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13/2/2008
Creaking brain cells have kept me away from this ‘blog’ for several weeks, sorry if you have missed my rants and thank you for the kind messages of support. The long winter evenings, and a succession of family illnesses, school inspections and emotional trials have kept me fairly busy and a little ‘fed up’. However, the sun is now shining with unseasonal power and brilliance and everything seems a little easier.
Andrew has kept me busy trying to work out how much of our oilseed rape I need to plough in as it has established very poorly in some parts of our fields. Not many decisions are as hard as trying to work out if a crop will be economical viable or if it is better to ‘cut one’s losses’ and start again with a spring crop. Knowing what management decisions to reach is more of an art form than a science as it is still difficult to collect all of the ‘facts’ in our chaotic weather systems.
Yesterday, we ploughed about 12 hectares in Merry Corner, and hope that the evening frosts will give us a little weathering before we have to bash the soil into a seedbed for the replacement spring beans.
Our other problem has been rats! Unfortunately, they are very difficult to control this year as the mild winter has seemingly kept their breeding rate higher than our diverse schemes for killing them. Professional help will be sought to try and make our farm buildings even more rat hostile before this year’s harvest.
14/2/2008
After rattling on about the bright sunshine, today has been cold and overcast; proper February weather.
I have managed to repair the disks on the Simba seed drill which are used to cover the seeds after they have been sown and before they are rolled into the soil with the rubber tyre rolls. It was nice to get a hammer and a welding torch into my hands again.
Dad’s ‘Freelander’ has been causing him a lot of problems lately, so I was pleased to hear from the garage that they had isolated a problem with the diesel fuel injectors. It will be fixed for £900; Dad, at 86, is confident that he has many more years use in both himself and the car.
I discussed the rape’s variable emergence with our co-operative (United Oilseeds) and with Andrew, and we seem to be agreed on the way forward with reseeding and a decent fertiliser and crop protection plan. I hope the weather will allow us to finish the cultivations and to get the spring bean seed into the ground.
I called into school today, nobody there; everyone must be recovering from the Ofsted inspection last week. I managed to convince them that I was an ‘outstanding’ teacher (at least that is what I think the lady who spent half an hour with me said). She was particularly impressed with the way that I asked the children to put their chairs under the tables before they left the room. “Good classroom management” apparently.
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Ploughing can continue in the morning when we reach the prescribed date for cultivating over wintered stubbles (part of our ELS commitment); so Derek took today off to celebrate his son’s 40th birthday. How the cliché driven time flies.
Two entries in two days, Things must be looking up.
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