A Day in June
In the second of our series of seasonal insights into life on the farm, Farmer Richard reflects on Monday 13th June...
Today was the first day I haven’t had jobs to do for Open Farm Sunday, which we had on the farm yesterday. That’s not strictly true because there was some clearing up to do after morning milking (and breakfast), loading up trestle tables and picnic chairs onto the trailer and returning them to the Westmorland Agricultural Society.
The marquees will be taken down tonight, a job that farmers from the Society do almost weekly as the smart tents are hired out for functions. It raises funds for putting on the county show each year. My father, John, is President of the Society and we hosted the charity fundraising barbecue on Saturday evening, raising money for Cancer Care and the Alzheimer’s Society.
I looked in on the twin calves that were born this morning, the second set in 2 days. Unfortunately the first pair was born prematurely and didn’t survive. On Wednesday I am going to the auction at Bentham to look at some in-calf Montbelliard cross heifers that are for sale. I have Montbelliards in our herd and they are rarely available locally.
At 10 o’clock a group of dairy farmers from Wales arrived for a tour and talk. One of them is a 3 times winner of the grassland management award but he lost his title to an English farmer this year. I expected to spend a couple of hours with them, but we all got engrossed in grass and made very slow progress on our look around the farm.
Paul was busy mowing grass for the cows to eat in the field, a new technique we are trying this year. The cows grazed the field 3 or 4 times and the aim now is to have a very clean finish that will encourage lush new growth. I will be looking for the drizzly rain and warm temperatures that all plants thrive in.
As we finished painting smelly creosote on the new cow building doors we laughed about things not being made like they used to be. After 30 years the metal frames holding the fascia boards had disintegrated, leaving no structure to repair onto. For Open Farm Sunday we power washed and re-painted the whole building; it was a good excuse to spruce things up.