richard’s birthday.   This year we had finished.

STUBBLE BURNING

We were then faced with a very difficult decision – dare we burn off the stubble?   From a husbandry point of view this is very beneficial, for it kills off pests and diseases and the ash is very good for the soil, but this year with everything so dry?   We have some fields running between the woods and the R.A.F. houses at Walters Ash and Naphill.   Last year two children set light to 20 acres of straw there and three fire engines were required to control it.   The culprits told the R.A.F. police that they just wanted to see what would happen if they threw a lighted match over their shoulder.   This year two bad fires at Hampden and Prestwood, accidently started, were escalated by racing uncontrolled across unburnt stubble.   We decided to go ahead, taking care to follow all the rules, and can now say, with great relief, that three hundred acres of this potential danger have been burnt off without mishap.   As those who live near such fields will know, we do give warning when we are going to do this, so that washing is not hung out with the risk of catching any smuts.

TURKEY POULTS

While all this was going on, the day old turkey poults were arriving.   The first in the middle of July.   Those little balls of fluff should weigh over 25lbs by Christmas.   They need a lot of attention at first and then food, food and more food.   They certainly know how to eat, and we hope, how to grow.

PREPARATION FOR NEXT YEAR

So harvest is finished and we must think of next year.  At first the cultivating was near to impossible because the ground was so hard.   Then at last it rained, not a lot of rain, but enough to let the cultivator into the ground.   It may have been ‘only a drop in the ocean’ but it was amazing how it freshened things up and helped to lay the dust.

THE PRICE OF SUMMER

Certainly the lovely summer has been bought at a price.  As far as our farm is concerned we are one third down on our silage requirements, we made only one quarter the usual amount of hay, the corn was down about 20% of expected yield and the milk gallonage is down about one third even though we have been feeding the cows and cattle on full winter rations since July.   The grass in the fields is nil.   Whether it will recover with some rain remains to be seen.   It looks dead, but it can be surprisingly resilient.

PRICE OF MILK

In reply to several comments made to me lately. Please don’t be misled into thinking that the farmers are getting any extra from the recent price increase on milk.  It was one penny off the consumer subsidy which is being phased out.   I know I’m prejudiced but I still think milk is one of the best buys on the market.   When I think what our menfolk pay for a beer!  Though they most likely go out to get that so perhaps there’s more to it than meets the eye!!

PRICE OF EGGS

While on the subject of prices, some people have mentioned that eggs have gone up a lot lately.   May I redress the balance by saying that they went down a lot in the spring.   Throughout the spring and summer Mr Average Egg Producer, sending his eggs to a packing station, was losing eight pence on every dozen he produced.   Inevitably flock numbers have been cut and eggs are going back up to a more realistic price.

AUTUMN CALVES

Well, cultivations have started for next year’s crops and seed corn is ready to sow.   There are 70 cows to calve this autumn.   We must look forward – and we did enjoy all that sunshine, didn’t we?

NOVEMBER 1976

MOTHER NATURE

Many people tell us they would like to be farming – working in harmony with nature.   It sounds wonderful.   What they don’t realise is that Mother Nature’s companion is “Madam Weather”, who is the most fickle of partners.   Having scorched us all summer, she has drenched us all autumn.

PLANTING GAMBLE

Winter wheat, our most important crop, should be planted in October.   True, we did have a few dry days in October, but they were nearly all at weekends.   Our thanks to our staff, who, knowing how important this work is, turned out to get the job done.   To date, (16^th November) we have planted 80%.   It will be a gamble to plant the rest this late now, even if we are able to do so.

CALVES

Calf rearing is the other big autumn task.   83 born so far, with 21 more due this year.   The best heifers (females) are reared for the dairy herd, the rest for beef.   We prefer the cows to calve naturally in the fields, only bringing them in if there are complications and they need attention.   Last thing at night John looks round them.   Sometimes he comes back asking me to help him if an animal needs to be helped and he thinks we can manage between us.   A safe birth is very rewarding, a dead calf always a tragedy.  Stuart, the herdsman, is there to check them very early in the morning, so they are not left long unattended.

CO-OPERATION

Farming is one industry with no need for espionage.  Winter meetings and summer visits are arranged, where farmers discuss new methods, crop varieties and the pros and cons of machines and breeds of animals.   We have had several visits here at Stocken Farm this year.   Two were grassland societies from Surrey and Bucks which luckily came before all the grass dried up.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

We also held a public relations effort on behalf of the National Farmers’ Union, when non-farmers were invited to look round, managing to choose about the only cold evening of the summer.   Having stocked up on with plenty of cooling beer to go with the refreshments after the tour we were then hard pushed to keep up with the demand for hot coffee.   Five separate parties of schoolchildren complete the list.

INVITATION

In September we were invited to lunch with a party of farmers from Arizona, USA.   They were a super crowd who wanted to talk to British farmers.   We were invited to visit them if we could.  We barely dared to tell them how few acres we farm when compared with theirs.

MEMORABLE VISITORS

We have met many interesting people here through farm visits, from a German nobleman, who quite fancied himself and pinched my bottom, to London East End schoolchildren who wrote us delightfully uninhibited letters which we will treasure.    They were amazed at the size of our bathroom, comparing it with stinging nettles encountered at Hampden Common where they had a picnic lunch.

HOW WE MET RENE from FRANCE

A party came from France when Messrs. Dell Bros were pulling our old house apart round our ears.   The ladies queued for the bathroom upstairs with no plaster on the walls and sacking for carpet.   I was amazed when one mother asked if her son could come to stay the following year.  I stalled, but next summer a letter arrived, saying he would be arriving at Wycombe station, would we please meet him there.   I was even more amazed!   He stayed a month and we still keep in touch

WE LEARN FROM OUR GUESTS

When the children from London were with us the foxgloves were glorious in the hedgerows.   “Who planted them?” “How did they get there” were repeated questions.  Perhaps we learn as much from our guests as they do from us.  

YOUNG FARMER’S CLUB

Many farmers start this visiting habit in the Young Farmers’ Club, a worldwide organisation with a branch in Princes Risborough.  They visit farms, factories and other places of interest in the summer, and have a variety of talks in winter.  They hold many county competitions and a rally hosted by a different club each year.   Tractor handling, animal judging, cake making, flower arranging, public speaking and sporting events and many others too numerous to mention.   And of course many social events at club and county level.   The age range is from 11 to 25 years and they run themselves.  Members do not need to have a farming background.    At international level personal exchanges are arranged and clubs in Britain can arrange club exchanges.   Princes Risborough did this recently with Battle, in Kent.   John joined the Risborough club soon after it was formed when he was 11.   He cycled down to it then had a lift back in Doug Tilbury’s truck with a load of others.  Doug, from Parslows Hillock, held the position of Club Leader for several years, and I know many who would acknowledge all the help he gave them.

GOING METRIC

Farming has now had to go metric, so here are some facts about our farm.   We have 259 hectares of land, 42% grass, 58% corn.   The 114 milking cows produced 650,754 kilogrammes of milk last year, an average of 5,659 litres per cow.   No, it doesn’t make sense to us either, so here is one wish that does - - - “Happy Christmas”.

JANUARY 1977

DEADLINE

Once again we produced turkeys and capons for Christmas.  For a fortnight the men were plucking and trussing, and from the house we were providing coffee, meals, tea and chasing feathers.   The seasons of the year are clearly reflected in my vacuum cleaner, but none so persistently as Christmas.   We go to great lengths to collect the turkey feathers, but they still manage to turn up weeks later.   Although this is a very busy time with a precise deadline, we are all responsible for different aspects of the job and somehow it all falls into place.   It is good with the extra staff taken on, often a dozen in for lunch and tea also if working into the evening, and also meeting the customers, mostly regulars, at such a festive time.

NEW YORK DRESSED

We sell our poultry ‘New York Dressed’.   They are killed, plucked by hand and weighed.  They are then hung and only drawn as required.   It is a high labour and space consuming method, but it does produce a quality product.  The Common Market does not allow this form of production.   There has been a strong campaign from the industry to lift this ban before we are fully in the E.E.C.   Some good concessions have been won so now we hope we shall be able to continue, but it remains to be seen for sure.

WINTER ROUTINE

Of course, despite the Christmas poultry, all the usual farm work had to be done.   In late November hard frosts created extra work thawing pipes and drinking troughs.  Now the beef cattle have been brought back to the farmstead and housed in the yards where the turkeys were.  The young calves have been under cover all the autumn.   The highest yielding half of the cows have been in completely since September, the rest since early December.   Although much easier to look after inside during the winter, they do have to be fed, bedded and cleaned out, and these are now jobs added to the daily routine.

THE COW’S WINTER ROUTINE

The complex where the cows live has been built to be as labour saving and comfortable as possible.   At one end are the sleeping ‘kennels’ where each cow has a cubicle.  There are inside and outside yards, between which the silage clamp is situated, to which they can help themselves.  They are given extra concentrated cattle cake in the milking parlour according to their yield.   They are also given ovaltine grains, which are a by-product after the malt has been extracted, and the cows find them delicious.

PIG & POTATO WORRIES

I toyed with the idea of writing about the depressed pig industry – pork should have been a very good buy lately; the worried potato growers – it’s going to cost an estimated £750 an acre to grow them this year, and many crops failed last year; but decided to abandon them and throw a bouquet to the Milk Marketing Board instead.

The M.M.B.

This is one authority that really works well.   It guarantees a market for milk produced and by balancing the amount sold liquid and that sent for processing ensuring a fresh supply for the customer.   It tests for quality in richness and hygiene and pays accordingly.   There is some doubt whether the Board will be able to continue under the E.E.C. which could prove to be a great loss all round.

A.I.

The M.M.B. also runs the artificial insemination service which has been a largely contributing factor in the increased milk yields now being produced.   For our best cows we can use the very best Friesian bulls in the country, proven by the performances of their progeny.   Bulls we could never afford to own.   We then hope for a female calf to rear for our dairy herd.   We do keep a Hereford bull for the heifers (first calvers).  Being smaller, the Hereford calf should give an easier birth, but of course has to be reared for beef.

‘RAINY DAY’ JOBS

During the coming weeks we hope to do some of the jobs kept for that proverbial rainy day, weather permitting!   For example, hedging, ditching, manure carting, repairing buildings, servicing machinery, in fact we shall be just as  busy as ever, if not more so.

MARCH 1977

NOSTALGIA

We have recently been indulging in a little nostalgia by looking at photographic slides taken on the farm over the past few years.  It certainly reminded us how much things had changed.   Only fifteen years ago we would have been pleased to say we were “general farmers”.   We grew corn, grass, kale, mangolds, kept dairy cows, beef cattle, sheep, pigs, hens, turkeys, even a few ducks.  Nowadays if a farm our size did all those things we should quite rightly be called “Jack of all trades, master of none”.

SHEEP

Dick West, my father-in-law, had started a flock of sheep when he took the farm in 1934.   The lambs were wonderful to watch, skipping and jumping, tails a-wiggling, - full of the joys of spring.   But, by spring 1963 we needed to renew sheep fencing, a new dip and handling pens were badly wanted.   We had just installed a new milking parlour and needed more cows to justify it.  With more cows we would require more silage and that had to be made at the same time the sheep wanted shearing.  It was a wrench to see them go and spring will never be quite the same without the lambs to entertain us.

