Farming and the ageing process

I am 63 ,and have played crown green bowls for 40 of them !!
A few yrs ago my team Captain said he looked forward to me being old enough to play in his 'Seniors' team 60 onwards .:rolleyes:
I felt very underwelmed and couldnt see that happening as playing twice a week in 2 leagues was enough for me !

Move forward to being 61 , I was having so much left hip trouble ,I was glad of a rest in the sun in the afternoon, in the 'old gits league ' mainly because I was struggling walking around .

There are lots of folk will tell you that at 60 things start to go wrong with you !! Ha ha . In my case its not far wrong !! Hip replacement later this yr hopefully !!

Enjoy life while you can -it aint a trial run ""
 

flowerpot

Member
OH is 70 this year. He does most of the work! I had to laugh last summer when son, 39, was driving the JCB and OH and I were stacking small bales of hay. Shouldn't it be the other way round? That is the general picture, although son does all the cattle paperwork and OH does the arable side and does all the spraying. Son likes to do the work where he is on the tractor.

Remember that the pension age is going to be 68 in future. From what I have learned is that going into my 60s I felt just the same as ever, then getting to 65 and things started to hurt a bit - getting tired easily and painful knees - and I think by 70 I won't want to do a great deal. I said a couple of years ago that I didn't want to be driving a silage trailer from 9.00 am to 9.00 pm (What are you complaining about it is only a few days in the year!). Luckily that co-insisted with a student wanting some work. I made him get off the tractor for a lunch break while I went on the trailers and came back with the next load to find the student on the clamp in the JCB - some rest.

I remember running up the road a year or two back when some cattle got out and wondered how much longer I would be able to do that.

I have another friend who is in his earl 70s but he does what he wants to do - ploughing, field work mainly and leaves the spraying to someone younger and the physical hard work, he still likes to be in charge though.
 

Goweresque

Member
Location
North Wilts
I'm afraid I disagree. There is no need for anyone to be forcibly retired from any industry or profession. Farming is dangerous in some areas but not all. There is risk attached to everything, any one of us could fall down the stairs tomorrow, have a bleed on the brain and be dead 2 days later. I do truly believe having more experienced people around is a very important contributor to any situation, and even more so in any kind of technical field.

I've seen a lot more bodies laid waste by inactivity than activity.

My advice to anyone on this thread- keep going. Got a bad hip or knee- get it fixed. You pay your taxes, get it operated on and get back doing what you enjoy. You will live longer and stay fitter.

I've seen a LOT of people who retired or retired early and sat doing nothing but pishing the wife off all day. Don't do it. you physical and mental health might rely on you using your brain or heart at a good rate all day.

And not only that but there has to be a point to life. Without any point, without any occupation, we are just really complicated clocks ticking down to the day it stops.

Which fine, and I actually agree, but if that is agreed to be the case then the HSE need to get off farming's back and take into account the number of lives that are extended and made better by elderly farmers continuing to work well beyond nominal retirement age and in some cases dying 'in harness' as a result. We cannot continue to regard small sole trader type farming businesses as tiny versions of large corporations. We need to view and treat such businesses as the people they in fact are, not faceless business entities.
 
I've always thought I would pack up at 65 if I make it that far, as I have been doing this for over 40 years on mostly rented land, and I want to travel and enjoy my hobbies for a few years while I am able. Having no children makes the decision easier, but I'm not sure Mrs Fred realises how much my body has slowed up since I was 50 in 2013. She still sees 18 years of working life ahead in her own equine business until she is 68 while I am pondering on how to wind down the cows as it will take several years to work through and get things sorted.
I keep looking at things I kept in the shed for "when I had a bit more time".but have started wondering if I really need two Series Land Rovers, or when I will really get round to putting the Nuffield back together. I did manage to rebuild my vintage go-kart (A Trojan Tro-kart from around 1959 that I managed to seize when I was about 13), but then found I couldn't bend enough to sit in it or extricate myself when I got up.
This time thing isn't much fun, suddenly the new tractor is 13 years old and the young bull will still be in his prime when I retire. I'm sure many farmers just keep plodding on because they can't figure out how to tidy up and dispose of everything.
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
I've never known a forum for ignoring the blindingly obvious. Why is everyone so old ? why are there so many accidents with elderly codgers on farms ? Oh yes, that's right, no money in the job to attract youngsters...... :rolleyes:
Any road up.........I was getting bored with the industry at 52........but I've discovered a new fetish to keep me amused. Downloading and filling in Red Tractor templates. I can't get enough of it. I've been downloading 1000 per week over the last few months. I've had warnings from Red Tractor about the amount of paperwork I'm uploading. but I just can't help myself. I was hoping there'd be some sort of self help group, but no. What to do. I've even stopped Googling pictures of blue tractors. I suppose the first step is admitting I have a problem............
 
I have met some amazing people in my time in hospitals. Not least a lady near knocking on the door of 90 who was playing 3 rounds of golf a week.

I don't know the science behind it nor the statistics involved but I would venture the reaper finds a lot more custom from those laying in bed or on the sofa than he finds on a golf course, farm or dancefloor. Even fewer found in the master suite of a super yacht hosting a party for 20-something lingerie models I'd say was a good bet as well.
 

