chris.watson

Good luck mate, my gaffer on the farm suffered like you for a few years, it wasn’t MS though, turned out to be Celiacs disease. Mind you, all the chemicals we have been handling for years probably has affected us all....sheep dip through to all the sprays. Often wondered if I would have death via Metasistox

Feel your pain too Smithy, it’s turning into a salvage job. We’ve had 80 mil here in the last 2 weeks but a mate up at beccles has had 160 mil.

My moneys on a knight

We dropped 140 acres today mate. Fingers crossed it stays sunny. Some people round here have had hay down for 2 weeks and had 55 mil of rain on it......looks awful.

Sorry to hear your dad isn’t well Andy

Was a bit worrying mate. Hopefully it will make it look 100% when it’s done.

Your right mate. Makes you wonder if the prices for these will start to slip a little.

It came apart very easily actually mate. And yes, all Daves later works were glazed. Will be happy to get my one done.

Since the uh county came out my dbp variant just doesn’t look right without a glazed cab.......so with clean pants on.....I split it, and got away with it. Will now be able to detail the cab with some black trim rubbers and glazing.

Stunning......as usual from you Ian.

Looks fantastic. Well done mate.

In East Anglia rape crops that got away well from flea beetle attacks last August looked good until the hidden damage comes to sight in the late winter/early spring. If you take a stem of what looks like healthy rape, cut it down the stem you will see little white blobs, these are flea beetle larvae. When these hatch out in the spring, they eat from the inside out, and doom the plant to very heavy loses. Some people are even letting the pigeons graze the crop as they eat the larvae we stopped growing rape 6 years ago, and incidentally, haven’t used a slug pellet on the farm for 4 years. Nothing attracts slugs like a rape crop.

Man up Smithy......just cut it off....you’ve got three others Pal

Squeaky bum time for us at the moment mate, but there has been at least 10 reported cases since the main bse outbreak all those years ago. If they contain it, they will be fine. We are a totally closed herd now, so we can keep an eye on things. It makes me laugh, bse and f&m take the headlines, but as you and John know, far more cattle over the years have been slaughtered due to tb. It’s the sheep boys and girls that bore the worst of the f&m, don’t get me wrong, us cattle people had it bad, but the sheep numbers killed were horrific. All our bull fatteners are entire and go at 16 months, it’s the heifers we will struggle with if the 30 month rule came back, ours go 32 to 34 months sometimes, enables slow trickle out of the unit to keep regular cash coming in.

Foot and mouth mate.

That simba top tilth is a sight shinier than our one Phil. Nice pics mate.

Always new your were a top bloke Smithy. Now we are getting harvest wrapped up, I will pop over and see you soon mate, it’s been a while.

Whole crop was considered, but with the price of grain going skywards, we decided that the wheat and barley was best left to combine. We will use the horse hay if we run short.

We did only 40acres of second cut when we should have done at least 150.we only got 1.2 bales an acre. We are about 1000 bales short on silage, so have made extra straw bales and will, if necessary, buy a feeder wagon and mix a silage bale with an oat straw bale to make it go further. The suckler herd will be fine on this ration. The fat stock will get silage until they go on cereal finishing rations. We have made 1200 hay bales for the horse customers, but if we need it, the horsey people will have to go elsewhere. We have now had 20 mil here in the last two days. Even the winter beans are being cut.... in JULY!!!!. Let’s hope we can keep stock outside until late autumn weather permitting.

I feel your pain lads, we got lucky yesterday, finished the wheat, backed the claas Tucano in the shed and an hour later it rained for 15 mins and gave us 16 mil. We hadn’t had a single drop here since may 27th. Cows have munched through 300 bales of fodder out in the fields already this summer. Not good.

We have been on wheat for 2 days Smithy, skyfall and Siskin. Doing about 3.4 ton acre, spot weights of around 77 to 78. Very pinched sample, it’s died rather that rippened mate. Moisture was down to 11% last night.

Very nice Mike. Are they not having any decals though? Or are they prototypes.

Although there are these idiots that withdraw stuff from sale just before bidding ends, there are a few idiots that bid/order stuff that they have no intention of paying for.

Just wish Radio 2 would play more than just one song off the new album though Phil.

Been like this down here for a couple of weeks Gavers mate. Looks parched doesn’t it mate.