PIGS

The writing was on the wall for our pigs too but they posed an even more difficult decision.   Dick had kept a herd of Wessex Saddleback pigs for years.   He had a good reputation for producing hardy commercial gilts for breeding, sold mainly at the monthly market at Reading.  He only missed four markets in twenty years.   They were not just a product but part of a way of life.   However, new pigs were being introduced.   First the Landrace were imported from Denmark, a country famous worldwide for bacon.   Incidently, my father was one of four farmers who brought the first Landrace into England.   They caused quite a stir at first, but were quickly developed into hybrid breeds - the Camborough, the Cotswold, the Fastback – pigs, tailormade for modern tastes – lean, long and fast growing.   Their breeding was a fine art, establishing the new breed criteria.  The old breeds were in a commercial decline.   We at Stocken were given the opportunity of breeding Camboroughs.   We could have switched to pork or bacon production with the Wessex Saddlebacks.   No going to Reading market with those but either way it meant a big capital commitment so we decided to opt out altogether.   Having since watched the ups and more frequent downs of the pig industry, we have been glad we did.

COWS AND CORN

We now concentrate our resources on two main enterprises – cows and corn, and they are completely complimentary.   It is true that if corn does well, milk may not, i.e. if corn is dear it costs more to feed the cows and vice versa, but it seems to balance out over the years.   The corn crops are better if there is a break between them and grass is ideal for the job.

FODDER KNIFE EDGE

At present (March 14^th) we are on a knife edge regarding winter fodder.   We had to start feeding the animals right back in the summer, and our conservation was well down.   Although supplemented by buying in extra, things are very tight now.   We hope to let the cows out a little each day early in April.   We desperately need warm dry weather to get the grass growing now and to prevent too much mud.

TOO WET TO DRILL

It is essential to finish drilling the spring corn soon if we hope to get good crops.   It has been far too wet recently to get on the land.   However, our fields were not flooded as some were.   At least that is one advantage of farming on the hills.  I cannot think of any others, but even that one must be better that none.

TOP DOG

Last night the collie came home absolutely exhausted.  He doesn’t ever come into the house until evening.   His life is the farm, usually at the heels of my husband.   He leaves his side rarely and I often get the notion that the dog actually thinks he is the one supervising the whole show.   If a tractor and trailer goes somewhere he is on the trailer.   The land rover he considers his personal territory.   If the men are working on a hay rick or silage clamp he is there seeing all is going well.

EXHAUSTION

Yesterday he spent all afternoon running up and down keeping an eye on the ploughing.   This was the first field work that has been done for ages.   By the end of his day’s work he came home a very tired dog indeed.    He appeared to be limping but I suspect it was just strained muscles.   He was let into the utility room where he usually spends an hour cleaning himself, before coming into the house proper.   Last night he just crawled into his bed absolutely filthy and there he flopped.   He gazed up apologetically over the edge of the bed and there he stayed.   He had had a good day.   How was he to know that the winter activities round the farmyard would leave him so unfit for an afternoon in the fields.

SATISFACTION

By the time we went to bed he was obviously feeling better.   He had eaten double his usual rations and then lay on the rug in the hall, on his back, paws in the air, fast asleep again with a blissful grin on his face.  We left him there to sleep it off.  This morning he was off out to face another day of supervision, bright as a button.

 

MAY 1977

A FARMER’S WIFE

Many times on being introduced to a stranger I have been told “But you don’t look like a farmer’s wife”.    I have not yet thought of a suitable reply.   Perhaps to scatter corn to the hens from my pinny might improve the image, but then corn is too precious to scatter anywhere.

GROWING WHEAT

In April we sent off the final load of wheat from last year’s harvest.   The seed for it was purchased in September 1975.   We have grown and harvested it, then stored it since August, drying when necessary to keep it good.   We hope to be paid for it in May.   Quite a long term outlay.

THE WORLD COMMODITIES MARKET

For months we have been following the commodity futures market to decide when to sell this year’s harvest.   Today it is possible to sell the grain even before it is planted.  Prices are quoted for months ahead and how can anyone know when the best price will be?   Such a relatively small quantity is grown here that it has very little effect on the price.   It is a world market.   Will the great harvests in USA and Canada be good?   Will they have droughts, frosts or floods?   Will they decide to export their grain or stock their granaries?  Will Russia and China produce enough or will they need to buy?   How can we know?   And yet what we get for our crops will depend upon it.   Do we sell straight from the field or shall we dry the corn and store, hoping for a better price?   The world price is based largely on that quoted in Chicago, and the grain merchants in this country keep constantly in touch with it.

DAILY PRICES BROADCAST

The B.B.C. broadcasts quoted wheat prices every morning at 6.20.   At that time my “farmer’s wife” image slips again as I disappear beneath the bedclothes.  Last winter farmers who hadn’t agreed a contract at all could have had a bonanza.   Severe weather froze up American and Canadian shipping, and for a few brief weeks corn came into its own.   We are not such gamblers and we tend to hedge our bets throughout the season.

PONY TOOK GRANDFATHER HOME

Gone are the days when the local farmers rode into Wycombe, stabled the horses and traps in the Falcon or the White Hart, and met for the weekly grain market.    If they celebrated a good deal or drowned their sorrows too well, the horse would take them home – something John’s Grandfather from Myze Farm, West Wycombe, did on a regular basis.   The market was under the Guildhall, where twenty or so merchants set their desks, but it came to an end in the nineteen twenties.  

APRIL RODEO TOO COLD

With the winter fodder coming to an end, the cows were duly turned out at the beginning of April.   As usual they careered up and down and generally behaved as if it were a rodeo.   However, that touch of spring feeling was very short lived, they found the fields very cold, and were soon waiting to be let back in again.   To make matters worse the milk yield dropped by 40 gallons a day.   Now that is not at all how it should be, but the weather has been so cold that the grass is far from lush and those ladies were not going to be fooled that spring had arrived, just by the date on the calendar.

BEEF CATTLE GO OUT

Now all the beef cattle are out too, so the winter season is ended in all ways bar the weather.   We desperately need some warmth to get things growing.   I am writing this early so perhaps things may improve in the meantime.

FARM TRIP TO EAST ANGLIA

We hope to go next week to East Anglia for three days, looking round farms with the Bucks Grassland Society.   We are told it is colder there than here, so goodness knows how much grass there will be to see.   However, it’s a break from routine, and we can always study the wives instead, I might even discover what a farmer’s wife really should look like.

JULY 1977

WIND IN CHARGE

We have already had some changeable weather this year.  The spring was so wet and cold that nothing seemed to grow.   Then we had lovely sunshine with cold strong winds – not pleasant – but ideal for us to get home our first cut of silage.   The crops, though not over heavy, should be good quality.   Three weeks of those winds and the wet fields became as hard as rock.   It seemed absurd after such a wet winter, but we needed rain again.   It did rain eventually but just as the Queen’s Silver Jubilee weekend came up.

A JUBILEE FLOAT

Encouraged by some gentle arm twisting we had said we would put a float in the procession.   It seemed a long way away then, and we hadn’t intended doing much.  However, when the weekend arrived and two other floats were being beautifully prepared in barns on the farm, we realised we had better put in a bit more effort.   We consequently had a last minute scrabble to think of a few ideas and put them into effect.   Thanks to all those who helped and especially Gerald Bedford, our super combine driver.   It all turned out to be great fun.   It may have seemed a thankless task to those who organised the day, but our family for one, had a lovely time and a day they will always remember.

SILAGE and HAY at SAME TIME

Although it seemed as if winter had set in again the rain had brought on the grass and 21^st June we started cutting again for silage.  The weather was improving rapidly so as “never rains but it pours” we started cutting for hay at the same time.  There can hardly be a truer saying than “make hay while the sun shines”.   If the weather seems set fine it is vital not to miss the opportunity.  It takes three or four hot days to make good hay.   Every time it gets wet it has to be turned again, which puts the cost up and the quality down.

THE BATTLE AGAINST WILD OATS

In the next few weeks we shall be waging our annual battle against wild oats.   Not the sort you sow on Saturday and pray for a crop failure on Sunday, but the real ones whose crop never fails.   They have marched across the country like an invading army ruining the corn yields.  For years we have been rogueing by hand, walking through the corn pulling them out.   This is possible because they mature earlier and are taller that the cultivated varieties of oats, barley and wheat, so they are visible above the rest of the crop.   It is a dull job and walking through a crop is tiring, but still preferable to spraying.  Spraying not only means driving though the corn, but it also costs from six to twelve pounds an acre to do.  With 360 acres it is something to avoid if we possibly can.    Although we have really tried, it is a battle we cannot win and every year some fields defeat us.   If only our varieties were as prolific.   They spread at a tremendous rate.   They germinate for years after they have been shed.   They can even grow after they have been eaten – by eventually getting spread back on the land, and yet their grain has virtually no food value.

FOOD FOR NEXT WINTER

The brewers’ grains for next winter have been delivered, and the main cuts of silage and hay have been cut.

TROUBLES AHEAD?

We are now watching the corn carefully.   As well as the wild oats other troubles are possible.  We are already concerned about aphids.  We are advised to spray if their population gets over five per ear of corn, and some patches are well over that count now.   The corn is running very late but looking well at this stage (12^thJuly).   The biggest danger now is heavy storms that could flatten the crop.   With the ears heavy it is very vulnerable.   The harvest can be made or marred by the weather in the next few weeks

SEPTEMBER 1977

“NEVER COUNT YOUR CHICKENS”

I should imagine that whoever stuck their neck out and forecast a glorious harvest has been soundly ‘blessed’ from the midlands southwards.   “Never count your chickens before they are hatched” is a very true saying.  Shepherds used not even to count their lambs until they removed their tails at about three weeks old, and then they counted the tails.

THE HARVEST

So, the harvest!   We have had it better than some.   At least very little of our corn was put down by the wind.   The yields were very good but the quality is poor.   Because of the dull damp weather much of it shot out, that is to say, the kernels started to grow in the heads of corn.   Another handicap is that it is very wet and is having to be dried.   As you may imagine this is no cheap job but it was too late to wait for better weather.  We apologise if the engines of the driers are disturbing anyone.   Goodness knows we know how loud they are, living right near.   In fact we have got so used to them that we only notice now if they stop.   We do turn them off at night, but farmers in more rural areas are keeping theirs going all round the clock.

RUBBISH DUMPING

We have picked up more than our usual quota of bric-a-brac this year.   We know the fields that are most used for dumping and various other “pastimes” and do try to clear them before we take in the machinery.   The Wombles would be really envious of our collection!  Unfortunately we didn’t find it all and harvested a metal dustbin lid and a saucepan.   Needless to say we now have a bill for repairs to the combine, plus, what could cost us even more, a loss of working time when every moment counted.

PUSHED FOR TIME

Writing this 15^th September we have only done about 80% of the combining.   Baling and carting straw has to be dealt with also, so we really are up against it for time.

