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!
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