I have a cold. I got wet moving electric fences last Saturday. I feel like I have the flu, but it's probably just a head cold not man-flu. I'm dosing myself with lemsip with extra honey added to the hot water 3 times a day, if there were oranges in the house I'd be dosing myself with them as well. Even though I am allergic to oranges. Sometimes I wonder am I just allergic to the chemicals they use to grow the oranges instead of being allergic to the actual oranges themselves?
Did you ever notice if you peeled an orange and threw the skin on the yard how long it lasts? Months later the feckin thing would still be there to annoy you like a plastic wrapper. I've never seen organic oranges for sale either.
Winter is officially here, we've had halloween, the remains of the pumpkin have been placed in front of the bulls but they are very slow to eat it. They prefer the GM maize, GM soya, beet pulp, maize distillers(GM) and rapeseed meal mixed with native barley, and wheat all camouflaged with a bit of molasses and biscuit meal. Sometimes I think us farmers are dumb.
We grow top quality barley, and instead of keeping it ourselves to finish cattle, we haul it to the miller, get paid €200 a ton for it, then buy it back, mixed with a load of mostly US food/distiller by-products and pay over €300 a ton for it AND pay haulage both ways. Not only that but we have to sell the finished product to meat processors who have thousands of finishing cattle in feedlots mostly owned by Irish farmers who have gone broke trying to finish cattle. As I scratch my head I can feel my blood pressure rising.
I'm off now to put 75kg of by-products in front of my 15 finishing bulls, who let's face it when they're sold will just about pay the miller and the bank repayments for this year. Talk about hamsters on wheels......
Just to end on a good note I bought a second-hand Barbour wax coat on ebay for £13 + postage so at least when I'm feeding cattle for the rest of this winter I'll be dry, and hopefully won't get wet by rain again. Thanks doggywoof, fixed that zip with 5 minutes of filing and due to my cold I can't smell your dog off it either.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MENS-BARBOUR-KHAKI-ZIP-UP-WATERPROOF-WAX-OUTDOORS-JACKET-XL-XLARGE-BROKEN-ZIP/332858166448?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
Wednesday, November 7, 2018
Friday, July 13, 2018
Drought
We are having the hottest, driest summer here since 1976. I can remember it being too hot to go outside in '76. This time I stay in for a siesta in the afternoon, work in the early morning and start a bit of work again in the evening around 7. It's strange that peak temperature is around 5pm. I thought it would be earlier, around 2pm.
We've been going to the beach at the weekends to cool off. The Atlantic is bloody freezing. Perhaps it is the big difference in the air temperature compared to the water and our white bodies are having a problem coping with the difference. But I suspect the Atlantic is colder than it used to be, there is a lot of northern ice after melting in the last few years. perhaps that is why we are getting wetter winters, snow in spring and hotter drier summers.
On the farm things are ok, cattle are content with dry grass, water and some shade for the hottest part of the day. We have enough grass for 3 more weeks, hopefully it will rain. but there is a soil moisture deficit of approx 90 mm.- not good. I heard the sheriff called to one of the neighbours about his water bill, he's got a month to gather up some money. We still have to make pit silage, we have about 40 bales made. If it stays dry I'll wholecrop the barley and pit that. Fuck the grain merchant. He'll survive, I have to do what I have to do to survive too. I'm thinking of putting in some fodder crops like rape/turnip/kale etc. But if I put them in too early they may not grow, if I leave it too late the yield won't be there. I sowed bird cover before the 15th June and it has only germinated in a few really wet places.
Money wise we are ok, I sold some cull cows and they brought in €1100 each. But cattle prices are crashing since. England are out of the world cup and they were eating a lot of steaks and burgers every time they had a game.
Longer term I think we will be better off with a lower stocking rate. This reduces pressure on feed but also reduces sales. But when the bottom line is calculated out we could be better off producing less as climate changes.
We've been going to the beach at the weekends to cool off. The Atlantic is bloody freezing. Perhaps it is the big difference in the air temperature compared to the water and our white bodies are having a problem coping with the difference. But I suspect the Atlantic is colder than it used to be, there is a lot of northern ice after melting in the last few years. perhaps that is why we are getting wetter winters, snow in spring and hotter drier summers.
On the farm things are ok, cattle are content with dry grass, water and some shade for the hottest part of the day. We have enough grass for 3 more weeks, hopefully it will rain. but there is a soil moisture deficit of approx 90 mm.- not good. I heard the sheriff called to one of the neighbours about his water bill, he's got a month to gather up some money. We still have to make pit silage, we have about 40 bales made. If it stays dry I'll wholecrop the barley and pit that. Fuck the grain merchant. He'll survive, I have to do what I have to do to survive too. I'm thinking of putting in some fodder crops like rape/turnip/kale etc. But if I put them in too early they may not grow, if I leave it too late the yield won't be there. I sowed bird cover before the 15th June and it has only germinated in a few really wet places.
