Blogs

From torrential rain to a heatwave within a matter of days. July threw the proverbial kitchen sink at us in terms of weather conditions.

All our sheep were finally shorn by the first week of July and the conversation soon moved onto the well-documented price we will receive for the wool.

What a blessing a warm July has been for us, allowing us to crack on with harvesting, cropping, drilling, cultivating, packing and whatever else needs doing to keep us in business.

I did not think it was possible to be more busy than we were before. July has been the most incredible month with second cut silage, our first ever hay crop and new calves arriving to be reared.

In my mind July is always a catchy month, with the majority of the last 10 or 15 years being very much a case of grabbing a bit of silage when you can.

Thank you Jeremy Clarkson and team for making us smile. A brilliant series – educational, emotional and I’m sure opened the eyes of many viewers to the never boring, extreme multi-tasking and financially unstable world of farming.

We have been keeping busy by topping, striving to mix and match cutting and grazing, hay making, preparing for silage and, as ever, fencing.

It was my birthday a few weeks ago and we celebrated by spending the day worming and weighing the last lot of lambs and tagging the final few calves before heading out for a much anticipated meal at a local pub for the first time in months, where someone else did the dishes.

This time of year is the calm before the inevitable storm of harvest; everything is sown, cows are outside, grass is cut and spraying up to date.

Looking back at an entry in a previous year’s diary is always a stark reminder of how two years are never the same, and possibly more so when you are a farmer.