MORE EEC REGULATIONS

More E.E.C. changes are in the pipeline.   This time it is egg grading that must go.   There will be seven grades numbered 1 to 7, and the names extra-large, large, standard, medium and small will go.   The new no.2 grade will be the nearest equivalent to large and the largest of the standard.   No.4 will be the middle range of standard.   Nos.5, 6 and 7 are smaller and few shops will stock them, so most of them will go for catering and processing, likewise no 1 the largest.   The packing stations have from October until the New Year to get their grades altered.  There could be some confusion at first, as for a while, both systems and two sets of prices will be in operation.

PARLOUR UPDATE

We have just completed and updated the equipment in the milking parlour.   This was timed for late summer because many of our cows are dry then prior to autumn calving.   It is a “herringbone” design, the cows being milked on both sides, at an angle to a central passage.   While the changes were being made only one side was used, while the other was being altered.   Thus it was essential that as few cows as possible were in milk.

EXPECTANT COWS

Nineteen calves have already been born with many more due.   We are keeping an eye on the expectant ‘mums’ in the field by the farmhouse.  Some years we have grazed them next to the school.   Very educational, so I am told, but somewhat disruptive to the school timetable.

CULTIVATING DELAYED

As we are still struggling with the harvest we have not yet started the usual autumn work of cleaning and preparing the land for next year’s crops.   We hope to plant two hundred acres of winter corn, so we shall be very busy – always, of course, weather permitting.   Bad weather, we shall still be baling straw in December.   Well, we did in 1974, but we hope that will prove to be an exception rather than the rule.

NOVEMBER 1977

GOOD WEATHER CATCH UP

I hardly dare say it, but the weather has actually been good to us.   We managed to get all the winter corn drilled in reasonable time, and considering the late harvest and unsettled weather forecast, it seems almost unbelievable.

CALVES

Autumn means calves, at least it does for us.  Calves being born, weaned and reared.  We have already eighty five, and should be over the hundred by the time you read this.   The majority are born normally in the field, and I never cease to wonder at it all.   To see that new born creature cleaned by its mother, struggle to its feet and totter round to where it somehow knows the milk will be.   Sometimes mother and child have a conflict of priorities.  Mum, as mums will, determined to lick the baby clean to perfection; child, anxious to get down the other end for a drink – its thirsty work being born!   Even then it can be awkward.   A calf naturally puts its head up to suck.   If mums “milk bar” is on the low side, the only way is for the calf to get down on its knees.   Undignified?   Well, yes, but then a calf has to be practical at such times.

WEANING

The calves have the cow’s milk for four days, then they are weaned from them.   This sounds very hard, but is found to be the least distressing time to take the youngster away.   The only better way would be to leave them with the cows, as in a beef- suckler herd, but then, of course, there would be no milk to sell.   The calves are then given a little pen, all in a row, bedded with straw, where they can be given individual attention until they can fend for themselves, and individual attention is certainly what they demand.

DRINKING FROM A BUCKET

The first essential is to get them to drink from a bucket.   The calf is used to sucking from above, so it is not surprising that this is not always easy.   By dipping your hand in the milk the calf will happily suck your fingers, persuading yourself that the rough tongue is a pleasant feeling is quite easy.   When a precocious youngster starts trying to eat before it can drink by chewing your fingers, the affectionate feelings rapidly diminish.   Gradually you bring your milk- sticky fingers lower until they are sucking at bucket level.   Then, of course, you have won, because it will suck straight from the bucket when you take your hand away.

THE TRICKY ONES

But what about the snooty one that turns its back on you so its head isn’t facing the bucket which is fixed to the front of the pen?   The shy one that doesn’t want to know you?  The artful one that stays out of reach until you climb into the pen with it, then becomes very friendly and gives you a loving bunt, probably into the milk bucket?   Each one has a character and personality of its own.   There is one that sucks your fingers and won’t let go; there are two, in next door pens, that lick each other’s faces clean after every feed.   They are lovely, endearing, infuriating little animals.   Our son, Richard, now eight, helps most evenings with them and the success or otherwise of each session can be judged by the amount of milk brought back on him.   He must be quite good at it, because we haven’t yet had to tip milk out of his boots.  It can take as long to feed a few beginners as it does to feed dozens that will drink by themselves. They are fed on a powdered milk mix for five weeks, being offered hay and calf meal to take as they feel ready for it.

JOINING THE GANG

When they are successfully feeding by themselves they are transferred to covered yards where they will live together until the spring.    I’m not saying it is all plain sailing.   Of course, there are difficult births and calves that don’t thrive, but these we hope will be a small minority.   All those calves and each one would make a story in itself.

       

JANUARY 1978 

CONTRARY WEATHER

I knew I shouldn’t have done it – complimented the weather that is.   No sooner had I handed in my copy for the last issue than the wind started to howl, then it started to freeze and we spent days thawing troughs and trying to keep warm.   Then, when we started preparing the turkeys and we needed it dry and cold, down came the mist.

MORE EEC REGULATIONS

Weather apart we did manage our usual white Christmas – turkey feather white.   It is very much in the balance whether we shall be able to continue producing them as more E.E.C. regulations come into effect.   This season we had to replace the boarded walls with brick.   It seemed unnecessary but the wood was fairly old and the sheds do look smarter so we didn’t mind too much.   However, some of the requirements would be quite out of the question for us so we are waiting to know which ones will be enforced next.  As the officials don’t yet know themselves, we have ordered the day-old poults for this year and hope we will manage it.

NO MORE CHRISTMAS COCKERALS

We believe that machine plucking will bring more problems than hand plucking and are therefore not going to produce Christmas cockerels again.   It is a hard decision to stop doing something you have done for years, but it will be something less to contend with.

DUTCH ELM DISEASE

One thing we have had to contend with recently is the clearance of dead elm trees from land we have near Butlers Cross.   It has really altered the landscape.  Fortunately at Lacey Green there are hardly any elms, but many of the other trees around the farm are old and we are gradually losing them.

TREE ROOTS DAMAGE

When Dick and Hilda came here in 1934 the house was overshadowed by great trees within a few feet of the farmhouse.   These were removed but the roots were probably responsible for the considerable movement there has been to the walls.   We still keep filling in the cracks and just hope for the best.

TREE PLANTING PROJECT ONGOING

The trees that remained are now huge and every year seems to leave another gap.   One big chestnut fell in the gales and a dying oak was taken down in the garden.  The old apple trees have gone and branches have had to be removed from several others.   With this in mind we have been steadily replanting over the past few years, in fact, some are getting quite big now.   It’s a nuisance having to protect them from the cattle but we feel it is worthwhile.

HISTORIC HORSE CHESTNUT

I suppose it goes without saying that the chestnut at the end of the drive would be missed most.   I wonder how many generations have collected the conkers from that huge tree.   I was recently talking to Miss Janes, school teacher her in 1904, and she remembers it as fully grown when she was a child in the 1880s.    Some years ago we set the fences back behind the trees there to set them off better.   Unfortunately this left room for a load of tarmac to be dumped against the chestnut when the council repaired the Main Road and it appears to be rotting at this point.    The experts tell us that it is beginning to deteriorate inside.   So far it has showed no signs of failing in any other way, in fact it was the smaller tree on the other side that lost a branch in the gales.   This was inspected and we were told there appeared to nothing wrong with that tree at all.

TREE LAWS

Perhaps you may wonder “what have trees to do with our farming?”   Well, nothing directly, except the old ones that came with the farm can be a problem, but as we like them, there is luckily, plenty of room to plan replacements.  In the days of Queen Elizabeth 1 it was a different story.   Timber was of such importance, especially for building the great warships, that William Wyndsor, who rented Stocken (mostly woodland then), was not permitted to fell the mature trees or oak saplings, and had to leave12 young trees per acre.    I daresay he was just as frustrated by all the regulations as we are today.  Perhaps things haven’t changed so much after all.

MARCH 1978

EXTRA WINTER JOBS

Although much of January and February was spent thawing pipes and clearing paths, quite a few extra jobs got done on top of the routine.

FEET

With the cattle inside it is opportune to give them a spruce up and a check over.   Firstly, the cows’ feet.   If anyone fancies a pedicure John is quite handy with the two foot long ‘snips’.  After 360 hooves a few toe nails would be child’s play.

FREEZE BRANDING

Next, freeze branding.   All the dairy cows have a number which is branded on their rear, so the young heifers joining the herd have to be given theirs.   It’s a shame there are too many to have names any more – Mary, Alice, Susan, Joan, all gone.   Wonder why they got rid of Joan?   But I digress, back to freeze branding.   This is done with a mixture of dry ice and alcohol which is so cold that it kills the pigment in the hair.   Thus placed in a patch of black or brown the white number will permanently show there.

HORNS

Moving to the front end there are horns to be removed.  This is done before they begin to grow, while the calves are still young.   A local anaesthetic is given and heat applied to the horn buds with a special iron.   Cattle with horns are more aggressive, not only to man but to each other.   In effect dehorning removes their weapons.  A popular quiz question is “are cows’ horns in front or behind the ears?”   Last time I heard it asked an answer came back “Neither, they don’t have any.”   So used have people become to seeing them without!   The horns would not be removed by pedigree breeders for show animals, and there are some that are naturally polled (no horns).

VACCINES

From the external to the internal.   The calves have had their first vaccine against husk.  This in a lung condition caused by a parasite worm picked up in the pastures and prevention is far better than trying to cure.   The new heifers have been vaccinated against brucellosis.   This infection, otherwise known as contagious abortion, is gradually being eradicated nationwide.   It causes the cows to lose their calves and is very infectious.   It can be caught by man, but then it takes the form of a recurring sort of ‘flu and although not common it is very unpleasant.   We have managed to keep our herd clear since 1971, but constant checks have to be made, as it can easily be carried back, even by wildlife.

PREGNANT COWS

Most of the cows are now in-calf again.   The A.I. man (artificial inseminator) has been called most days for weeks, and the vets come for routine checking to see if they are pregnant.   So, we hope that by the time we turn the cattle out again, they will be all set for the summer ahead.

CHRISTMAS POULTRY REPORT

There has been the usual stream of work coming into the office and although it is not always welcome, one good thing did arrive – the report on the Christmas poultry production.   Hard campaigning at top level has achieved exemption of seasonal producers from the E.E.C. regulations.   As the EEC new rules do not allow our type of fresh poultry production, this decision was vital for us to continue.

A NEW BREEDING CHART

We have been drawing up a new chart giving the breeding details for all the cows.   I noticed that we still have one cow left with a name – Brenda- she was born in 1967.

THE TRIPLETS & THEIR MOTHER

Also the progress of the triplets.   These three heifer calves were born one night in 1973, quite unaided and unexpected.   Triplets are rare enough, but for them all to be the same sex was very long odds indeed.  They have each calved twice themselves now.  Their mother has been a wonder, having 12 calves in seven years, including the triplets and three sets of twins.

DRILLING TO FINISH

Corn drilling to finish now and then we shall be looking for some spring weather to get the grass growing prior to turning out the cows, and not far behind that to silage making again – all ready for next winter’s feed conservation

.

