Robigus
Member
Well...... I copied that photo to a special folder so I could retrieve it quickly.......
I now can't find that folder!
TFF Calendar Competition.
Well...... I copied that photo to a special folder so I could retrieve it quickly.......
I now can't find that folder!
It will be 5 weeks before I have any Bluebells, I am seriously annoyed looking at that photo but it is beautiful.
I think it was taken in years past.
It will be 5 weeks before I have any Bluebells, I am seriously annoyed looking at that photo but it is beautiful.
Yeh old photo.....that d
That was a bit careless, but then you seem to have a rep for playing with fire.Yeh old photo.....that dog is way fatter now.... cause she's boss dog so gets a share of my cake
And the gorse in the back round had a "accident" when I completely not on purpose in any way was skipping along the path with a lite gas torch and fell over catching it all on fire
he gonna scald he's arse one day.......That was a bit careless, but then you seem to have a rep for playing with fire.
I find this "best profession in world" stuff a bit tiresome.
The industrial revolution happened because it was rubbish in the countryside. It was rubbish in the cities as well but the fact that people migrated there in droves shows you how bad it was in the countryside yet people paint country life as some sort of idyll. Yes, farming has some very rewarding moments and I feel lucky to be farming. But there are plenty of other worthwhile, rewarding and essential professions out there.
The people that fitted my dad up with his pacemaker last year and saved his life rank among the best professionals IMO. I think people need to get out more.
What you say of the industrial revolution and the profession of surgeons is perfectly true but surely both depended upon the foundations provided by the agricultural industry; if industry is the correct term. After all, wasn't it Napoleon who said an army marches on it's stomach? And who is it that fed the armies of the British Empire? Without you folk, wouldn't civilisation collapse?
I hear you loud and clear @Dr WazzockI'm grateful that you hold agriculture in high esteem and thank you for it. Not many people even think about such things.
But it is all a very complex web nowadays. Like it or not, (and I don't particularly like it) we as farmers depend on manufactured chemical fertiliser such as ammonium nitrate. The way we farm presently, we could not produce anything like the volume of food we produce today without ammonium nitrate. So really we as farmers depend on chemical engineers who turn natural gas and air into nitrogen fertiliser by means of the Haber Bosch process, first pioneered in the early twentieth century I think. Similarly we rely on fungicides to keep our wheat plants healthy or even alive. My concern is that while these chemicals are amazing things produced by very clever people, we as farmers have become reliant on them, and have sat on our laurels, complacent in the knowledge that science and technology will save our bacon. We have become rather more spectators, users and operatives rather than true pioneers in our own right, except for a few farmers who push the boundaries of research and development on their own farms.
We could change this if we wanted to. We could make more use of the plants like clover and beans to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil so we wouldn't need so much manufactured fertiliser. We could possibly make use of GM plants so that we don't need to coat our plants' leaves with fungicides.
So is farming the best profession in the world? No, it's one of many now interdependent professions.
It depends what you mean by "best" as well. "Best" job? Dunno. Certainly some very satisfying moments, lovely scenery and variety, but also a fair amount of tedious work, frustration at the merciless weather and at times downright despair at some of the things that go wrong.
I guess I do enjoy farming to some extent, but I'd appreciate the beauty of the countryside even if I wasn't. What do I see when I see a newborn lamb or calf? I see a little blighter struggling to keep himself alive in a haphazard way against the odds. I see his mother doing her best to help him as nature dictates. It's a kind of miracle I suppose but in the back of your mind you know that eventually it's going to end in tragedy for them as it is for us all and therein lies the mystery of the struggle for mortal life.
DrWazzock,
many thanks for the enlightening reply. Sadly, like many others, I had totally forgotten you all and become engrossed in the mechanics of day-to-day living.
Having spent most of my working life in the heavy chemical industry, I can see where some of the pieces fit together and we are all dependant on one and other but I am tempted to believe that we have "all" become pawns in a far greater game.
I would often climb to the uppermost level of a chemical plant and watch the sun rise at dawn. I have seen the sun thunder up over The Cape and set so fast you would have thought that someone had turned off the lights but, sadly, I never gave a thought to the farming folk who would labour all day to put the food on our table; or the fishermen who fought the storms to provide an other part of our diets.
If only we could all have our eyes opened, so that we can see just how dependant we are on each other.
Hmmm, sorry for all that; this is supposed to be an upbeat thread!