The Snowball and the Hill

[7610 super q]

Can’t you open up the long side?

Could do, but I'd end up with 30 separate door ways, which would be a security issue in this part of the world.....

 

[Ali_Maxxum]

It's difficult to know what the best way to do things is some times.... I find you've just got to try it and see if it works, you can plan as much as you want but until you try it you never really know.

We're growing as a business, the last 2 years we've had to sub people in to cope with the work load, a lot of it is mainly due to weather and that when it eventually comes right it all comes at once and the simple fact we can't be everywhere. Even wet days we're catching up with maintenance or I've got stacks of topping to do, you nearly feel guilty for having a day off....

We're very tight for space here, desperately need a shed to get some kit under cover, hay kit just gets blocked in over winter then brought back out into the yard area during the summer months. You can get at everything here now, used to have things parked in front of others, loads of stone tipped that you had to drive over or bloody move, an hour of thinking and a few days sorting stuff have resolved that issue.

All of our kit is bought new nowadays due to how much work we do, used to buy second hand but would spend half the time repairing or replacing stuff, can't afford to have several tractors. Something always needs changing and as a still growing business it's hard to know what way to go about doing it, we haven't really reached a point where we've levelled out yet.... i.e. hedge trimmer ought to be due for change in a year or 2, but we want to add a twin rotor rake to our arsenal, which will mean we will have to keep the trimmer for longer and risk spending money on it to keep it going, in which time something else will be due for change which will be pushed back because we will be eventually be able to change the trimmer.

It's only due to 2 biggish new purchases that were always bought 2nd hand which has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works, once they're paid for we can maybe get back to something a bit more manageable. The good thing with those 2 however is that they will be kept for a long time and wont need to be changed as frequently as our main tractors.

Price of kit and rates is another thing, the gap is forever widening.

With all that in mind I can't really think that we're any better off.... I thought this the other day and could only think, it's a bloody good job I love what I do, anyone with sense would have jacked it a long time ago

 

[Cowcorn]

Doc may i first say you are are better of having all your own kit especially when its paid for if you no longer grow potatoes then by all means sell the kit but keep the small bale kit when on a small acreage the added value of selling small bales can come into a lot of money
I share your concern with owning multiple grain establishment methods i am the owner of MF 500 g and fert drill with 4 metre power harrow for spring drilling as well as a 3 metre combi for autumn work and was seriously considering a moore drill to. 'save time' .
Thing is you made the right call when you reversed away from the fbt trap just do your own thing as long as you can make a living who cares if youre stuck in a time warp in the seventies very enjoyable place to be imo
Selectamatic has the thing nailed if everyone was as easy going and relaxed there would be more fun in the job.

 

[Whitewalker]

The more machinery we acquire, the more time is spent moving it around and getting it out. Then we need more sheds and there are more roofs to keep in order.

We have no more land than we had in the 1960's yet we seem to have much more machinery and double the shed space, for what? Less profit per acre. Certainly yields of grain are double what they used to be but I do wonder if we are making a mistake by trying to do too much ourselves, (we even have our own limespreader) and are burdening ourselves with a huge overhead of underused machinery and storage.

Maybe time for a rethink and a clear out. We have a small baler and flat eight system, round baler etc but this year it was real food for thought that the neighbour did all our round baling in exchange for taking half our straw and we are both happy.

We have a plough based system, a min till system and a direct drill. Admittedly they aren't state of the art, but just getting the machine out that you need for the particular conditions can take half a day of moving stuff around as I won't leave anything outside.

Tired and exasperated with it. Taking the Rams off the direct drill this pm to reseal them. It never ends.

Not sure what I'm driving at but I think I need to rationalise.

Wow I’m glad we’re Mickey Mouse , tractor loader, slurry tanker , slurry pump , fert sower , bale lifter, grass topper, grass Harrow and topping it off with a roller.
Anything else is paid for . My life seems really simple.

 

[Tha Ulsterscot]

Being stuck in a time warp is not the worst place to be, at least if the kit doesn't move for a month, there's no money to pay, and no pressure to do more work to fund machinery dealers.

 

[milkloss]

Answer: the OP has a properly-equipped farm, but is under-staffed - he doesn't need less machinery, he needs more help to operate it.

For the OP, as for many of us, it is the penultimate stage in the long game of Last Man Standing that UK farms have been playing since 1916.

The French, with their emphasis on labour units/farm, and co-operative farms and businesses, have grasped this truth long ago.

