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The biggest problem with snow is that it enforces a period of inactivity.
This is bearable in midwinter but it’s pretty awful when it falls in March when most farms are approaching their busiest time. It wasn’t pleasant looking out the window as the snowflakes fell, but we live in hope that this long and extended winter will shortly give way to a beautiful spring.
There was nothing for it only to settle down with endless mugs of tea and try to concentrate on some office work, not helped by – among other things – the rapidly shrinking pile of black bales. The roads were impassable for a couple of days and it was job enough for me to get over to the yard to feed the cattle. However, some suckler and sheep men had a horrendous time, even with indoor lambing where bedding became total muck with the snow which penetrated everywhere.
On white Friday, there was almost as much drifted snow inside the slatted shed as there was outside and the cattle were wet and dirty and looked thoroughly miserable. Their water had frozen but the silage was wet enough and I stopped feeding meal until the water returned.
The cattle’s meal is tipped in a large shed with a roller door which, for convenience, is left open. On one snowy morning, I counted 62 tiny songbirds perched all neatly spaced apart on the roof trusses over the meal. Their cheerful and contented birdsong was like that of the small bird aviary in the zoo and they made me feel good.
Despite the fact that I have a winch-equipped Land Rover for precisely such an occasion, you can rely on it to play up and so with incredulous timing it developed engine trouble just as the first snowflakes were falling. It was the JCB for snow shifting and transport for a few days after that.
The snow was particularly unwelcome as the fields were beginning to dry out before it arrived.
We got the slurry tanks emptied beforehand. The task of slurry agitation has, I think, become easier since we started using a slurry additive.
Generally, I dislike wonder additives which make great claims to do the devil-and-all, but I think this one is cost-effective in terms of easier agitation and perhaps increased nutrient value. However, as we pressure-wash the cattle with an insecticide for lice control while in their slatted pens, I suspect a chemical such as this may have a negative effect on the beneficial bugs we are trying to encourage in the tanks below. Removing the cattle from the shed for spraying would be better, but it’s too much hassle.
I got the compound fertiliser out on the oilseed rape before the snowfall. The rape looks good and at least the snow provided a protective blanket from the frosts and pigeons.
We also got most of the stones picked, albeit in conditions that Jason, standing on the stone rake, pronounced as Baltic.
Last autumn, we hardly had the roller out as seedbeds were too wet, so I’m always anxious to get the larger stones off. We’ve always picked stones, as the Horsch tine drill is inclined to pull them up but there are certainly less now than there used to be. Though, it has to be said, the one-pass combination hardly brings up any stones of consequence. But the Horsch Sprinter’s lower running costs, speed of operation and its appetite for a less pulverised seedbed more than compensates. I just hope it gets an outing sowing the beans before April Fools’ Day. After that, beans are only a joke.
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