Farmer Diaries

Everyone in the UK has heard of the cheap housing available on the continent.  You can buy a house for a pound in Italy and Portugal.  In 1987, Japanese homebuyers contemplated 100-year multi-generational mortgages because house prices had risen to unfathomable levels.  Today, a house in the Japanese countryside can be yours for a few hundred dollars.  Demographics explain the cheap housing; an aging and shrinking population requires less housing Over the past several years Florida has faced several problems, including weather and the state's extremely litigiousness.  The home insurance market is extremely regulated, far more than almost any other financial product, the reason is that payoffs are rare and are clustered.  Therefore, insurance companies have to demonstrate certain financial strength.  In Florida, over the past several years total premiums paid were substantially lower than the insurance payouts (weather & lawsuits).  In the past two years, large insurance compani

Man, they really are scraping the bottom of the barrel on that one.  A recent headline was that AI could help animal husbandry.  What a load! Even with a large herd a farmer knows almost instinctively if an animal is in trouble.  They hide, they don't feed and they stay away from the herd.  When an animal is in pain, it is quick to let you know that it's in trouble.   You don't need AI for that, you need good foot care, a safe living environment, and clean and dry feed and water.  Some people don't understand animals, then they should not be involved in their care.  But for the vast majority, it's obvious.  Now to run a modern agribusiness you do need more data, but 99% is achieved by the type of sensors that have been available for decades to the farming community.  We know when a cow is in heat, it's obvious, just watch the bulls...  The biggest change for us has been body temperature which we receive continually.  We can find out if a cow is in trouble, but t

A battle between the steward of the land and the city-dwelling environmentalist continues on its merry way on the other side of the country.  It is an interesting situation, in that there are no winners in this fight.  On one side farmers who have faced one of the worst years because of rain, and on the other side the environmentalist absolutist movement that wants what it wants.   Imposing changes to land management is complex, and the reductionist solution being offered in Wales will lead to large-scale bankruptcy.  In the end, the old style of small holdings low capitalization farming is doomed to fail, animal husbandry and good use of fertilizers require modern expensive technology.  Normally the death of the small holding should have taken 15 or 20 years, following the ending of European farm subsidies three years ago.  Farmers keep on hoping that next year it will get better.  It will not, they are doomed, the impact of the change in regulation on land use will speed up the proce

We've had two troubled employees for about six months now.  Two younger guys, who caused a sort of difficulties: aggressive often late and drunk, but until now there was little we could do.  They were careful, in never being on camera when they caused problems.  Because of work being done on the farm, we had a scissor lift, and I took the opportunity to replace the four broken cameras with newer models, which had been broken for some weeks inside one of our warehouses on the old farm. Both Jennifer and I have been looking for ways to legally kick them out, but UK labour laws are strict.  These two idiots crashing one of our UTVs into the wall of our warehouse, and causing extensive damage to the building, and the UTV, turned out to be their last action as employees of the farm.  Because they hit so hard, one broke his nose and the other his left arm.  Because it was an industrial accident the police were contacted, its standard procedure and the two idiots started telling their tal

Three are at any one time several conflicts, but three represent a changing global order.  Some of the stuff, I write is deeply unpopular but remains a reality.  Maybe I am wrong but, right now, evidence supports my views. Ukraine:  Has proven that the once mighty Russian army is a shadow of its former self.  It has been known for years that the vast majority of the Russian military budget has been stolen and taken by either the defence minister or his friends.  The CIA has estimated that over the past decade, nearly 2/3rds of the military budget has been stolen.  When early in the war Ukraine forces seized a massive amount of Russian gear, foreign observers reported that the equipment was in desperate need of maintenance (as idiotic as oil changes) which had not been done for years.  the Ukrainians spent millions and months repairing the Russian equipment.  The question no one asks is what happened to Russia's nuclear arsenal?  The Russian bear that has frightened generations is n

As a royalist watching the "show" now on display is somewhat disquieting.  Two things are evident, the King is sicker than Buckingham Palace has led the public to believe, and Princess Kate's hospital stay was also more serious than anyone suggested.  In both cases, I think it is justified, that the real health of the King or the wife of the heir is none of our business.  It is more than enough to know that they both are battling their own challenges. The hatred for Harry and Megan continues unabated.  The source has to be the palace, if it wanted peace it would signal that it did.  The crown in the past would have beheaded for less, so excluding Harry and Megan is a reasonable position.  The press, well they just want to sell papers. When Harry visited his father for all of 40 minutes, my guess is that he came over under false pretense.  It seems now that a weekend with his father at his Sandringham estate was dangled as an incentive, instead he got a 40-minute conversat

Just after Christmas, we had a surprise inspection of our meat plant.  No big deal, except for one fact, our plant was closed.  Yes, it was a coincidence, but not entirely.  Our plant lead butcher is Muslim, I think I mentioned this before, and he brought two cousins and a friend to the business. All were trained as butchers, and all had extensive qualifications.  Apparently, it is not uncommon for generations of butchers.  Anyway, in early January there was a wedding in the family, and the entire team had been invited.  We discussed with Jennifer and decided that it was more convenient to shut down the plant for two days.  We don't operate near capacity anyway so as long as we had time to plan, and we did.  It caused no concern or problem on the farm.  Obviously, as the plant would be shut down we took the opportunity to do a deep clean and perform some necessary maintenance.  When the inspector was on site, the refrigeration company was inspecting the systems and calibrating the