MAY 1978

TREES LATE IN LEAF

I was once told and have always believed that no matter what the weather the trees stayed true to the dates that governed them.  Roses may bloom in December but the trees will not deceive you.   However, this year I have questioned this for the first time.   Many times I have been told that to see the young beech leaves at their most glorious, the best day is the tenth of May.   Well, this year only the bottom branches and those few odd trees that always come out regularly before others were in leaf.

MIGRANT BIRDS

It had been a cold spring.    Talking to a forester recently about the late spring he commented that the migrant birds seemed to all arrive at the same time.    Had the earliest ones come to grief or did they somehow know that things were still too cold here?   I haven’t heard a cuckoo yet this year and they are usually here by the end of April, so perhaps we are not going to get one locally.

NOT ENOUGH GRASS

We hadn’t enough grass to turn out the cattle and we eventually had to there was every prospect that the fields would turn into mud.

PRODUCING SILAGE NATURALLY

This last week (mid-May) we had a few really good growing days.   Some more like that would make a vital transformation.   We are desperate for grass, both for the dairy cows, beef cattle and calves and also for making silage and hay.   In our farming system much of the dairy herd’s profitability depends on the silage.   We need a lot and we need it to be good.   With this in mind we have increased from cutting twice to three times.  There may be less at each cut but the grass will be younger and should make a better product.   Grass can be made into silage completely naturally.  It is mown, left to wilt and then carted to a clamp.   Bacteria multiply rapidly in the moisture, on the sugar in the grass.   The waste from the bacteria produces lactic and acetic acids.   These in sufficient quantity then kill off the bacteria, leaving silage, grass self-pickled in acid.

SILAGE IN BAD CONDITIONS

Very simple if all the conditions are right – grass the correct moisture and carrying sufficient sugar.   There are ways of getting round problems.   We used to pour molasses onto the clamp of grass to help the bacteria to work.   Now we can cheat even more by simply applying acid straight onto it.   It is certainly dangerous stuff.    I have seen the skin on John’s hand peel off, just as if it was a rubber glove after spilling acid on it.   But, it can mean the difference between success and disaster in a bad season.   Good silage does not smell nasty.   Bad silage, which produces a butyric acid, is putrid.   Not only would our noses tell us, the milk yield would drive it hard home.

HAY

Hay is made with older grass.  Whereas silage only needs to be wilted, hay has to be dried and can take three or four days at best to do so.  Chancy in our climate if you are relying on making large quantities and we don’t try to make a vast amount.   Even here nature can be helped along.   There are now on the market additives to aid haymaking in a similar way to the acid used for silage.   Also if it is fairly dry it can be finished off in a barn if there is drying equipment installed to blow it.

THE OAK AND THE ASH

We really do need some nice weather now, and with any luck, by the time this is printed, things will look a lot different.   The saying goes – “If the oak is in leaf before the ash then we’ll only get a splash, if the ash before the oak then we’ll really get a soak”.  Well, our oak trees are in leaf and the ash is not, but we shall just have to wait and see.

JULY 1978  

MY ROYAL “WE”

Someone recently told me that he had to smile at the way I put ‘we’ when writing about the farm work.   No doubt his mind’s eye sees me doing all sorts of unlikely things.   However, it did make me think.   I suppose it’s a feeling of being part of it, of belonging.   I hope ‘we’ at this farm all feel like that.

NOT JUST TO THE MAN

When I uttered those words “I do”, I thought I was just marrying a man.   Only later did I realise that the marriage service for farmers’ wives ought to include a commitment to the animals and land that the bride has inadvertently taken on.   Also, perhaps, something about “in sunshine and in rain”.

“SPOT” OUR DOG

Now, I am not good with big animals.  Plain scared would be nearer the truth if they are bigger than me.   When first married we didn’t live in the farmhouse but in one of the cottages across the field, and all I did for the farm was in the office.   Just occasionally they asked me to fetch the cows up to the home meadow in the evening.   We had a cattle dog then and the cows started walking home when they saw him coming.  They respected that dog.   After we lost him, what a difference!   I would stand and shout “kwan” in what I hoped was a good imitation of John (he says it is “come on”).  The cows didn’t come on, they carried on – grazing.   They certainly didn’t respect me!

ALL HANDS TO THE PUMP

Only when we moved into the farmhouse was the truth really brought home.   Anything must be left if something more urgent turns up.   The cattle get out? – Just leave everything, and go.  In thundery weather the gad flies will torment the cattle into jumping any fence in their desperation.   If in the corn, eating it would be very dangerous for the animals.   Running through it is equally disastrous for me.   I’m not in training for such an impossibility.   If they get in someone’s garden we just hope they will have been prevented from doing too much damage.   Sometimes they even jump back in their own field again.     John and I spent ages one beautiful moonlight night on just one such wild goose chase.   Some heifers got loose in the yard and one disappeared.   We searched the farm, toured the village and gave up.   Next day we found her in with another batch.  Nowadays, open gardens make driving cattle up the road a nightmare.   All hands are needed then, and I am quite good at blocking gateways and gaps in hedges.  I do help with an occasional night calving, but the cows get tied up with a halter, and that just isn’t the time for being afraid anyway.

THWARTED SALESMEN

John usually has a very short lunch ‘hour’, which is often interrupted by salesmen who know they might catch him then. With practice I can now ensure that only the ones he needs to see get in.   If I’m not sure I say that I’ll see if I can find him.   Well I don’t know exactly where he is, do I?   Phone calls are equally awkward.   Invariably people ask for the farmer, but often it is something I can answer, or get an answer and ring back.   If John is, say, up a hayrick, under a tractor or dosing a cow, calling him to the phone unnecessarily would be infuriating.   I must spend ages and walk miles taking messages round the farm.

MY VERSITILE NON-CAREER

Some meetings are held here, involving coffees, lunches, teas and snacks.  I am sent to get tyres repaired, parts for machines, calves to market.  I’ve strained barbed wire to mend fences, held down a pig while the vet stitched it, held the cowley level for sitings, dressed cuts and boiled syringes.  I’ve shown round school parties.  I grade and sell the eggs.   I do have a house and garden and a family who are always my top priority.   So where do I fit into this farming unit?   Just a small cog helping to keep the big wheels turning.   Joan of all trades, master of none, a farmer’s wife – the non- career that is harassing, even hair raising, but never, ever dull.

SEPTEMBER 1978

A MOVING MOMENT

Every year when the combine harvester first pulls out of the yard I find it strangely moving.   Strange, that after so many years, I should still find a lump in my throat as Gerald takes that giant through the gateway and roars off up the drive.   Then, when he finally brings it back in, the harvest home, again another moment to stop, watch and be thankful.   Why the going out and the returning home of that machine should mean so much I really don’t know, for it is neither the beginning nor the end of the harvest story.  In fact, it was July the previous year when the seed had been ordered, and that only after careful consideration of which fields for which crops; and which varieties would best suit both the fields and the crops chosen.   Each field had had the soil analysed and the appropriate fertilizer ordered.   All that had been done before we had even started harvesting last year’s corn.

CLEARING THE STRAW

Even while the combine was still at work, the fields were being cleared of the straw, baling and bringing home our requirements.   The rest would be spread and burnt.   “Why burnt?” I have been asked.   In itself the straw has a certain value if it were sold, but that entails the work of baling, carting and stacking.   It also has a value in the minerals derived from the ash, and with the price of fertilizer so high, that alone would justify burning economically, but it also has other high values.   It clears the land quickly, and simultaneously destroys all the weeds, pests and diseases left in the fields.   Thus, even before all of last year’s harvest was home, the fields were being ploughed and cultivated to prepare a seed bed for this year’s crops.  By late September we like to be on with the drilling.

AN EYE ON THE CROPS

Down the drill goes the corn seed, fertilizer and slug pellets.   Then we spray with a pre-emergent weed killer, hoping to put them off right from the start.   We must then wait and watch.   Last year everything looked fine until we found it was a great year for leather jackets (they become daddy-long-legs) and also fritfly.   So, into battle against those two.   However, we didn’t get wire worm nor wheat bulb fly.

SPRING CROP REPORT

Early March, the corn looked hungry after the winter, so more nitrogen had to be applied and also a top-up dose in late April.   The ground was rolled, to bed the plants in firmly after the winter frosts and also to bury our constant menace, the flints.   So, spring came and things were growing vigorously – including the weeds – so out went the sprayer again.   This time selective weedkillers to attack whichever particular weeds had managed to evade us before.

SUMMER CROP REPORT

A whole multitude of possible pests and diseases now loomed ahead.   The weather as usual determining which would prevail.   This year we had to spray against mildew in the barley and eye-spot and yellow rust in the wheat.   We decided not to treat the brown rust and we did not get take-all or septoria.   It was a near thing with the aphids, but this time we gave them the benefit of the doubt.   One of the greatest hazards can be June thunderstorms.  The ears of corn are full but still moist and heavy so the crops can easily be knocked flat.  Some varieties we sprayed with Cycocel, a chemical that keeps the stems short and strong.   Luckily the storms this year were later and didn’t cause so much damage.   The wild oats came as usual, and as usual, partly beat us.

16% MOISURE. NO MORE-NO LESS

Having fought the battles and won to some degree it was harvest time and out went the combine.   But that isn’t the end of the tale.   The corn merchants insist on grain with no more than 16% moisture.   If it is more the financial penalty is heavy.   If it is less than 16% the corn weighs less, but that is not taken into account.   Therefore we must try to dry to that vital figure.   Not easy when some of the grain was as high as 24% and especially difficult to get the large bins consistent right through.   Having got it right we then have to keep it so, until it is sold, the last going perhaps late the next spring.

ALMOST TWO YEARS

So, from choosing seed to selling the grain it is not much short of two years, yet the high spot is always centred round the harvest, as if all the rest of the work had never even had to be done.

NOVEMBER 1978   

DROUGHT

With the Water Boards talking about drought conditions and the gardens like rock, I suppose we ought to be complaining about the weather.   We had managed to get to get the corn and grass seeds planted before the ground got too hard.   It was risky, because if they had started to germinate they could have died off through lack of moisture.   Since the recent rain the seeds are just beginning to shoot so with luck things are O.K.  Meanwhile we have been enjoying the lovely autumn.

90 BIRTHS

Over the past weeks 90 calves have been born, most of them out in the fields, so the kind weather has given them a good start.   There were several sets of twins.   One unfortunate pair both tried to be born at once.   Having got the legs untangled, one had to be pushed back to let the other forward.   By that time the calves were pretty frustrated and a finger inadvertently poked in a mouth will be given the message with a sharp nip.   Several very large calves needed help.   It’s wonderful how “fairy washing up liquid” will ease things along, although surprising for the calf to be born blowing bubbles.   It makes them slippery and being a soap as opposed to a detergent is safe if it gets in the eyes.  A few decided to be born backwards.  These are assisted too, as it is essential that they are born quickly to get the lungs working as the head comes out last.   There were two caesarians.   Provided the decision is made early enough this operation is usually successful.  It is very satisfying then, knowing a life has been saved that otherwise didn’t stand a chance.

70 PINTS A DAY

Many of the calves are already off the bucket and moved into the covered yards until the spring.   We are at our peak milk production now, with so many newly calved cows.   Some of the cows are giving seventy pints a day.   I find that quite impossible to visualise, though none the less true.

