What a chav o a spring again this year.
We are all waiting for the day we can say spring has sprung this year with what can only be described as middling to rubbish wither being the order of most days.
“Scunnered” is the look expressed by all currently be it a tractor man, a bailey, a shepherd, poultry man or even the lambs you see “couring tee” a dyke while surviving the next blast of stormy weather.
These constant storms seem to be frequent now with our 11th of the year recorded on April 6.
When coming home with the seed drill on Tuesday night, I was stopped at a set of traffic lights with the rain stotting off the tractor bonnet while peering over the front hopper at a red light telling me to stop.
I thought to myself: “Really, even the traffic is telling me to stop and go hame with the drill?”
I maybe even gave it a wee nudge on the passing with the power harrow, such was my frustration!
This spring has seemed like every job has been a “flee” – spreading muck, spraying, ploughing, small bit of sowing and even the cattle and poultry work.
This is mainly due to trying maximise production during the brief dry spells but also trying to do as much non- weather dependant jobs when it is wet.
To be honest this drains a lot of the enjoyment out of the job. It quite literally sucks.
Personally, what keeps me going during these testing times is our team!
We have, since our last column depleted 56,000 hens, cleaned out, washed and repaired three sheds/systems whilst also populating 32,000 hens at our own site.
On top of this we’ve also been out and about populating 40,000 birds at other sites.
The team spirit within our squad has been brilliant and we make sure we provide plenty of pies and sausage rolls along with fine pieces when we rally together to attack some of these larger jobs.
One of our guys actually said to me the other day “Folk jist dinna appreciate the work that goes into producing an egg.”
There was never a truer word spoken!
An update: Sheep are all away wooo hoo!! For auditing purposes that means nae sheep on our holding, zero, zip, nada!
So, no sheep inspections please!
Heifers are still in the sheds, comfy at present, with all our new stock now home and with the back-end bunch pelvic measured and blood tested last week.
We should be putting approximately 290 to the grass whenever it starts to dry up.
We have several hundred acres of spring barley to establish ourselves with the same again to sow out and about. Only 30 acres sown to date!
We have been amongst fertiliser and sprays on the winter crops which are looking remarkably well between the deep tramlines which currently resemble canals.
We have been trying to apply hen pen (muck) to grass fields but have found it tricky as obviously we do not want to damage it by leaving tracks.
The intention this year is to over seed approximately 30% of our grazing grass with an Italian rye grass as part of a trial.
The only cost will be the seed as we tend to harrow our grass anyway to help incorporate the hen pen and kick start the grass growth with mineralisation.
As I write this Claire is sitting beside me “flat out” as usual preparing for another auditing body to drag her through the mill.
This will be our 11th audit this year so far. I know, ridiculous!
I am sure sticking our head above the parapet has caused some of this but if any of you auditing bodies are reading this back off please as I feel the time burnt and the hassle they cause is disproportionate to what they achieve.
To round off I had a recent trip to the dentist to have a couple of fillings replaced (yi ken the price o white fillings? OMG!)
While laying there at the mercy of the dentist, who was very nice by the way, looking at all the Mr Men on the ceiling I couldn’t help but think of how the modern-day man has changed.
Radio 2 was playing in the background and the subject of Gen Z came up where individuals were heard complaining about how they could not afford a mortgage on a house; how they could not buy a car; how they could not contribute to a pension and how they were having to limit themselves to only one holiday abroad each year… Whilst in the same breath preaching that they believe that they should not be required to start work before 9am and should be finished by 5pm and god forbid be required to work at the weekend.
This, I feel, epitomises the problem with our society and the culture of these Gen Z folks who seem to have this sense of entitlement to everything without the endeavours and hard work required to achieve a goal.
My advice to these Gen Z folks would be to come and see the young guys and girls working with us if you want to learn something.
They are true trojans and are definitely “going places”. The work ethic is branded into them by our team.
