- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
I seldom welcome a change to cooler weather, but I’ve got to say it was nice to feel a cool breeze on my shoulders at last. It feels like I’ve been toiling in an oven for weeks - I don’t know how I would’ve coped with the heatwave if I had nothing to be doing in it. As it was, I haven’t had time to think about it, being as busy as a mad thing. As well as trying to push baling on as fast as possible before the remaining crops get less in the scorching sun, we’ve been carefully watching the young bullocks water away at grass. So far there hasn’t been any big issues, although in the heat, I suspect it’d become a crisis very quickly. The one lot whose supply failed were close at hand, and able to find a trickle of natural water oozing from a boggy patch in the furthest field – the old fellas who built those stone walls long ago generally put some thought into what they did. We have had several seasonal instances of gates being left open, including one which saw 15 young bullocks get out on the road. Luckily I must’ve been born under a favourable star, as they meandered straight into a sensible chum, who even had my number on his phone. He was in signal, and miracle of miracles, I not only had my phone and a signal too, but was only a couple of miles along the same road. That’s one of my nine lives then.
At least the weather has left the cattle mostly looking lovely, with a sheen on the South Devons I seldom see.
On balance, working in this weather has been less stressed than when a wet catchy season has kept everyone constantly behind the game, and left soggy stinky forage saved. I suppose those carrying a lot of stock on ground which burns probably view it differently, and hear rumours that some dairymen are currently casting about for something to fill clamps, as 2nd cuts fail to match expectations – I daresay some impromptu wholecrop has been saved. Perhaps a wet August will save the day.
The only crop I’ve got in- beyond whatever voluntarily springs forth- is a bit of forage rape we rolled into a patch of ground the cows chewed up last winter. It germinated well, and started off OK, but the grasses and docks around it have outpaced it now. It also seems to have attracted every cabbage white butterfly in the county, and they flutter pleasingly over it in the afternoon sunshine. No doubt their greedy little wigglers will soon lay waste to the foliage. How they sniff out the only brassica crop on the place I don’t know, but they surely do.
This got me thinking. See I’m sure I read that some tin rattling wildlife trust is adamant that farmers are destroying the last few butterflies in the county, hunting them down individually and clubbing them like so many baby seals. Funnily enough, the tin rattlers seldom mention all the other threats to the local wildlife… it’s always farmers. When I hear them prepared to have an earnest talk about lobbying parliament to stem the explosive growth of human population and its attendant urbanisation of our fair landscape, which is surely a far greater threat than what I get up to, I’ll be prepared to hear what they say. Meanwhile, I regard their hypocrisy with the utmost contempt, and advise you to find some other tin to drop your change in.
Mind, to be fair, I admit to hunting down some insects with only one fate in mind. We’re seeing some maggoty issues in the sheep, which would either result in a dead sheep, or an awful lot of dead blow flies. Guess which we choose? I’ve also swatted I don’t know how many horseflies, which endeavour to feast on a man trying to concentrate on his work, and I did clout a large and particularly annoying moth which had somehow got into the marital bedchamber. As it made its twelfth humming lap of the lamp, it met a book coming the other way, which sent it tumbling at the window pane. It made a satisfying splat as it hit the window pane, falling stunned onto a spiders web in the corner of the cill. We’ve been tolerating the huge black spider therein, enjoying watching its hunting prowess. This time, a meal almost as big as itself landed right at its doorstep. It rushed out to receive the gift with outstretched arms. I suppose it would be anthropomorphising to say it was grateful, but I’m sure I heard its tiny voice squeaking ‘Oh wow! Really wow! Thanks Dad’.
Bliddy farmers, killing insects eh?
-------------------------
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine and the NFU
He has published two books; the second "The Complete Bullocks" is still in print
http://www.anton-coaker.co.uk/book.htm
At least the weather has left the cattle mostly looking lovely, with a sheen on the South Devons I seldom see.
On balance, working in this weather has been less stressed than when a wet catchy season has kept everyone constantly behind the game, and left soggy stinky forage saved. I suppose those carrying a lot of stock on ground which burns probably view it differently, and hear rumours that some dairymen are currently casting about for something to fill clamps, as 2nd cuts fail to match expectations – I daresay some impromptu wholecrop has been saved. Perhaps a wet August will save the day.
The only crop I’ve got in- beyond whatever voluntarily springs forth- is a bit of forage rape we rolled into a patch of ground the cows chewed up last winter. It germinated well, and started off OK, but the grasses and docks around it have outpaced it now. It also seems to have attracted every cabbage white butterfly in the county, and they flutter pleasingly over it in the afternoon sunshine. No doubt their greedy little wigglers will soon lay waste to the foliage. How they sniff out the only brassica crop on the place I don’t know, but they surely do.
This got me thinking. See I’m sure I read that some tin rattling wildlife trust is adamant that farmers are destroying the last few butterflies in the county, hunting them down individually and clubbing them like so many baby seals. Funnily enough, the tin rattlers seldom mention all the other threats to the local wildlife… it’s always farmers. When I hear them prepared to have an earnest talk about lobbying parliament to stem the explosive growth of human population and its attendant urbanisation of our fair landscape, which is surely a far greater threat than what I get up to, I’ll be prepared to hear what they say. Meanwhile, I regard their hypocrisy with the utmost contempt, and advise you to find some other tin to drop your change in.
Mind, to be fair, I admit to hunting down some insects with only one fate in mind. We’re seeing some maggoty issues in the sheep, which would either result in a dead sheep, or an awful lot of dead blow flies. Guess which we choose? I’ve also swatted I don’t know how many horseflies, which endeavour to feast on a man trying to concentrate on his work, and I did clout a large and particularly annoying moth which had somehow got into the marital bedchamber. As it made its twelfth humming lap of the lamp, it met a book coming the other way, which sent it tumbling at the window pane. It made a satisfying splat as it hit the window pane, falling stunned onto a spiders web in the corner of the cill. We’ve been tolerating the huge black spider therein, enjoying watching its hunting prowess. This time, a meal almost as big as itself landed right at its doorstep. It rushed out to receive the gift with outstretched arms. I suppose it would be anthropomorphising to say it was grateful, but I’m sure I heard its tiny voice squeaking ‘Oh wow! Really wow! Thanks Dad’.
Bliddy farmers, killing insects eh?
-------------------------
Anton's articles are syndicated exclusively by TFF by kind permission of the author and WMN.
Anton also writes regularly for the Dartmoor Magazine and the NFU
He has published two books; the second "The Complete Bullocks" is still in print
http://www.anton-coaker.co.uk/book.htm