Farm Life

From mud pies to cowpat discus, I loved every second of being brought up in a farming setting and give all the credit for who I am today to those who surrounded me in the process.

I know for other parts of the country it’s practically summer, but here in the Scottish Borders spring is just around the corner at last.

Last July, Isobel and I sold eight hectares of hay to a man who contacted us through Facebook.

It’s hard to believe 2023 has arrived already. Last year rolled by quickly from month to month and season to season.

Since October, I have embarked on the most stressful experience of my 26 years to date. "What’s that?" you may ask. Well, completely renovating a house solo during a cost-of-living crisis, of course.

In a new series for Farmers Guardian, the 11 new recruits on the McDonald’s Progressive Young Farmer (PYF) programme. Each month we follow one of the PYF’s to see what they are doing.

March definitely proved to be the month for on-farm maintenance. Whether it was repairing silage clamps, fixing broken cubicles or maintaining machinery, it was all tackled last month.

In the words of Bon Jovi, we’re half way there. In previous years we have lambed over four months, but thankfully this year, for multifactorial reasons, lambing season is only two months.

The search continues for a farm weve viewed a few small farms, however weve found that agricultural value and output is completely disjointed from the asking price.

Im writing this in the lull between the indoor lambing of the park ewes and the outdoor lambing of the hill flock which lasts approximately a week and is never long enough.