Money wise we are ok, I sold some cull cows and they brought in €1100 each. But cattle prices are crashing since. England are out of the world cup and they were eating a lot of steaks and burgers every time they had a game.
Longer term I think we will be better off with a lower stocking rate. This reduces pressure on feed but also reduces sales. But when the bottom line is calculated out we could be better off producing less as climate changes.
Sunday, May 13, 2018
Life is short.
Life is short. I found an empty Tayto crisp packet in the jeep between the front seats. It had been there for a week. I remember the day my son and I bought the crisps, it was a Monday in February, cold but dry. I had picked him up from school that day, we drove from the school to another town about 15 miles from the school to collect some cattle ration.
He was hungry, and so was I, he had had a school lunch and I'd had nothing since breakfast, so we went into Dunnes with a fiver to see what could we get. We got a bag of bread rolls, a small block of cheddar cheese that was on special offer because it had almost reached the best before date, and a small packet of sliced ham. When we got to the till there was enough left over for one packet of crisps to share between the two of us, my son ran back to get them, while he was gone I said we were having lunch on the cheap to the lady behind the till.
We didn't have a shopping bag so just carried the food back to the jeep, put it all up on the dashboard. I took out my pocket knife, cleaned it and cut a roll in half, showed my son how to slice open the pack of cheese and cut a slice at the same time while he peeled open the ham. I put two slices of cheese on the bread, a slice of ham and folded the bread roll closed and handed it to him. Then I repeated the process for myself. It tasted just lovely, sometimes a simple meal is the best.
On the way home we ate the crisps between us, the cheese and ham went into the fridge when we got home, the rolls just sat on the breakfast bar. When my wife got home, our son told her about the cheap lunch. I think she was shocked that I fed our son almost out of date cheese, cheap bread rolls and ham that wasn't bordbia approved. Jesus, I thought good job she didn't find out about using the pocket knife.
My Dad hadn't been too well that weekend, he had fallen a few times so that night I went for the first time to help my mum put him to bed. When we had gotten him up on the stairlift, undressed and into bed I said to him goodnight, I love you. He mumbled something in return, I didn't quite catch it, something like ya you do, or ya I know you do.
The next day was Tuesday, my dad stayed in bed all day. My mother called the GP and he came to visit him in the afternoon, said he had a chest infection. While my mother went out to the local pharmacy he died, alone, in bed.
We buried him on the Saturday. The following week I found the empty crisp packet, I remember thinking when I bought the crisps my dad was still alive, and now he is dead and buried never to be seen again and yet here is this empty crisp packet that has lasted longer than my father. Life is short, make the most of it.
He was hungry, and so was I, he had had a school lunch and I'd had nothing since breakfast, so we went into Dunnes with a fiver to see what could we get. We got a bag of bread rolls, a small block of cheddar cheese that was on special offer because it had almost reached the best before date, and a small packet of sliced ham. When we got to the till there was enough left over for one packet of crisps to share between the two of us, my son ran back to get them, while he was gone I said we were having lunch on the cheap to the lady behind the till.
We didn't have a shopping bag so just carried the food back to the jeep, put it all up on the dashboard. I took out my pocket knife, cleaned it and cut a roll in half, showed my son how to slice open the pack of cheese and cut a slice at the same time while he peeled open the ham. I put two slices of cheese on the bread, a slice of ham and folded the bread roll closed and handed it to him. Then I repeated the process for myself. It tasted just lovely, sometimes a simple meal is the best.
On the way home we ate the crisps between us, the cheese and ham went into the fridge when we got home, the rolls just sat on the breakfast bar. When my wife got home, our son told her about the cheap lunch. I think she was shocked that I fed our son almost out of date cheese, cheap bread rolls and ham that wasn't bordbia approved. Jesus, I thought good job she didn't find out about using the pocket knife.
My Dad hadn't been too well that weekend, he had fallen a few times so that night I went for the first time to help my mum put him to bed. When we had gotten him up on the stairlift, undressed and into bed I said to him goodnight, I love you. He mumbled something in return, I didn't quite catch it, something like ya you do, or ya I know you do.
The next day was Tuesday, my dad stayed in bed all day. My mother called the GP and he came to visit him in the afternoon, said he had a chest infection. While my mother went out to the local pharmacy he died, alone, in bed.
We buried him on the Saturday. The following week I found the empty crisp packet, I remember thinking when I bought the crisps my dad was still alive, and now he is dead and buried never to be seen again and yet here is this empty crisp packet that has lasted longer than my father. Life is short, make the most of it.
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