VOTE TO KEEP MMB

The dairy industry here is controlled by the Milk Marketing Board, which ensures that milk is fresh and prices kept stable.   On the Continent, milk is not delivered or consumed as in Britain.   The E.E.C. does not approve of our Board, but has conceded that if 80% of the farmers and cows vote to keep it the M.M.B. can stay (1 vote per10 cows).   This means that farmers must not drop the voting papers in the waste paper basket or stick them behind the clock, but must vote on their cows’ behalf if they want to keep things as they are.   Unreturned votes will count ‘against’.   We would be very sorry to lose this organisation which handles such a perishable commodity so efficiently.

“LITTLE LION” EGGS

There used to be an Egg Marketing Board.   Remember the ‘little lion’ stamped on the eggs?  It never worked as well as the M.M.B., but it did take surplus eggs off the market and keep prices steady.   Since it folded, prices have been up and down like a yo-yo.  Statistics just out from the Egg Authority state that producers made an average loss of 12.6p per dozen in the July to September 1978 quarter.   What the answer is I really cannot think, because if the price goes up much, Continental surpluses will come flooding in.   Perhaps the old Egg Board wasn’t as bad as it was painted.

PREPARE FOR WINTER

The farm effort now is to get prepared for winter.   The summer machinery has been cleaned, greased and put away.   The cows are already in and the beef cattle and young stock being brought home.   Soon the daily routine of feeding and bedding will be established.   Just like housework really.

99% VOTE FOR MMB

I have heard on the news that the farmers have voted to keep the M.M.B. with a 99% vote.   Our market remains assured and your pintas will still be able to reach your doorstep, so here’s “Good Health for Christmas and1979 and all the happiness you could wish yourselves”.

MARCH 1979

SNOW IN SPRING

Today, March 21^st, is the first day of spring.   Last Sunday we changed our clocks to summertime.   Outside it is snowing.   It must be a hoax, this can’t be springtime!   Spring does still mean ‘leap into action’ however, as yet another water leak reveals itself or the electricity goes off again, often it seems during milking so all the clusters fall off the cows.   For weeks the pipes and water troughs have been frozen, so there has been endless time spent thawing them for the cattle, clearing snow and keeping animals fed.   Worrying whether the milk tanker drivers would get here.   Not because of the drivers’ strike, although that seriously affected deliveries of feeding stuffs and did stop a collection of grain we wanted to sell, but because of the roads.   Many farms have difficult access, long drives, steep slopes or small yards.   Admittedly the farms have tractors to help pull them out, but what a trial, day after day.

LONDON DAIRIES REORGANISED

Certain dairies in London have been reorganised.   The Lacey Green tanker delivers there early in the morning before coming here for his next collection.   The dairymen were calling strikes with no warning and the tanker driver just had to wait until they chose to unload him.   One day it was 6 p.m. when he arrived to pick up the mornings milk.  Only after that could Stuart do our afternoon milking.   What a long day for them both.   It was touch and go for the milk, for we had just decided that the cows could hang on no longer, and we must tip away 650 gallons stored in the tank, when the driver pulled in to collect it.   The M.M.B. came to the rescue, and I believe, sent our milk down to Wales for processing until the trouble was over.   Ironic, when so much Welsh milk is sent up to London.

REVIEWING THE SITUATION

Officially it is spring, and who knows, maybe by the time you read this the winter will seem far behind us.  At least we can take stock of the situation.   The winter corn has really taken a knocking.   We hope enough will have survived to make a crop.   It is considered that unless the plant count is less than 40 per square metre it is still more economical to have a lighter yield than stand the expense of re-drilling.   We have been counting hopefully!   We have 110 acres of spring corn to plant, the winter corn having been drilled last autumn, but as yet it is much too wet to get on the land.  

THE SILAGE SEE-SAW

We are on a see-saw of indecision regarding the silage.   We must clear it all, but we must not run out too soon.   But, when will it be warm and dry enough to turn the cows out to graze?  Silage making comes at the end of May, closely followed by haymaking, and, especially for silage we like a thick, lush crop of grass.   At present the fields look virtually bare.   One thing is for sure, we are going to be extremely busy as soon as it does improve.

HEDGES AND TREE PLANTING

During a brief respite we had a contractor in to trim the hedges.   Gerald tackled a hedge that was suitably overgrown, and has laid it.   Not only does it now look very smart, but it is stockproof and will grow thick from the base.   Again, we have planted quite a number of trees, mostly in clumps in odd corners, not in hedgerows.   It is difficult for the mechanical hedge cutters not to damage them, and the hand trimming of hedges is long a thing of the past.

PROSPECTS

The prospect of a late spring and no winter field work done seems daunting, but first things first,     Let us get clear of this winter weather and get spring in the air.   It’s amazing what can be done when conditions are right.  We must be patient a bit longer, and thank our lucky stars that we haven’t had it as bad as some.   Further north this winter must have been disastrous and it’s lambing time there now.   They need the spring even more desperately than we do.

JULY 1979

HOLIDAY IN WALES

I am writing this whilst on holiday and am finding it very hard to think of farming at home.  It would be wrong to say we are not thinking of farming at all, as every field tells a story and I doubt if any farmer could turn a blind eye to the ‘open book’ around him.   Certainly it is all around us.   We have rented a house in Wales and it is quite isolated, in fact we have just driven some sheep from the garden.   The house was built before 1400 ad and we only wish it could tell us its story and the changes it has seen.   Many farming changes there must have been, but not as many as at home or in the fertile valley of the River Dee far below us.

SHEEP COUNTRY

Here, the great deciding fact is the land, and farmers are limited in the alterations he can make.   This is sheep country.   Probably they are huge flocks, but that is not the impression you get as they are scattered over the huge areas of rough high ground.

TOO SMALL/TOO STEEP

Lower down, where it is possible to mow, there are fields where haymaking is in full swing.   We think we have some steep banks at home in the Chilterns, yet we have watched here, heart in mouth, while tractors and balers manoeuvre in little steep fields where the vital hay must be made.   So the change to tractor and baler has taken place, but they cannot take advantage of the multitude of machinery that has come on the market to make haymaking easier, because the fields are either too small, too steep, or both.

BALE SLEDGES

A baler alone will drop bales at random and a trailer must be taken to each one and the bale tossed onto it.  Over the past years various sledges have been developed to collect the bales.   At Stocken Farm we have had several over a period of twenty years.  First one, towed by the baler, on which a man stood piling up the bales and releasing them when he had a small stack.  The next move was to an unmanned sledge that collected some bales together and released them at random over the fields.   This still meant manhandling the bales onto trailers. Then a sledge was developed that left them in “flat eights”, i.e. two neat rows of four.   Now an implement with eight grab tines could pick them up and stack them onto a trailer or into a stack in the field, putting six layers of the “eights”   We use both methods.   If loaded onto trailers a huge load can be carried, but more men are required to unload and stack them high at home.   As we are busy with everything at this time, mowing, turning the hay, baling, or even still silage making, we often use the other method.   We have a little tractor, with a cage, that can clamp onto the stack in the field and carry them home, releasing them all together.   That way one man can bring back a considerable number unaided.   There are many variations and combinations of haymaking implements and it is quite a problem deciding what would best suit one’s own system.   However this is what we have done and it works well for us.  We have not had the added complication of having to decide whether to change to big square or round bales, as they really would not fit in for us, but they have certainly added another dimension to haymaking for those who have

HARVEST LOOMING

Having mentally transported myself back from Clwyd to Buckinghamshire, I realise that the corn harvest is looming up.   It is going to be late and there is still plenty of time for problems to appear.  However the challenge has been made, the battle must go on and we hope that in the next issue we shall be able to say that the battle is won and the harvest is home.

SEPTEMBER 1979

NO NEED TO “La, la”

Yesterday we sang at the Harvest Festival service ‘All is Safely Gathered in’.   Some years we have to “La la” that line because it isn’t.  Everything was so late this year that it seemed likely we should have to this time, but starting on August 20^th, twenty days continuous dry weather let us get the harvest home.  Twenty long, dusty, tiring days.  Perish the thought, but it did cross my mind that a couple of damp days would have given everyone a breather.  The dull summer had enabled the corn to mature slowly, so that even the crops that which had been so thin after the winter, that we had considered re-drilling, came to quite good yields in the end.   So we were truly “thankful” this harvest.

MACHINERY MOAN

As I have not had my traditional moan about the weather, I will say that life would have been easier had the new parts and equipment ordered arrived in time.   A new auger, which would have made the grain handling so much quicker, arrived the week after we had finished.   As it was, we were trying to take the corn up into the drying stores and more out to load into lorries with the same auger, which at times was next to impossible.   The sprayer has needed repairing for six weeks, and they don’t give us much hope about that.   The corn drill has markers to show how far each run has covered.   The new markers we need are made at some factory that seems to be continually on strike.   The combine always manages to pick up something to damage it.   Often the things are quite amusing, but this year nothing was at all funny, so there wasn’t that relief.   It wasn’t amusing either, when a crop of barley was set alight at Naphill – but full marks here to the fire brigade for being so prompt.

“WHAT!!!  AUTUMN???

The late harvest has had one groan-rending effect.   We have been pushed straight into the autumn work with no respite, and I’m sure a break would have done us all a power of good.   When we say harvest now we mean 1980.   We hope to drill 300 acres of winter corn, which ideally should be in by mid-October.   Before then the land must be cleaned, ploughed and cultivated.

A NEW TINE

One new thing we are using this season is a sub-soiling tine.   This goes 15 inches deep and breaks through the compacted soil beneath the surface which has been caused by the weight of machinery, or the ‘plough pan’, the level the plough has always reached.   The deep soil shattered by this leaves the surface raised up 5 or 6 inches, so it must be having a dramatic effect down below.   We are only using it in known trouble spots - in gateways or where tracks have been made across fields, where the crops have been noticeably poorer.  We are hoping that better drainage here will make all the difference.   We had thought we could pull two of these tines, but even our biggest tractor with the 4 big wheels and 4 wheel drive could only manage to get one through the land in those places.

WHO IS IN THE BARN?

Over the years our barns have held Julia, Georgie, Widgeon, Otter, Mink and Mazurka, Hobbit, Atou, Hinor, Champlein, and Templer, to name but a few.   This year Mardler and Amanda, together with past favourites Huntsman, Flanders, Kador and Peniarth.   No, not new stock bulls or some exotic breeds of cattle we’ve been trying, but all varieties of wheat, barley and oats.   I’m glad they still give them names.   Many of the grasses have been given numbers, like S24 or S321, and the cows likewise.   However, numbered or named, the cows are every one of them special.   Over a hundred are due to calve before Christmas so a good deal of time is spent in watching over the pregnant “mums”, monitoring the births and rearing the calves.  Every one has a personality of her own be she known as ‘Daisy’ or ‘198’.

