Midsummer murmurs...

I’ve met a lot of experts recently. In fact I didn’t quite realise how many there were out there. They are actually very easy to find if you know how to look and all you have to do is tempt them in like blundering, eager wasps squabbling their way into a beer trap. To get the best results you should always get your expression right. You can perfect this by practising in the mirror and trying your utmost to narrow your eyes whilst quizzically furrowing your brow and getting the right mix of naivety and stupidity across the rest of your face – something that apparently comes naturally to me. This is like the ground bait strewn across the water to get the fish interested before you catapult your hook, line, and yes, “sinker” out into the water by rather coyly saying “What do you think I should do?”

In my particular case I have been discussing my silage strategy and how to get the most out of my poorly grass with some local self appointed peers. The thing is, I already know that growth has slowed despite the rain.  I know that I could throw fertiliser at it (massively expensive and not in line with my eco approach) and I know that if I sold, or more like, gave away some animals (at today’s prices), I would not need so much grass. What I wanted was a shrewd and intelligent solution. What I got was a collection of conflicting and costly confusions. The trouble is I am quite new to this...but not that new and I find that the more green you might appear, the more useless the advice. Its as if there is a multi-tiered system whereby you have to qualify for the reliability of the wisdom you are about to receive. Moreover, advice-givers seem to have the ability to suggest spending more money than they ever would do in the same situation...this seems to be on a sliding scale as to green-ness too and its not just limited to farming. Try it out for a bit of sport in whichever chosen field you wish, it will help you ascertain who not to stand next to in the pub. Finally, anybody who begins their smug and often loudly, slow spoken snippet of wisdom with “My advice to you is...” is really saying “Now, prepare to glaze over and ignore what I am saying because its about as useful to you as the contents of a train lavatory”. 

I did listen to one bit of guidance from someone who does not outwardly appear to be an expert, but someone who knows a great deal about life and people. He reminded me of the “P” word we either forget about or struggle to put into use. Patience.  He told me to look at the grass, look at the cows and hold off cutting for as long as possible, because however slow the grass maybe growing, its still growing. This is what both my, and many of your instincts would tell you to do anyway, and is probably how we judge good advice, ie, the advice closest to what we thought of in the first place!

Finally, I know I am a child and find innuendo funnier than most but here’s the picture of my cock (his name is Colonel Sanders, by the way!) you have all been waiting for. So thanks to Karen Steadman and her daughter Vicky (who truly loved this handsome boy) I have a cockerel with which to breed from...I also took in his girlfriend (Ruby) too. I had to take him off their hands due to their new neighbour obsessively complaining about his crowing. They even wrote to the Telegraph to whinge about it and repeatedly phoned me to get it off their hands – nice neighbours, eh? They’re certainly going about making friends in a little village in the right fashion! 

Loony Toons...

The world has changed! It has become more hip without us either realising or wishing to acknowledge it. We have done so much “thinking outside of the box” in recent years that thinking inside of the box for a change is considered quite radical and being conventional can be considered almost eccentric. Think of a young gent in a three piece suit and bowler hat, toying with his watch chain, flabbergasted that he couldn’t find moustache wax in the pharmacy section of Morrisons. You’d think he was a total nutter who probably also had an unhealthy affection for steam locomotives and a worrying collection of stamps and old tram tickets. A hundred years ago this would have been considered normal. I blame the Guardian.

What has this got to do with anything...or farming? Well, a bit, at a push. I’m trying to justify the reason for putting a video of the pigs on the blog in order to amuse you because other than some petite, sexily clad young girls “climbing over my machinery” (pictures on Facebook) there hasn’t been a great deal going on this week.

So, the point I wish to make here is how things change and that how strange, yet credible it is to quote a cartoon character to justify my blog activity (all will become clear, honest!). This would have been impossible a few years ago, not only for the non-existence of blogs but also because cartoons were made to do no more than occupy kids. Think about it. You could glean nothing sensible from Mickey Mouse’s first film, Steamboat Willy, other than the fact that some clever sod had drawn some pictures of a mouse on a boat and joined them all up to create the illusion of movement.

