What do you do when you're absolutely exhausted?

[Rob91]

Think this may go to the heart of the problem.
Why on earth are you picking docks. If your answer is how else do we control them then I think you may be struggling with the rest of the farm.

To give you an idea of how inefficient you are, my organic neighbour is 1100acres, 230cows + followers with 400ish of arable. All operations in house including umbilical spreading with the same number of people.

They don’t pick docks. They compost for two years and mow in front of the cows from early summer. They manage them.

Even if you are gifted the farm another day, you will only have a quarter each for you and your brother and you’ll have to buy your sisters out, in-effect re buying the land you’ve just bought.
Have you really thought about how it will all be settled up when they are gone. I don’t think you have.

I think your Dad knows it’s an impossible situation but has stuck his head in the sand and barged on in the only way he knows he can make it work which has been very tough on you.

A lot of advice has been given on here by people who have been there done that. All you do is defend the situation. Time to start asking ‘what if I’ type questions.

so my solution to you is take a job like the one advertised above. You and your brother move in to the house. Your used to living on nothing so one wage should should be fine in the short term. You will have free time to think and explore options. If your Dad really wants you at home he should come to you with an offer. If he doesn’t you know where you stand but at least you’ve started a new life on YOUR terms.
That is very easy for me to sit here and type and I know that will be an incredibly brave difficult thing to do. Even getting away to do an interview will be a challenge. This is where I think you need the charities to help you to make that initial break as you have no support network.

The good news is your thinking about it at 29, not 49. Good luck.






The great thing is your

Thank you for the fair message.
We know were inefficient. The land is very high magnesium, and we haven't done much to alter the soil,so we're struggling at the moment to get good silage and grazing yields.

 

[betweenthelines]

Start milking at 6pm and all done by 20 past seven. Good going even for three of you.

 

[lazy farmer]

Start milking at 6pm and all done by 20 past seven. Good going even for three of you.

Christ. Even I’ve message on here from the pit.

 

[jimmer]

Christ. Even I’ve message on here from the pit.

We need to get you on Snapchat, you'll be living your best life taking selfies whilst cupping up

 

[Rob91]

Start milking at 6pm and all done by 20 past seven. Good going even for three of you.

We're AYR calving but weighted towards autumn and winter because of seasonality. Least amount of milk of the year at the moment.

 

[Dead Rabbits]

So you started the thread stating you were tired and asking what to do. Would you say you have gained any insight into your situation? Will you be making any changes? Or continue on as usual?

 

[Rob91]

We're AYR calving but weighted towards autumn and winter because of seasonality. Least amount of milk of the year at the moment.

Also I set off to get the cows at 5.20pm.

 

[Rob91]

So you started the thread stating you were tired and asking what to do. Would you say you have gained any insight into your situation? Will you be making any changes? Or continue on as usual?

I've been greatful for the comments apart from some, some people have messaged me which was good of them. We're waiting on a solicitor to talk about the partnership more, so we will see what that brings. We have the milk vending business to get up and running which will hopefully bring in some extra money and a chance for me and my brother to talk to people more.

 

[Cowmansam]

Just start with you and your brother having a Friday night in the pub every other week you don’t have to get and spend all your money or get In a mess few pints and meet some people do you the world of good

 

[betweenthelines]

We're AYR calving but weighted towards autumn and winter because of seasonality. Least amount of milk of the year at the moment.

Thought you'd say something like that.

Did you miss your tea?

Must have been a struggle to get the cows across that road you mentioned-you know, the one you said it needs three of you to get the cows across.

Joke's over now-although I think it was in pretty poor taste

 

[Rob91]

Thought you'd say something like that.

Did you miss your tea?

Must have been a struggle to get the cows across that road you mentioned-you know, the one you said it needs three of you to get the cows across.

Joke's over now-although I think it was in pretty poor taste

What exactly do you want me to say? Not everyone is as lucky as everybody else.

