I remember the time when...

haggard143

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Norfolk
I remember the water running down the outside of the churns to cool the milk never seemed that cold:whistle:,dad lifted the churns onto an old steel table on his own(one man band), we still have that in the workshop
 
I remember the water running down the outside of the churns to cool the milk never seemed that cold:whistle:,dad lifted the churns onto an old steel table on his own(one man band), we still have that in the workshop
We had a Lister milk cooler that rotated in the churn as the water flowed through the paddles. In fact it is still in the shed somewhere. Then came the corrugated type that cooled the milk as it flowed down into the bottler.
 
Wheat was two and a quarter here, barley two, and beans two and a half. Oats were whatever you could get in there!
I'm told that my grandfather's party trick was to lay face down, have a full sack laid across his shoulders, and stand straight up with it.
Yes 2 1/4 cwt sacks, that’s 112.5 kgs in modern money.

On a similar note to yours, I remember my late uncle telling the story of how he returned to the thrashing box for another sack, as he put the sack on his back, he knew something was up , as the men all stopped to watch him cross the yard and go up the granary steps. On tipping the corn out he could see what they’d done, two 56llb weights in the bottom of the sack.
 

DRC

Member
All this reminiscing is lovely, but as I’ve said before , I much prefer a telescopic loader, big bales, 600kg bags of fertiliser , 500 kg bags of seed . 29 ton lorry loaded with wheat in 20 mins with a 1.5 ton bucket.
And not bent double with bad back, like my dad was .
 
When it came to taking sacks up to the loft we were very progressive. No climbing stone steps , we used a wire rope , pulley and a sling and a Ferguson.
Man on ground would put sling around sack then the Fergy would drive foward and hoist the sack up untill it was dangling in front of the door where another man would lean out and grab it and haul it back in as the Fergy reversed for the next one.
Yes it was slow and probably no safer having to lean out the door to grab a swinging sack but it was definitely easier on the spine.

Never lifted churns either as the dairy was on a slope so the churns were just rolled onto a trailer and driven down to the end of the lane and rolled onto the stand.
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
milking099.jpg
All you young kids with your fancy milking machines!:LOL:

I asked my friend, the local manager for the Irish milk marketing board (or similar), where I could get some pictures of rural life. This man was milking next door to his creamery in the 1970's.

I've got another somewhere of the local roadman about the same time that I shall have to look out.
 

Derrick Hughes

Member
Location
Ceredigion
All this reminiscing is lovely, but as I’ve said before , I much prefer a telescopic loader, big bales, 600kg bags of fertiliser , 500 kg bags of seed . 29 ton lorry loaded with wheat in 20 mins with a 1.5 ton bucket.
And not bent double with bad back, like my dad was .
but its all relevant , when we were unloading bags by hand 20 ton would last us a year for our 30 milking cows that was proving us with a good living and a bit of lifting was keeping me fit, the same person now has to unload a 100 ton in big bags to make the same living
 

Still Farming

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Wales UK
but its all relevant , when we were unloading bags by hand 20 ton would last us a year for our 30 milking cows that was proving us with a good living and a bit of lifting was keeping me fit, the same person now has to unload a 100 ton in big bags to make the same living
The old man was on cake lorries and he would often turn up at farms with 10-15 t cake .
The farmer would pop up and say thanks very much it's to go in Granary (up steps ) and go back in house ?
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
All this reminiscing is lovely, but as I’ve said before , I much prefer a telescopic loader, big bales, 600kg bags of fertiliser , 500 kg bags of seed . 29 ton lorry loaded with wheat in 20 mins with a 1.5 ton bucket.
And not bent double with bad back, like my dad was .
It's no fun. Or is it. Imagine loading 7 ton of spuds onto a lorry by hand, knowing that bit of graft earned you enough to buy a new tractor.....
Or a year of hard graft earned enough to buy a farm.
 
When my grandparents farmed here, each morning was a race with horse and cart, to get the milk churns to the train station, if the train was full, my gran made butter and cheese, which she sold in the local town, which together with eggs, made enough money to pay the wages of the thirteen men employed here! I havent done the maths to work out how much butter ect she would need to sell now just to pay the council tax
 
..... Imagine loading 7 ton of spuds onto a lorry by hand,.....

Two on the ground at the potato pie with a "hicking stick" and then the driver on the wagon flatbed all the 8 stone hessian sacks held in one bunch at the top with a length of binder (yes, binder) twine swizzled around and under without an actual knot listening to the Home Service coverage of local lad Geoffery Boycott's most recent attempt to run out his opposite number batsman ....
 
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jendan

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Northumberland
They weren't kept deliberately, but after Dad died and we felt able to open the dairy door again and have a look around, there they were. Enough for winter output of 20 cows.

Obviously, the two legged rats that came out from the village and from a particular farm the other side of it hadn't opened the door before then, or they'd be gone. Just like much of Dad's workshop tools.

I remember the time when theft stemmed from locals.
Most folk kept a few back,or as many as they thought they could get away with.They came in very handy for a host of uses.:)
 

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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