In my case, I am referring to an old episode of Southpark, and if you still think things haven’t changed that much, consider that cartoons like this are not only factual and intelligent but also some of the only peddlers of truth and insight on the planet. (I’d like to say Southpark translates globally across languages and cultures but I’m afraid it doesn’t. In Spanish, they translated the opening song from the film from “Shut your f*cking face uncle-f*cker” to “You’re an arsehole son of a bitch”, not quite the same, I think you’ll agree!) They also do what the press can’t do in quite the same way and relentlessly attack politicians, celebrities and bully-boy corporations. Quite a few modern cartoons; Family Guy, Stressed Eric, The Simpsons, educate people by tackling family life, morals, philosophy and politics and stand half a chance of subliminally relaying it to hapless Americans without all of the sickly syrup and piousness of Little House on the Prairie or The Cosby Show. Can't be a bad thing. In this case, the cartoon character is Kyle (I think) and he is sad about the fact that the masses would rather watch tv programmes with close-ups of animals with accompanying silly music than something educational or informative. Just to be “radical” there is no silly music in the below vid. (I actually haven’t worked out how to dub videos yet – any assistance welcomed here!).

By the way, Steamboat Willy was made in 1928 and essentially featured an animal with accompanying silly music. Maybe we haven’t changed at all.

Weather-wise, we have had, and continue to be having, some serious rain. I’m not sure whether this means that we will get the silage cut we need, however, without rain we probably would not have bothered cutting at all. I’m estimating getting the contractors in for the first week of July but will monitor growth and rainfall daily. Trouble is, as the new shoots of grass grow, the bunnies get straight on it – you can see the cuts along the shoots made by razor sharp teeth and the general slow progress of grass regeneration. In some fields its really bad. Funnily enough, the solution makes me think of yet another cartoon!

Pigs named during kitchen incident...

I hesitated at the point of electing to use the word “stoic” whilst typing the last blog because I’m always aware of when I might be tempting fate. Its a sort of superstition thing except you can’t avoid it like a ladder or salute it and therefore make things ok because you’ve already done it, said it, or typed it in this case.

So, perhaps as a result of my choice of vocabulary last week that following the spectacular pig naming extravaganza the extremely charming, domesticated and now famous Penelope was eaten by a fox! This is not uncommon. It is in fact, more common than ever because foxes are essentially a semi-protected species. You can even buy fox food in pet shops. You can guess my attitude to fox hunting. You can probably guess what I might feel about a nationwide cull too. Poor old Penelope, my favourite ever hen.

So despite some bushy-tailed, mange-riddled, vulpine murderer eating my favourite bird we finally managed to get the pigs named...and what fantastic names they are too (not). See it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a340buyAamo

Well done to Katie’s daughter Lola for Oink-Oink on the left, and to my friend Marisa who lives in Madrid for Antares on the right of this rather sweet little piggy pic.

   

Also...

We moved around some animals at the end of last week. I wanted to get the mother of the stillborn out in the fields with the others. So out she went, happy to be in the open with some company to take her mind off things. Her two companions remain in the yard and will do so until they calve as we have to closely monitor their behaviour at all times. I also separated three steers for “finishing”. This means they will now get access to some rolled barley in addition to grass and some extra silage in order that they fatten nicely. This is important for the marbling process in addition to adding bulk to the carcass and resulting in a better price at market. This last stage of a beef animal’s life is crucial to the final eating quality of the meat and is something of an art. You don’t want them too fat, nor too plain, however, given the inherent qualities of South Devon as a breed you are at an advantage from the outset due to their fantastic natural marbling traits.

Finally, it rained yesterday! It rained today too. It rained overnight as well. I haven’t been in such a good mood for ages. This is great news. I’ve already sectioned off a few of what I call “buffer fields” so that the moisture can take effect and the grass can recuperate un-trodden. It also means that the silage cut, which will take place in a week or so, will be better than we thought. We were kind of down to the bone as far as grass is concerned and so this change of weather has really helped us and many other farmers, although some crops will have suffered permanently as a result of the lack of rain until now.