I will leave you all to ponder just where, in the last 102 years, the UK grasped the wrong end of the stick. The various reports into the matter (Selborne 1919, Scott 1942, Food From Our Own Resources 1973, etc) all understood this relationship.

But our culture is no longer able to accommodate what is important, only what is profitable. They are not, always, the same thing. Cf. DEFRA's 'Health And Harmony' 2018 for insights into how the UK has lost this insight completely. Then read WAG's consultation, to see how far down this foolish road DEFRA has already travelled.

But cheer up - in the end, we all get what we deserve: pretty soon, the UK will be relying more on CAP-subsidised food imported from France because it will be cheaper than non-subsidised domestic produce.

"Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad"

(Ancient Greek proverb)

[Love the title, by the way..]

I f’ing knew it was a fault of Brexit, what else could it be?

 

[DrWazzock]

I f’ing knew it was a fault of Brexit, what else could it be?

Brexit might have an effect on my business, but it's largely external and beyond my control.

I have dismantled my Moore drill lift Rams and discovered the piston has unscrewed itself off the end of one of the rods. Could just screw it back on but think I will renew seals while I'm in there if I can get a kit from moores.

I think I need more sheds of the waggon shed type. A long lean to or some such thing as suggested. That would free up the new grain store for actually storing grain. I did build one long lean to, but it filled with sheep pretty quickly.

Maternal Grandads machinery ended up sprawling out across the field. It took dad and uncle six weeks to get it out the nettles and cut most of it up when he died. A dozen threshing machines were also burned.

Farming is one of those businesses where stuff just seems to accumulate though there are exceptions. I have visited farms with super tidy yards sheds and workshops.

 

[lim x]

I'd put a long cheap pole barn up...why sell stuff for scrap value you may as well keep it. You can guarantee the minute its gone you'll be kicking yourself wishing you still had it. Those super tidy farms are boring....yours sounds far more interesting

 

[Beowulf]

The accumulation of "stuff" is a human trait, not unique to farmers.

I was reminded of this last night, when a lack of SWMBO and younger kids left Beowulf Junior and I an opportunity to get the engine out of his little Fiat and start stripping it to see what damage has been done.

Sending the boy to retrieve a suitable T20 socket saw him return with an unusual 18" long male spline drive socket on a 3/8 drive, with junior enquiring what the hell it was.

I was puzzled myself for a while, but then I remembered it was the special tool for getting to the rear mounting bolts on the brake servo of a Lancia Beta or Lancia Gamma. I haven't seen one in many years and haven't spannered on one since I was a kid myself, so the obvious thing would have been to tell the boy to chuck it in the scrap bin.

But no, I told him to put it back, just in case.

 

[DRC]

You could always buy a few tarpualins and sheet stuff down, or buy/ make an attachment that @Dave W was selling, that could move stuff around quickly without attaching to a tractor.
I'm always moving stuff here and have built up a fair collection of cultivation kit, trailers etc, which I believe won't loose much value. I do use contractors for some things though, such as baling , as I can't be doing that and combining at the same time, and muck spreading, which is much more cost effective with me loading two big spreaders and doing in a day, what would take a week on my own. Time is money.

 

[spin cycle]

i'm beginning to revel in using old kit....sort of kitsch inverted snobbery.....bought an old set ransomes discs at an auction 20 yrs ago....never really used them.....but lifted them out of the brambles on friday.....strapped a dual wheel for some extra wt and disced up some grass.....might even grease it tomoz

 

[glasshouse]

You could always buy a few tarpualins and sheet stuff down, or buy/ make an attachment that @Dave W was selling, that could move stuff around quickly without attaching to a tractor.
I'm always moving stuff here and have built up a fair collection of cultivation kit, trailers etc, which I believe won't loose much value. I do use contractors for some things though, such as baling , as I can't be doing that and combining at the same time, and muck spreading, which is much more cost effective with me loading two big spreaders and doing in a day, what would take a week on my own. Time is money.

I have a quick hitch off a steiger tractor adapted onto manitou brackets, i can lift virtually any machine by the top link pin and move it with leaving the seat.

 

[simmy_bull]

Could do, but I'd end up with 30 separate door ways, which would be a security issue in this part of the world.....

Ah. Bugger.

I have no place to talk on this thread. What bit of kit I have has to sleep under the stars. Not enough sheds or funds for sheds.

 

[glasshouse]

Ah. Bugger.

I have no place to talk on this thread. What bit of kit I have has to sleep under the stars. Not enough sheds or funds for sheds.

Me too

 

[joe soapy]

Once in 40yrs here......

twice in 50 years here , boy both times

 

[joe soapy]

It's difficult to know what the best way to do things is some times.... I find you've just got to try it and see if it works, you can plan as much as you want but until you try it you never really know.