NOVEMBER 1979

I GIVE IN

When I realised that I was supposed to write about winter on the farm, it then being early November, my first reaction was surprise to find we had already reached November.   My second, the thought that I was not ready for winter and just could not contemplate it - certainly not write about it.   At that point a packet of snow, hail, thunder and lightning descended on us.   I ignored it.   That was last week.   It has now snowed again – so ok, I believe it, - but I don’t want to.   Like it or not, the farm is taking on its winter mantle.  The cattle are mostly in, the machinery greased and put away and the multitude of jobs left during the grass and corn harvesting months are clamouring for attention.

ON THE AGENDA

First priority must be to treat the cattle against warble fly.   These flies, which drive the animals crazy in summer, lay their eggs on their legs, quickly hatch into maggots, which travel up to the body under the skin.  At this stage the larvae can be destroyed.   If treatment is delayed now it would be dangerous, as they get into the spinal canal zone where they must not be killed.   Untreated, in the spring they would make walnut sized swellings in the back from which they would burst, puncturing the hide.   Having pulled down the condition of the animal and spoilt the skin, they then turn into warble flies to start the cycle again.   Their treatment is compulsory.   Most of cows have calved and the majority of the calves have progressed from individual feeding and are now in the covered yards for the winter.

RIVERDOWN JESTER – TOP OF THE ‘POPS’

It is very important now to get the cows back in-calf again.   Our best Friesian cows will be mated by artificial insemination by Friesian bulls.  The better the cow, the better the bull we choose.   For some bulls, whose daughters are proven to have given above-average quantity or quality yields, it is expensive, the dearest this year is Riverdown Jester who is costing £25 per dose.   Coming down the scale, an un-nominated service by the “bull of the day” costs £4.50p, with free repeat if necessary.   So, the cows are carefully evaluated and from all the Friesian calves we hope for females to rear to come into our dairy herd.

BEEF BULL

We have just purchased a new Polled Hereford beef bull.   He lives with the heifers, that is, the cows who will be having their first calves.  A Hereford calf is smaller than a Friesian, thus the first birth should be an easy one.   He will also be put in with the lower yielding part of the herd, as we do not want their progeny for the dairy herd but for beef.   Only a few hours after being put in a field with our heifers, a phone call from a neighbouring farmer informed us that the bull’s flights of fancy had lightly turned to the girls next door and he was in with their heifers and not ours.   Needless to say “Casanova’s” hedge has since been reinforced.

A QUIRK OF NATURE

It has been a quirk of nature that for a number of years the majority of our Friesian, would be milking cows, calves have been baby bulls, and the Hereford crossed Friesian, would be prime steaks, calves have been female.   Imagine having paid £25 for the use of Riverdown Jester, dreaming of a fantastic little heifer that would put a hundred pints on the doorstep every day, then being presented with a lovely little bull.   Could be said to be “playing for high steaks”!

AN “OLD WIVES TALE” OR - ?

It has been said, quite categorically, that to produce a heifer calf, the cow when mated must be facing the sun and vice versa to produce a bull calf.   We used to tie our cows for A.I so they did not face the sun.   What a conflict of thought.   The modern mind did not want to give in to an old wives’ – albeit an old farmers’ wives’ tale.   On the other hand, was there something in the old saying?   Getting the right calves would make an enormous difference to us.   However, the numbers had been the wrong way round for several years.   Suppose the law of averages tipped the scales the year we changed them round?   Then we might, quite wrongly, have proved an old tale to be right.   Thus scientific proof fought old superstition in our minds.  Which won?   Well we did rather cheat.   We changed to a different building at right angles to the old one.  Since then, one year we had a preponderance of bull calves and the next of heifer calves.   Of course, if the mating takes place morning or afternoon could make a difference as the sun moves round.   We don’t record the time of day, so the debate is still wide open.   It has also categorically been said that this does not only apply to cows!!

MARCH 1980

TURKEY MEMORIES

March 21^st.   My pen is poised waiting for thoughts of spring, but it is snowing and I can only think of turkey feathers.   We produced our usual eighteen to twenty thousand helpings of Christmas dinner, no doubt followed by turkey in a hundred disguises, until the last dregs of soup brought a sigh of relief that Christmas only comes once a year.  Actually I think the deepfreeze has solved that “everlasting” problem for many people.   We are certainly selling ever increasing numbers of the larger birds.   They do look grand, and are a good buy, providing the surplus, if any, is frozen before it becomes a bore.   And yes, we do have turkey ourselves on Christmas Day.

OVEN FITTED TURKEY

The turkey today is quite different from the bird of even twenty years ago.   Then, the large breastbone soared up to the oven roof like Mount Everest.  Now, it is so small on a well finished bird, that it is lower than the flesh.   These new strains are appropriately known as dimple-breasted.  When trussed, they are almost square in shape and surprisingly large birds will fit the oven.   The customer who gives me oven dimensions or leaves a baking tin to fit, rather than a weight, can have quite a shock if not warned.

CHICKS

It being nearly Easter, I suppose that chicks are really a more appropriate thing to have in mind.   We have five hundred day-old chicks coming next week.   The breeding and hatching is now so specialised that there are very few firms doing it.   The birds are hybrids, bred for their egg-laying qualities.   They have small appetites, lay masses of eggs and never go broody.   No other birds are a commercial proposition and even these often put egg producers into the red.   Egg production is a very risky business.

PET HENS and “COCKERICO”

Our son Richard has some pet hens that he had reared from day-old chicks three years ago.   They lay well, but are clever at hiding their eggs.  Hen tracking is a pleasant pastime, but very time consuming.   Wanting to breed from them, he reared a cockerel last year.   He was as tame as a parrot until put with the hens, then what a transformation.   He was a super cockerel, but so ferocious.   Having been reared by humans it seemed he felt we were also after his hens.  He would rush from a distance, claws ready for your throat.   It was foolish to go near him without a stick and invariably something like a sword fight would ensue.   Despite our admiration for him it was decided he must find a new home.

BAMTAMS TO THE RESCUE

When ‘Cockerico’ left it was imperative to get the fertile eggs incubated as quickly as possible.   None of Richard’s hens had ever gone broody, but we were lucky to borrow a bantam, now named “Dumpling”, who is valiantly covering eight enormous hens’ eggs.  Another bantam has hatched two chicks from eggs given to him.

MY KITCHEN

Three other eggs, though obviously developing did not hatch at the same time and were then abandoned by ‘Nesta’.  These eggs are now being hopefully kept warm on the Aga.   If you imagine a farmhouse kitchen as warm, with delicious smells of baking, mine would sadly disappoint you at this moment.   Besides the eggs hopefully hatching on the cooker, there is a dish of syringes waiting to be sterilised, and the two feet long cow hoof clippers waiting to be cleaned, together with the stone and oil for sharpening them, sitting on the draining board.

TRAMLINES

Until this week we have had an easy winter down here in the south.   The crops planted last autumn are well up and the spring drilling is in progress.   This year our crops have “tramlines” for the tractors to run along.   Not quite what it sounds, for the tramlines are parallel lines left unsown in the corn, down which the tractor wheels can run when the crops need spraying or fertilising, then the plants are not squashed by the wheels.   It is not a new idea but can only be done when all the equipment covers the same area between the lines.   We have only just got our implements all the correct size to do it.   Tramlines are quite noticeable running across fields of corn.

CRISIS IN MY KITCHEN

My kitchen is now enhanced by the dishwasher, usually a great aid to my sanity, flooding the floor, and one of the eggs on the Aga has just exploded.  In haste, I am off to grab a mop and ‘clothes peg’ to deal with these latest novelties.

JULY 1980

HAY

“Make hay while the sun shines!”  Nothing we would like better, but the sun doesn’t want to play.   Fortunately we don’t rely on hay for our main winter fodder, but silage.   This only has to wilt, so although we need fine weather, we do not require several dry days on the trot as for hay.   We do need some hay though, and it is getting very close to harvest without it being made.   It is ironic that in the spring it was so dry that we had barely enough grass for grazing and wondered if there would be any spare for conservation.  Now we’ve got the grass but the rain that made it grow won’t let us get it in.   St. Swithin’s Day is said to have set the weather pattern for the next forty days.   It was dry all day until it rained at teatime.   Does that predict continuous changeable weather?   If so, then we might as well forget about haymaking and prepare for harvest – then we can scramble to get that in when the forty days are up.   Always assuming of course that it changes for the better.

DEATH BY FOAM RUBBER

There are not many dull moments on the farm, no matter what the weather.   Some new incident is always cropping up.   Thanks to a phone call from Walters Ash we found our cattle there shut out of their field and in the corn field, before much harm had been done.  Not the first time it has happened there!   A post mortem on a cow, in the same field, revealed that she had swallowed a piece of foam rubber – not the sort of diet we would choose to feed the cattle!

DEATH BY ROVING EYE

Another calamity was the loss of our bull.   He had to be sold for slaughter, having injured himself trying to visit the cows in the field next door.   It seemed such a pity as he was a good natured fellow and quiet to handle.

POCKET ‘DANCE’

Not so an over-energetic steer (young male) whose attentions would also extend to men.   One day John returned with his anorak badly ripped from the pocket.   It seems that in avoiding the animals overtures, John had got it’s hoof caught in the pocket, which had eventually given way.   Any witnesses may be forgiven for thinking our animals were being trained to dance for the circus – I am assured this is not the case.

RICHARD’S CHICK REARING

Richard’s fifth brood of chicks is now being reared.   When the fourth sitting came off there was one chick not out of its shell and obviously in trouble.   The correct thing would have been to abandon it, as a chick unable to get is bound to be a weakling.   However, it seemed heartless to do that so it was brought indoors.    We cracked the shell all round and dampened the inner membrane, then watched entranced as this determined, wet little creature struggled into world.   He then collapsed flat out – little stick legs stretched behind him.   Warmth, we thought, was required so we put the prostrate form on top of the Aga cooker.   No response, but we left him there.   We realised he was still with us when loud cheeps announced that he had recovered enough to fall off the Aga.   That night saw him tucked up in a basket in the airing cupboard.   How he got out of it will never be known but the first thing I knew about it was next morning.   It was the price I paid for stealing a few extra minutes in bed.  Richard appeared, tucked this object under the covers saying “Do something Mum”.   Here again was the flat little body, little stick legs trailing behind, but this time cold and stiff as a plank.   Needless to say – he recovered.    For four days he lived under a lamp in Richard’s bedroom, fed at first by a dropper until he could walk, feed and drink by himself, then he was restored to the mother hen.   True, he did sit with his legs peeking out from under her instead of his head, but he thrived.   I wish I could say there is a happy ending, but he disappeared some time later – presumed taken by one of the farm cats.   Richard also lost one whole brood of bantams and their hen when a fox tunnelled into their house.   Hard blows to take but immense pleasure from the successes.

UPDATE

I wrote the first paragraph five days ago.   Since then, everyday – pure sunshine.   So much for weather predictions!   Today – terrific thunderstorms.   The hay, baled and ready to cart, soaking in the fields.   Next week third cut silage due and then all systems go for the corn harvest.   The crops look well at the moment – but we never count our chickens before they are hatched – in fact perhaps it is better not to count them at all.

SEPTEMBER 1980

CORN MOUNTAIN

What had perhaps seemed only an average summer was in fact ideal for the corn.   The yields were high and the quality good.   The problem will be in selling it.   At present there is corn piled everywhere.   The farms and the merchants are stacked out with it and it is being sold into intervention, which I don’t really understand, but I imagine it is a means of building a corn mountain.

