cocks in the field.
The hens I’ve disturbed can’t be seen and so far this year I’ve not seen a pheasant hen with chicks. I ponder on the subject of burdocks. There used to be a soft drink available in my childhood called dandelion and burdock – a sort of coke-coloured drink – but just which part of either plant was used to make it, I have no idea.
LAST WEEK saw the last ever Royal Show at Stoneleigh. If someone had told me that 20 years ago I would never have believed them. In the past we always went in a car-load, goingearly and coming back late.
We would rest on large stands provided by the banks, who would offer a gin and tonic without even asking if you were a client.
There would be countless stands selling wine and farmers who looked a bit affluent would be encouraged to try a few samples.
I can’t remember being asked to try some, which is a stigma that still hurts today. There would be a pig unit there, a dairy unit and, if I remember correctly, a poultry unit, too. One by one these units, like the attendees, have drifted away.
Our milk co-operative used to have a stand there and I would be on duty for four days but it’s an expensive business and every year we would see fewer and fewer members.
The last time we were there was particularly hot and there was a nice lot of skin to be seen.
As times in general have become tougher, people in agriculture have tended to identify with the major shows in their locality, like the Bath and West and Cornwall, and that great success story, the Royal Welsh.
The Royal at Stoneleigh was ‘everyone’s’ show, but not sadly, anymore. At this year’s I received a fellowship of the Royal Agriculture Society of England, which was a proud day for me.
I’ve been an associate for a few years now so I’ve moved from a sort of lance corporal up to sergeant.
Honours don’t fall on dairy farmers very often. What usually falls on dairy farmers comes from under a cow’s tail.
A COUPLE of years ago we were given a barn owl nesting box. It’s never been out in place, just moved around as we have gone through tidying up processes.
It has been a doll’s house, a garage, a kitten’s cottage, but anowl it has never seen. We have given it some thought – we’ve tried to identify where it would most likely be used.
There’s things like height and safety to consider and we’re not big on height here.
But there is a barn owl regularly working one of our bottom fields and there is a big old oak tree in the middle of the field, so it seems obvious, at last, where to put it.
Barn owls are just about as beautiful as creatures get. They are probably benefitting from the 6m margins around fields and the extra hunting areas that this provides. Good luck to them.
WE WENT out with friends for a meal on Saturday evening to the pub in a village not far from here. It’s quite an unusual pub because like a lot of pubs in small villages, it has struggled from time to time, so it was bought by the community some years ago and, despite one or two ups and downs, it is flourishing at the moment.
Later in the evening while sitting by the window in my observation mode, I saw an old Discovery come down the road and turn into the car park.
Some time ago I watched a TV programme where they showed how to fly a Jumbo jet from New York to Heathrow entirely by computer. So accurate was this that when the plane landed at Heathrow it straddled exactly the white line down the runway. The Discovery came down the road like the plane, straddling the white line.
The driver came in after a while. He used to be a local agricultural contractor; someone in our group said he’s 90 next month.
Two years ago I saw him at a ploughing match doing a fair job with his vintage tractor and two-furrow plough. Everyone knowshim; he’s lived in the village all his life.
He got himself a pint and retired to a quiet corner, obviously contented and at ease. He got out the paraphernalia that he needed to
The hens I’ve disturbed can’t be seen and so far this year I’ve not seen a pheasant hen with chicks. I ponder on the subject of burdocks. There used to be a soft drink available in my childhood called dandelion and burdock – a sort of coke-coloured drink – but just which part of either plant was used to make it, I have no idea.
LAST WEEK saw the last ever Royal Show at Stoneleigh. If someone had told me that 20 years ago I would never have believed them. In the past we always went in a car-load, goingearly and coming back late.
We would rest on large stands provided by the banks, who would offer a gin and tonic without even asking if you were a client.
There would be countless stands selling wine and farmers who looked a bit affluent would be encouraged to try a few samples.
I can’t remember being asked to try some, which is a stigma that still hurts today. There would be a pig unit there, a dairy unit and, if I remember correctly, a poultry unit, too. One by one these units, like the attendees, have drifted away.
Our milk co-operative used to have a stand there and I would be on duty for four days but it’s an expensive business and every year we would see fewer and fewer members.
The last time we were there was particularly hot and there was a nice lot of skin to be seen.
As times in general have become tougher, people in agriculture have tended to identify with the major shows in their locality, like the Bath and West and Cornwall, and that great success story, the Royal Welsh.
The Royal at Stoneleigh was ‘everyone’s’ show, but not sadly, anymore. At this year’s I received a fellowship of the Royal Agriculture Society of England, which was a proud day for me.
I’ve been an associate for a few years now so I’ve moved from a sort of lance corporal up to sergeant.
Honours don’t fall on dairy farmers very often. What usually falls on dairy farmers comes from under a cow’s tail.
A COUPLE of years ago we were given a barn owl nesting box. It’s never been out in place, just moved around as we have gone through tidying up processes.
It has been a doll’s house, a garage, a kitten’s cottage, but anowl it has never seen. We have given it some thought – we’ve tried to identify where it would most likely be used.
There’s things like height and safety to consider and we’re not big on height here.
But there is a barn owl regularly working one of our bottom fields and there is a big old oak tree in the middle of the field, so it seems obvious, at last, where to put it.
Barn owls are just about as beautiful as creatures get. They are probably benefitting from the 6m margins around fields and the extra hunting areas that this provides. Good luck to them.
WE WENT out with friends for a meal on Saturday evening to the pub in a village not far from here. It’s quite an unusual pub because like a lot of pubs in small villages, it has struggled from time to time, so it was bought by the community some years ago and, despite one or two ups and downs, it is flourishing at the moment.
Later in the evening while sitting by the window in my observation mode, I saw an old Discovery come down the road and turn into the car park.
Some time ago I watched a TV programme where they showed how to fly a Jumbo jet from New York to Heathrow entirely by computer. So accurate was this that when the plane landed at Heathrow it straddled exactly the white line down the runway. The Discovery came down the road like the plane, straddling the white line.
The driver came in after a while. He used to be a local agricultural contractor; someone in our group said he’s 90 next month.
Two years ago I saw him at a ploughing match doing a fair job with his vintage tractor and two-furrow plough. Everyone knowshim; he’s lived in the village all his life.
He got himself a pint and retired to a quiet corner, obviously contented and at ease. He got out the paraphernalia that he needed to
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