 

[tepapa]

Back to the opening question.
Id your knackered have a day off, it's not a crime.
If two milk on Saturday and two milk on Sunday the other two can have a day off every week. You don't need to do everyday farm work unless it's harvest or calving.

 

[glasshouse]

Doubt if any Bank etc would grant a mortgage after looking at a set of accounts with hardly any "family drawings"

My daughter can't get a mortgage even though she can prove she can afford it as the rent she is paying is less than the cost of the mortgage.

Paying rent regularly counts for zilch in this mad world

 

[betweenthelines]

What exactly do you want me to say? Not everyone is as lucky as everybody else.

Don't even presume to lecture me. I've been homeless and jobless with a wife and child to support due to walking away from a bad situation on a family farm. Try suddenly finding the cows you own have been sold and the cheque's gone in your brother's bank account.

If your situation is as bad as you say-get out.

If you're on a wind up (which I think you are) it's in very bad taste.

 

[dinderleat]

Thought you'd say something like that.

Did you miss your tea?

Must have been a struggle to get the cows across that road you mentioned-you know, the one you said it needs three of you to get the cows across.

Joke's over now-although I think it was in pretty poor taste

What’s wrong with you? If you don’t have something constructive to say, don’t.

 

[Rob91]

Back to the opening question.
Id your knackered have a day off, it's not a crime.
If two milk on Saturday and two milk on Sunday the other two can have a day off every week. You don't need to do everyday farm work unless it's harvest or calving.

It's quietened off a bit now, but we're about to start third cut tomorrow and we do it all in bales.

 

[tepapa]

It's quietened off a bit now, but we're about to start third cut tomorrow and we do it all in bales.

Don't make excuses. It's Wednesday tomorrow, so mow it, bale it Thursday or Friday. Can't be many bales you only milk 100 cows. Day off on Sunday.

 

[Crofter64]

I barely speak to him , and I know his position on the matter so I don't bother.
He said today to my mum he wouldn't even put us in the business partnership if it wasn't for the tax situation.

Did your father inherit the farm or did he grow it himself? If he inherited it did he have issues with father/parents or siblings that could be contributing to his attitude?

 

[Crofter64]

Some friends of ours did the opposite: gave 50% of the farm to a 20 year old son, who hadn’t even finished secondary school, because the accountant said it was a good idea.That was 12 years ago. The son has spent a fortune: registered cows, fancy equipment, bigger, better, more. The father ran the farm alone, as did grandfather, but the son can barely manage a weekend. Same story as Rob91 only inverted . The result will possibly be the same also: eventual loss of the farm and not much to show for all the hard work over the years.

 

[Cowcorn]

I haven't read all of this, so forgive me if i'm missing summat.

but it sounds like you (OP) and bro need to draw up a written agreement twixt you, binding each to treat the other fairly come the day. Better still, get other siblings in on it.
Then one or both gently explain you're leaving to look for work elsewhere if the old man won't change his ways.

This is costing you your life, don't imagine a share in the farm will ever make up for what you're missing.

I knew a family once......
1 old widower tyrant dad, and 2 bachelor sons.
One son was simple, and the other in lurve with a foreign maid.
Dad wouldn't allow brighter son to marry this foreign maid*, and they lived as a very strange household until the day Dad died.
*west country vernacular for female human
By then, the boyzz wuz in their 60s.
The foreign maid had had a life, but then married her sweetheart, giving some peace to the pair of them...but of course too late for kids.
They're all dead now, and the line is ended...because the boyzz wouldn't step out from under Dads shadow.

Not far from us when i was growing up in the seventies a farmer had 2 sons working for literally nothing . The only money the got to handle was tuppence for the plate at church on a Sunday . One of them managed to get his leg over with a local village girl and get her up the duff... lucky for him he got thrown out and departed with her to Dublin to make a REAL life for himself .
The other brother stayed put and got his hands on the place in his mid sixties .
He took to the drink and the women like the proverbial duck to water and flogged everything over the next few years .
My father commented that it was poetic justice " the hard gathering gets the wild scattering "