OATS TO SCOTLAND

It was ironic that the oats we grew were transported by road all the way to Cupar in Fifeshire to make Scotts Porage Oats.   Some, no doubt, to return to our breakfast table later in the year.   What was traditionally an oat growing area there is now producing the more profitable malting barley for whisky and beer.

WOMBLES NEEDED

With the grain in, it is now urgent to clear the fields and prepare the ground to drill next year’s crop.   At the same time the hedges are being trimmed, while the fields are empty.  There are miles of hedgerows to keep in good order round the farm and we do make a great effort to keep them tidy.  We don’t appreciate the rubbish, often garden refuse, which gets tipped over and under them and have felt tempted to return the same to those who mistakenly think that we might want what they do not.   Or perhaps the ‘Womble’ who so rapidly cleared the bales of hay and straw we unfortunately dropped off a trailer into the road, might also like the harvest of hedge clippings, stones and vegetable waste which our fields and hedgerows have reaped.

UNDULANT FEVER

To add to the pressure of work during the harvest the cows had to be blood tested.   This was necessitated by a cow prematurely losing a calf.   The test was to ascertain if it was caused by brucellosis, otherwise known as contagious abortion.   This can be caught by humans and is known as undulant fever, having recurring flu-like symptoms.   Some years ago an incentive was given to milk producers to encourage them to clear their herds of it.   Our herd was clear by early 1970, and since then a monthly milk test has kept a check on it.   If an animal unexpectedly loses a calf then a blood test of each animal is required in addition, hence the test of the herd.   It was a relief that it was clear, the calf having died of some natural cause.   More recently a campaign took place, strongly backed by the W.I. and other bodies, to make eradication compulsory.   This objective is gradually being achieved and many areas are now free and others have a deadline by which they must be clear.   Once this has been managed it should be easier to keep it at bay, although there seems quite a bit of controversy as to whether wild animals or dogs can spread it.   As we have no control over wild life and footpaths in virtually every field give access to dogs, it may still get around.   Blood testing is also regularly done to guard against T.B in cattle.  There is a slaughter policy in force to keep it eliminated from the country.

CONKERS

Soon the clocks go back and that will curtail the daylight available for the harvest that is now in progress beneath the trees at the farm entrance – that of the conker, without the gathering of which the village year would not be complete.

NOVEMBER 1980

ALL BEHIND

With harvest home and the fields cleared we needed some kind weather to prepare the ground for drilling the winter corn.   This should be done by mid-October. However the weather was most inclement and by the end of the month only 179 out of 340 acres were sown.   We almost decided to abandon the operation when things improved and in six hectic days the remaining 161 acres were got in.   It was late, but with luck even late winter corn is a better proposition than the spring sown varieties.   The planting date is understandably significant when one realises that corn planted in the first week of October is growing green in six days, but when sown in early November will probably take five weeks to get to that same stage.

MAINTAINING QUALITY

It seems paradoxical that having got next year’s crop planted it should go on growing even if we do nothing, while this year’s harvest, which one might presume completed, still needs constant attention, a good deal of brain searching and eventually hours spent loading it for sale.   The attention is needed to keep it in good condition.   The most likely problems are caused by damp, so keeping the grain dry is all important.  Our drying facilities are very simple, taking the form of motors driving fans to push air through ducts under the corn.  The air filters up through the grain keeping it fresh and carrying away any moisture.   This theory obviously only works in practice if the outside air is drier than the corn.

CORN TRADING

There are a multitude of ways to sell corn, with no certain way of obtaining the best price.   I was told recently that selling grain is a gamblers paradise.   The world price is largely dictated by Chicago, but now we are in the E.E.C it no longer applies to us.   The E.E.C, trying to keep prices steady, reckons to put a floor in the market by buying the surplus and putting it into intervention stores, with stringent conditions laid down.   Various markets throughout the British Isles quote their local price.   The ‘Salisbury’ price has been good the last few years, so this time we agreed to sell some of our harvest at the ‘Salisbury’ price.   So far this has been one of the lowest quoted.   Private deals with local merchants can be arranged in various forms, or deals can be put through the Baltic Exchange in London.   This deals in the ‘futures’ and can be arranged to sell any month in the year at a ‘future’ price.   This changes continually and a price fixed now to sell, say, next June, may not necessarily be as much as a sale on the ‘spot’ (day) market when the time comes.   International politics and the world weather can make dramatic alterations in the demands situation.   One assumes that by storing, one will get more, but it does not always work out that way.   Gamblers Paradise!!

1% TOO BEYOND US

We had considered offering some of our wheat for intervention.   Bread making quality was the criteria and ironically, although the varieties we had to offer would not have been milling quality in England, the E.E.C tests were different and our corn could probably have passed them.  The minimum quantity was 100 tons, which we could have managed, but it had to be down to 15% moisture.    With our drying system relying on the outside air being drier than the corn and it being a damp autumn, we just could not get it dry enough.   We reckon to store at 16% but that extra 1% was just too much.

MARCH 1981

SPRING

I only have to look out of window to see that spring is coming.  There has been terrific rain and the daffodils down the drive have taken a beating, but they still promise to be lovely.   It will only take a little sunshine for the garden to burst into life, in fact the birds cannot wait and some are busy building nests – certainly I can hear them singing even from indoors.

FARMING CLUES

I cannot see much farming activity from the house, but there is little need for me to go outside to discover just what is going on out on the farm.   The clues are brought into the house in a constant stream:- silage, hay, grain, straw, feathers, all come inside in their turn, bringing variety to the daily round.  Some things get in clinging brazenly to clothes – especially socks.   Straw and grass seeds are greatly aided by the wellie boot.   It is amazing how much a boot can hold and I sometimes wonder that there could have been room for a foot as well.   The really sneaky things get down inside the clothes, which is pretty mean because they don’t emerge at all until they get in the bedroom.  Pockets, which innocently pretend to be collecting things, show their true colours as soon as a handkerchief is pulled from them.   Pockets should preferably be banned completely or at least banned once the floors have been cleaned for the day.   A handkerchief itself can tell quite a tale.   Used to mop oil and other undesirable messes, it can leave the clues literally at the end of the nose, which does the complexion no good at all.

HOUSEHOLD MACHINES

Keeping this invasion from the farm at bay is a game known as ‘housework’.   I am not keen on it.   I have discovered a few things that are essential.   For instance, any equipment in the house must be very simple, then there is less to go wrong as it wrestles with the abuse it is given.   I am gradually accumulating a collection of old washing machines that I dare not part with as they provide the spares for the one I am trying to keep going.   Unless you want the grapevine buzzing because the service engineer is always at your house, it is advisable to at least learn how to unblock the washer’s pump.   “Straw in her pump again!!” it will buzz.   The gossips cannot actually prove there was not.   But how can you prove there was?   My upright vacuum will not pick up grains of corn.   It spins them up to a good speed then spits them out viciously at my legs.   If they miss the legs they hurtle across the room, usually onto a patch already cleaned.  I ought to change it for a cylinder model I suppose.   I was considering it, but someone asked me which museum I got mine out of.   So, I thought, if something as old as that is game enough to keep battling on for me, the least I can do is be loyal to it in its old age.

THE OUTDOORS INDOORS

The farm jobs at the end of the winter, coinciding with the wet weather, have brought in a double dose of the great outdoors.   One dose for the eyes to see, one dose for the nose.  It looks like mud – sometimes it is mud – but often it isn’t.   It rarely smells like mud and if it does manage to get onto floors or furniture, it stains.   It is an opportunity to apologise to the parents of the schoolchildren who came to look round the farm after particularly heavy rain.   They did wear boots, but it is amazing how far that stuff can get.   We washed it off as best we could, so if you thought your child came home grubby, believe me we did keep most of it here.

FARM CLUES OF SPRING INDOORS

So how can I tell from the house that spring is coming?  The calves are nearly all reared so the odd one that needs milk warmed will be rarer.  The fridge will contain more milk samples to be sent for pregnancy testing.   The syringes and needles used to inject against milk fever at calving will not be coming in to be sterilised.   Sheds and loose boxes being cleaned out after cattle go back to the fields will waft a few messages.   More grain to go – beware the pockets and boots!   Then in May, silage making time and in comes the grass again.   I must try and get rid of any turkey feathers that are still lurking about from Christmas before then!   I might even collect up all the ash trays and empty them of all the nails, screws, nuts, bolts, jubilee clips, washers, plugs, delivery notes, matches, fuses and mouse traps and return them back to where they came from, before they came in to keep me in touch with life out on the farm.

JULY 1981

24/7

Regardless of what the official working hours may be, we find that in reality when we are at the farm, we are ‘on call’ twenty four hours a day.   The only way to be truly off duty is to go away.   The ‘one man’ or more likely the ‘one family’ farm calls for a dedication that some might liken to a prison sentence.   We are lucky in that we can leave the farm, knowing it is in good hands and benefit from a holiday.   The days prior to going are so hectic that we wonder if it worth the effort and by the time we get away the holiday that seemed a luxury has become almost a necessity.  Inevitably something gets left undone and that is why I find myself writing this on a boat somewhere between Cherbourg and Weymouth.

GRASS

This summer has been a bonanza time for a most taken for granted crop – grass.  A good deal of time and cash goes into cultivating and nurturing it, so believe me it is not just heaven sent as a free bonus.   We are letting a couple of areas on the farm revert to the indigenous flora, and very interesting it is, but the grass that is coming back would scarcely feed a rabbit.   However, if the farmer does the groundwork, heaven will provide the sunshine and showers to grow varieties of grass that are rich enough to keep cattle and produce milk.   It was indeed a bonanza crop this year.   Mild April showers continued through May and into June, and the grass just grew and grew.  It was unfortunate that it was ready to harvest for silage the last two weeks of May, because it was too wet to do it.  By the beginning of June with the grass coming into flower and the ‘D’ value (D for digestibility) dropping it was decided to get it in whatever the weather.   It was not as young or dry as we like, but there is certainly plenty of it.  With the promise of better weather we switched to hay-making.   Older grass makes good hay and we had more of that now than for a long time.   A quick, not very heavy second cut of grass for silage and we could see our way clear for that holiday.

OVER THE HEDGE IN FRANCE

Now, being on holiday does not mean that John has not been farming.   But ‘over-the-hedge’ holiday farming doesn’t have the problems it would at home.   Every field tells a story that only a farmer can read, and so we have duly farmed from Cherbourg to Bordeaux and back.   Normandy, with the spotted cattle and so much grass, they must have had weather like ours.   Then on till we had corn, maize and grapes, walnuts, tobacco and sunflowers, Maine Anjou and Limousin cattle to add variety from our crops and herds, and most of it looking superb.