Extreme Optimist

Member
Livestock Farmer
Have said it before, this isn't the farming forum, it's the retiring landowner forum. Any other industry got a forum where the majority of posters are over 50 ? It's not exactly a sign of a vibrant industry.

Over 50's landowners are not total write offs you know!!! 50's the new 30!! Can still run rings around many of the younger girls and boys.......OK, I might need the rest of the week to recover, but all the same.......:ROFLMAO:
 

Extreme Optimist

Member
Livestock Farmer
Dismiss older people at your peril. I took up kayaking in my 40's and the group leader/instructor was 84!!! I consider myself pretty fit and I couldn't get near the bugger!!
One of the younger members got into a bit of trouble and went straight over the weir. Paul (the old codger) turned his kayak around and perfectly executed paddling over the weir (about 10' drop) and rescued the floundering kayaker. My admiration for him never dimished and it taight me a lesson or two!!
 

2wheels

Member
Location
aberdeenshire
Sod that.

Often hire an 8t 360, have had to ban him from it after constant damage.

he then hired an alternative mini digger himself for his job and broke that too. 🙄

He’s just so rough with things now, always has been, but much worse of late. Everything to be done at 100mph, don’t understand why, if he just took his time he’d get to where he wanted to be a lot quicker and a lot less painfully (for everyone else involved)
got to get things done before his time runs out? :LOL: if you slow down too much death catches up with you.;)
 

bumkin

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
pembrokeshire
at sixty-eight I admit that I can't do what I used to, I made my son partner a few years ago when he got married and had a kid, and I have done some damage due to not being able to rotate the way i used to what I find aggravating is the digital displays that I cant read without specks not to mention the hyraglifs they put on the buttons that don't mean a thing to me most of the time I'm in potter mode cleaning and repairing and servicing I drive the combine but after nearly forty years driving a vari speed with spools even after ten years I still look for the clutch with my left leg and sometimes pull the joystick back when I want to lift the header but that is because I am pre-programmed the other thing I can't stand is acronyms i just don't know what people are on about, but for all you young uns just remember we oldies are worn out we had to handball everything buckets and forks did not have motors when I started out and stuff was delivered in bags of up to 2 CWT
 

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
I've never known a forum for ignoring the blindingly obvious. Why is everyone so old ? why are there so many accidents with elderly codgers on farms ? Oh yes, that's right, no money in the job to attract youngsters...... :rolleyes:
Any road up.........I was getting bored with the industry at 52........but I've discovered a new fetish to keep me amused. Downloading and filling in Red Tractor templates. I can't get enough of it. I've been downloading 1000 per week over the last few months. I've had warnings from Red Tractor about the amount of paperwork I'm uploading. but I just can't help myself. I was hoping there'd be some sort of self help group, but no. What to do. I've even stopped Googling pictures of blue tractors. I suppose the first step is admitting I have a problem............

Complete class!!!! very amusing!!
 

MrNoo

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Cirencester
Over 50's landowners are not total write offs you know!!! 50's the new 30!! Can still run rings around many of the younger girls and boys.......OK, I might need the rest of the week to recover, but all the same.......:ROFLMAO:
I wish!!! Certainly not as much energy now I'm 50 but just pace myself better, plod on through it as opposed to rushing around at 100mph. I stop when I have had enough in the evenings, if rain due I will carry on, same in the mornings.
 

Cowcorn

Member
Mixed Farmer
Im 55 and definitely not as fast as i used to be!! But between myself and Norman my workman whoi is in his sixties we still mangage to get everything done in a reasonable time frame
The thing to remember is the man who made time made plenty of it and in most jobs Tomorrow really is another day ..
I still milk 120 cows nearly every day but the wise investment a few years ago in a high output parlour makes it a easy enough job .
Thankfully despite his mothers best efforts young Cowcorn is showing great promoise and hopefully we will go on for anothe generation but even though he is a great help at weekends and holidays despite his protests i insist he sticks it out at school and gets a qualifacation that gives him options .
Finally a word to all the young bloods dont be to hard on the auld fella , when hes gone you will suddenly realise how much he still done right up to the end
Shortly before my father died , he was active right till the end said to me after a tough day TB testing " i never thought id be ever this fuccked " .
 

steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
I'm 56 and feel, I'm just starting out.

Am I too old now for harvesting veg by hand, stacking hay bales by hand (3,000 hay & 12,000 straw) & lambing ewes.

Odd how I find so many women in their 60's attractive, that was not the case when I was 16. edit Oh & so often think gosh that young girl has got greys early, then find out the young girl is late 40's or early 50's.

I was taken to task by neighbours wife for my comment on the same lines...

I said, "that the one advantage of getting old, is that the age range of women one finds attractive, increases as you get older.... At 20 say, it was probably 16-25, at 50 it is 18- 50, at 60, well, the range is even wider". I will give no ages to avoid suggestions of being a dirty old man :)
 
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steveR

Member
Mixed Farmer
Trouble is most of us over 60's have been exposed to that much disease, sh!t, general detritus, been accidentally heptavaced/dosed/dipped, sat in enough spray drift to kill a small town, etc, etc that we're pretty much indestructible so I'm afraid you young guys just might have to wait a bit longer.

:playful::playful:

Or in the case of a guy on the farm I did my Apprenticeship decades ago, he died at 45 ish. Mind a 40 a day habit and a tendency to mix spray chemicals in the tank with his hands, might not have helped....
 
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SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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