We're growing as a business, the last 2 years we've had to sub people in to cope with the work load, a lot of it is mainly due to weather and that when it eventually comes right it all comes at once and the simple fact we can't be everywhere. Even wet days we're catching up with maintenance or I've got stacks of topping to do, you nearly feel guilty for having a day off....

We're very tight for space here, desperately need a shed to get some kit under cover, hay kit just gets blocked in over winter then brought back out into the yard area during the summer months. You can get at everything here now, used to have things parked in front of others, loads of stone tipped that you had to drive over or bloody move, an hour of thinking and a few days sorting stuff have resolved that issue.

All of our kit is bought new nowadays due to how much work we do, used to buy second hand but would spend half the time repairing or replacing stuff, can't afford to have several tractors. Something always needs changing and as a still growing business it's hard to know what way to go about doing it, we haven't really reached a point where we've levelled out yet.... i.e. hedge trimmer ought to be due for change in a year or 2, but we want to add a twin rotor rake to our arsenal, which will mean we will have to keep the trimmer for longer and risk spending money on it to keep it going, in which time something else will be due for change which will be pushed back because we will be eventually be able to change the trimmer.

It's only due to 2 biggish new purchases that were always bought 2nd hand which has thrown a bit of a spanner in the works, once they're paid for we can maybe get back to something a bit more manageable. The good thing with those 2 however is that they will be kept for a long time and wont need to be changed as frequently as our main tractors.

Price of kit and rates is another thing, the gap is forever widening.

With all that in mind I can't really think that we're any better off.... I thought this the other day and could only think, it's a bloody good job I love what I do, anyone with sense would have jacked it a long time ago

why change trimmer ? we got two and both are newer than they should be and its only for a week every year

 

[ollie989898]

The more machinery we acquire, the more time is spent moving it around and getting it out. Then we need more sheds and there are more roofs to keep in order.

We have no more land than we had in the 1960's yet we seem to have much more machinery and double the shed space, for what? Less profit per acre. Certainly yields of grain are double what they used to be but I do wonder if we are making a mistake by trying to do too much ourselves, (we even have our own limespreader) and are burdening ourselves with a huge overhead of underused machinery and storage.

Maybe time for a rethink and a clear out. We have a small baler and flat eight system, round baler etc but this year it was real food for thought that the neighbour did all our round baling in exchange for taking half our straw and we are both happy.

We have a plough based system, a min till system and a direct drill. Admittedly they aren't state of the art, but just getting the machine out that you need for the particular conditions can take half a day of moving stuff around as I won't leave anything outside.

Tired and exasperated with it. Taking the Rams off the direct drill this pm to reseal them. It never ends.

Not sure what I'm driving at but I think I need to rationalise.

Please, please please. Are you taking up Wally's slot?

 

[spin cycle]

saw a small beet harvester on ebay last month....thought 'that'll be handy for a few fodder beet and easy to store'.....sense prevailed when i realised it was as old as me....53

 

[DrWazzock]

Please, please please. Are you taking up Wally's slot?

Not really no. Just a Sunday afternoon ramble, pondering how we get to where we are, and how we could maybe change it, make better use of time and energy etc.

I see a lot of agriculture going "corporate" but still many carry on in the precorporate family business way because they enjoy it despite diminishing returns and a load of hardwork. The psychology of agriculture fascinates me. You see all sorts of things going on and being played out in the different ways people farm.

I won't leave machinery outside probably because I'm a bit OCD. So then I over capitalise on sheds and spend too much time shifting stuff round, that kind of thing.

As a Ministry of Agriculture inspector once told me, when looking round a roughish farm, "They are just rough enough to make it go." But actually they didn't last long.

 

[ollie989898]

Not really no. Just a Sunday afternoon ramble, pondering how we get to where we are, and how we could maybe change it, make better use of time and energy etc.

I see a lot of agriculture going "corporate" but still many carry on in the precorporate family business way because they enjoy it despite diminishing returns and a load of hardwork. The psychology of agriculture fascinates me. You see all sorts of things going on and being played out in the different ways people farm.

I won't leave machinery outside probably because I'm a bit OCD. So then I over capitalise on sheds and spend too much time shifting stuff round, that kind of thing.

As a Ministry of Agriculture inspector once told me, when looking round a roughish farm, "They are just rough enough to make it go." But actually they didn't last long.

At the end of the day, if you enjoy it, do it, if not, finish it. You can't stay fairer than that.