SURPRISE IN HAMBE

Somehow I could not concentrate on farming in England, but was nagged by the knowledge that the Hallmark copy was due in the day we got home.   Having a little time in hand as we drove up through Normandy to catch the boat, we decided to have a quick peek at Hambe.   As if to jog my conscience about this article, who should appear on the Town Hall balcony but the editor Ted Janes, also chairman of our parish council.  I guess he had more important things on his mind just then though.   The band was playing the English and French national anthems and he was representing us all as he signed to twin our parish with theirs.   We were very glad that we had by luck arrived just at that time.  We were made most welcome by those to whom we talked, even though our school-day French must be most comical.

BACK TO WORK

Now its home to the harvest.   With 390 acres to get in it is going to be busy for the rest of the summer.

SEPTEMBER 1981

FLY IN THE OINTMENT

If the farm work can be done in harmony with nature everything is so much easier.   Seeds planted at the right time, fertilised just when a boost is needed, harvested in peak condition – such, would be ideal.   The most likely ‘fly in the ointment’ is the weather.  It is obviously easier, sometimes essential, to do things when the weather is right, and that may not be the best time for the crop.   It is a frequent game juggling these two priorities.   This year the corn harvest was blessed with lovely weather, so for once this wasn’t a problem.

MODERN MACHINERY

Actually modern technology has solved it to a large degree, as the new combine harvesters can deal with the crops in far from perfect conditions.   They also have air-conditioned and virtually soundproof cabs, which sounds a luxury but makes a deal of difference if you’re at the controls all day, and I dare say will eventually become the norm.   There are many adjustments that can be made to get the cutting and threshing just right and most of this used to be monitored by the sound of the machine.  In the cabs these sounds cannot be heard and are replaced with a display panel that to me looks like something out of Concorde.   Our crops this year on the whole have been good.   Winter barley didn’t do well this year, but luckily we hadn’t grown any.

FEEDING THE CROPS

One of the complaints directed at the farming industry is against the use of artificial fertilisers.   To get good yields of corn and grass, which is essential, if you don’t want to go bankrupt, the crops must be fed, especially on hungry land such as we have here.   We carry about 300 head of cattle on the farm, so they provide a fair amount of manure which is all put back on the land.   We also spend literally thousands on chalk, potash, phosphate and nitrogen – mostly nitrogen.   We don’t put on more than the crops can use, firstly because it is just too expensive to waste and secondly because if it is overdone the crops grow too lush and collapse.    It is ironic that producing good yields of grain will inevitably put the price down, but that can surely only be a good thing for the population as a whole.

A FARMER’s GREATEST COMPLIMENT

John and I got married the third week of September.   This was timed between harvest and corn drilling.  However, since then the farm is growing more and more autumn sown crops.   These make better economic sense but put pressure on the work load at this time as harvest runs into drilling.   I wonder when we would have fixed the date were it now.   After drilling the winter corn perhaps?   That’s a bit risky, running late and that could mean nearly Christmas and then there are all those turkeys gobbling about.   In any case there are about one hundred and fifty calves due the front end of the winter and they do make a lot of work.   What about straight after Christmas?   Turkey feathers mixed with confetti and rice?  Ok, if it is mild, but a bit unfair to be away when half the day is spent thawing troughs and pipes in a freeze up.   When the weather improves?   Well the spring cultivations do bring pressure of work too and then its silage, hay and harvest ahead.   They say that when a farmer takes off time to get married that is the greatest compliment he can pay and even then you can be sure he has consulted the farming calendar first.   The bride might as well get used to the idea, she will be living by it from now on.  Mother Nature is a demanding tyrant but once you accept that you are wed to her as well as your husband it can be a gratifying partnership.   I appreciate the ‘compliment’ John paid me those years ago, also that he got all the meal dust off him, which was quite an achievement, for I am told that he was mixing cattle food within minutes of leaving for the church.

NOVEMBER 1981

‘BRYN’

Two years ago we brought home as a souvenir from Wales a Border Collie puppy.   These sheep dogs can be trained to a degree of brilliance, but ‘Bryn’, our dog, who has never been trained at all still rounds up things beautifully.  He finds the chickens frustrating as they are able to fly off and escape, but he does try.   I can only presume that it is instinct.  ‘Instinct’, the dictionary says is “an innate propensity to seemingly rational acts especially in lower animals”  After looking up ‘innate’ and ‘propensity’ I decided it meant a natural inclination in animals to do the right thing.  If animals do tend to do the right thing by instinct it must be wise for the stockman to observe and use it to his advantage.   Likewise, it must make it more difficult if one tries to go against it.   To separate one cow from the herd is usually difficult, but if one goes off on its own it is probably ill or going to calve and so certainly worth keeping an eye on.

EASIER CALVING

The heifers, having their first calf, mostly give birth in the front field where the Hereford bull is.   These calves are his offspring.   The older cows are relatively easy to get into calf artificially, but it more difficult to time it right with the young animals.  The bull just seems to know and doesn’t make mistakes.   The Hereford also produces a smaller calf which is easier for this first delivery.

3 VISITS BY THE BULL

When the bull got into the garden for the third time in one week I suggested to John that an extra strand of barbed wire would make me feel happier, as I had planted new bulbs.   He suggested that the bull was lonely, there being no heifers in the field at the time.   I felt his sympathies were quite misplaced, and certainly prefer to think it was just that the grass was greener and not a natural instinct for my company that brought the bull my way.

TEACHING BUCKET DRINKING

When a calf is born it will struggle to its feet and make its way quite surely to the milk, instinctively searching upwards in order to drink.   It is therefore understandable that a calf reared on the bucket takes some persuading to put it’s head down.   Some are so strong and determined that the first attempts can end up with the bucket up-ended and the milk possibly in someone’s wellies.

CHICK’S SANCTURY

Foolishly, we helped one of Richard’s chicks out of its shell.   We could hear it cheeping and it wouldn’t have made it on its own.   Then we could not get the hen to accept it, so it was reared in the house.   When afraid, chicks run and get under their hen.   This one, suddenly afraid in a room of people, ran across the room, and somehow scrambled up my legs and hid between my skirt and the lining, from whence I had quite a job to extricate it.   Is instinct was working correctly, but I wonder if it thought I was a chicken or that it was a human.   Now the hen has left the other chicks it is living with them, and I trust, will grow up without being too confused as to its identity.

WINTER PREPARATIONS

Preparation for the winter are well underway, with all the machinery and stock being brought under cover.  The next few months will largely be devoted to feeding, bedding, milking, egg collecting, repairs and maintenance.   It doesn’t sound too bad put like that, but even with the animals inside the weather makes an enormous difference.   Snow makes things difficult and a freeze-up makes it a nightmare.   The livestock drink vast quantities of water and it must be kept flowing.   Christmas starts for us a fortnight earlier than for most people, with the preparation of the turkeys.   A job to be timed with precision, for the customers would not appreciate our being even one day late.   It makes life even more hectic than usual, but it is a good time to see so many people and exchange Christmas greetings.

THANK YOU

May I take this opportunity to say “Thank you” from all of us to the many who keep a vigilant eye on our animals and crops.   We appreciate your concern and welcome your calls when something appears wrong.   “A stitch in time saves nine”, can be a very true saying!   Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

MARCH 1982

FRESH START

I find the spring a very reassuring time, like being given a chance for a fresh start.   In fact I’ve been trying to reassure myself it’s on its way for some while now.   Keep popping out between the rains to see if anything new has come up in the garden.

FARM SURVEY

I think it is very similar on the farm, it just takes longer for John to go round all the fields than for me to circuit the garden.   The ground is still too cold and wet to plant the spring corn, but the crops planted in the autumn are up.   It is encouraging that they have survived the winter alright, but now they need some attention as soon as it is dry enough to get on the land.   There are grass weeds coming through in the corn and it needs fertilising.   Also the frost has lifted the soil so it needs rolling down again.

FAILURE

The exception is a field where the crop is a disaster and we thought that slugs had eaten it.   A chance remark alerted John to the possibility that the seed was at fault.   Germination tests revealed that the seed dressing against mildew had over-slowed the growth and the company has admitted liability.

LITTER COLLECTION

During the last few months much time has been spent on repairs and maintenance to machinery, buildings, fences and hedges.  Talking of hedges, as I grumbled about rubbish being put over and in the hedges, to be fair I must say “Thank you” to the schoolchildren who picked up the litter.   They made a good job of our roadside, and I was pleased to sponsor them, especially as they were giving to such a good cause.   Also, while I’m in the mood to give bouquets, “Well done” to Princes Risborough Young Farmers Club to which this area supplies several members.  These youngsters put on a first class buffet dance, in Lacey Green Village Hall, no less!   Not only was it an excellent evening but the Y.F.C handed over £125 to cancer research, the proceeds from the tombola.

HENS

With Easter coming it seemed appropriate to write about eggs.   Over recent years we have drastically cut our egg production, so now we just supply some local shops and our retail customers.   The wholesale prices often do not cover the cost of production so we do not want to sell to packing stations.   The hens are specially bred hybrids that convert their food into eggs rather than body weight.   They are kept in battery cages because it is the most economical way to keep them and the public wants food as cheap as possible.   There has been a good deal of opposition to batteries lately and I agree it doesn’t sound good.   However, I cannot really say that the hens look miserable and mopey.   We put four birds in each cage which could take six, so probably ours are not as crowded as some.   They don’t sound distressed, in fact the noise they make is just a sociable murmer ‘just like a lot of hens’.

RICHARD’S HEN’S EGGS

We also sell free range eggs, laid by our son’s hens.   At present he sells them at the same price as ours and at such are heavily subsidised.  Being outdoors and being pure bred they are heavy eaters and there are dozens of visiting sparrows.   His customers certainly have a wide choice, from big brown eggs to tiny white ones and a range of blues and greens in a range of sizes.   They buy them for various reasons – perhaps because they have more flavour (a point contested by his father who feeds his birds a very good ration) or for the novelty of the different coloured eggs, but only one person has said she buys them because the hens are not kept in batteries!

HERE COMES THE SUN

The weather forecast is set fair for the next few days, so I guess life down on the farm is going to be a wee bit hectic from now on.   But won’t it be nice to see the sun again?

JULY 1982

EARLY HARVEST

This summer offering again falls due while we are on holiday.   What is unusual is that at home combining the harvest will begin while we are away.  This is not just because the crops are ripening early, which they are, but because this year we have grown winter barley, which is autumn sown and matures earlier than spring barley, wheat or oats.   Until recently it was considered a somewhat anti-social thing to grow.   Being in the ground for up to eleven months it gave diseases, pests and weeds plenty of time to get rife and spread, perhaps, to neighbouring land.   In particular, the advances made in fungicides, enabling mildews to be kept under control have made it acceptable.   So this year we have grown some.   It will spread out the harvest and cultivations for next year’s crops can be started earlier, so that work too may be a bit less concentrated.

WEED GRASSES

In a crop such winter barley the weeds most likely to get a hold are grasses.   These spread rapidly and have virtually no nutritional value.   Which raises the question “What is a weed?” for those same grasses are of vital importance on such as the Cumberland Fells, where we are holidaying and where little else can grow.   Perhaps the truest definition of a weed is “a plant out of place”.   We were asked recently if weeds were a detriment to a crop

Stocken Farm Diary Part 1
Construction Era	1950-1999
Type of Property	Farm
Use of Property	Residential, Business, Charity, Shop
Locations	Lacey Green