When we built the farm in 2019 we faced one hurdle getting data to and from the farm.  Our region doesn't have rural high-speed internet.  Out of desperation at the cost and unreliability of microwave systems, I wrote to a new US company called Starlink that we were a farm in rural UK that needed a lot of data transmission, and would like to be a UK launch customer for their satellite internet system.   From the first day, the system has been unbelievably reliable.  We installed throughout the entire 600 acres several data hubs.  We were in the process of clearing fields so burying data cables was cheap, and we buried PVC water pipes too.  This is one of the tasks that still has to be done on the new farm, the ground has been too wet for the trencher to operate.   Note:  I write this as the government announces that it has fallen behind in introducing 4G data to the countryside...

When my wife and I started the farm, there were two managers -- people who spent at least 50% of their time in the office doing paperwork.  It was my wife and I.  We have foremen (women) who do some administrative work, but it's less than 5% of their time: sick leave and holidays management and conflict resolution.   From the very first day, my wife who is the brain behind the farm, made the decision to farm-out all administrative tasks; payroll, invoicing, and everything that could be done by a third party was done under contract.  Dealing with government reporting requirements was also contracted out.  None of this is particular to the farm environment.  We could afford to automate the processes on our farm from inception. Everything that leaves the farm is scanned and accounted for automatically.  Every lorry that leaves the farm has been identified and its load and destination entered into our system.  The only human interaction is the load inventory that is scanned in by the w

Consumer's wallet and their hearts are not in the same pocket!  A universal truth.  Most consumer believe that farms that do not use chemical pesticides or herbicides spend less money and less time tending to their plants.  Hence, organic fruits and vegetables should be cheaper, the higher prices are just a cash grab by farmers.  It is the same logic that complains when the garage quotes thousands of pounds to replace an engine gasket when the head gasket only costs fifty quid.   In our system, we have certain advantages.  High tunnels are particularly good at keeping weed at bay and use limited bioherbicides to keep it under control.  We also use a polyculture so that pests have less of a purchase.  We intercut our high tunnels with lemongrass, which is a very effective pest control tool. None of this is low manpower.  In terms of production, our strawberry bushes produced between 25% and 35% less fruits than ordinary farmers that are not organic.   Our saving grace is that our or

Goats like sheep give birth in the early spring.  Our goat herd has nearly doubled, as several goats had two kids.  We were lucky the proportion is 60% female which means that we will be able to boost our goat milk production.  It is always a challenge to get this right, whereas, for our meat and milk herd, we use artificial insemination for the goat this is not an option in the country.  It's done the old-fashioned way. This morning I helped with the smiling in the old shed.  In about 10 days the cows will be moving to the new farm and their new digs.  We are not entirely clear what we will do with the old milking shed, the equipment will be gone by mid-March, but the building is really not suitable for anything else.   I was up early this morning, and took my granddaughter, an early riser too, on a walk to see the chicken and the pigs.  She is almost 3 so she really liked the chicks we have.  We will have three batches in three different areas so that we can have three processing

Trying a clickbait title.  Saturday evening and the farm is quiet.  Nothing happened today.  It stopped raining a few days ago, not a single drop for three days, and it looks like we will be fine until Thursday.  Everyone is happy about that. Our eldest Daughter, her fiance and OUR granddaughter are up for the weekend.  My wife is over the moon to have her little helper with her all weekend.  I spent about an hour with her "parents" looking at their new quarters and things are moving quickly now,  All the rooms have electricity, and rough-in has been completed for the plumbing.  The painters are prepping the wall.  One issue is that the space is very dark, a week ago a cabinet market took all the windows and inner doors for repair and upgrade.  The window's oak frames need some love and care, and the glass is being replaced by triple-thickness glass, which will keep the cold and the heat out.  As for the doors, they need restoration and the removal of probably 10 layers o

 Grift! Everything you hear about the GOP are lies.  Time and time again, it may take a while, but you discover that the principles of the GOP were driven by grift, the con the scam.  Always the objective is to separate the idiots from their money. Consider the amounts Trump has raised to show the election as fake, or other PAC to support conservative causes. Again and again, the money was used for other things, private planes, luxurious vacations, or even buying in bulk biographies to boost the standing of the writers. Then there's the religious right a near fascist uneducated mob, ready to do almost anything to follow some deranged preacher's vision of the bible.  Usually, that preacher is in it for the money and leads a sordid life. Take the founder of Mothers for Liberty, an anti-LGBTQ+ movement that is pro-book-burning because of too much sex, and then they find sex tapes with homosexual and group sex.  The truth is that they don't care it's all a con,  From Fox Ne

Smirnov, of the Biden conspiracy where Russian agents worked to plan information against Biden to help Trump and the GOP was set free on bail, yesterday. He was re-arrested today because he was trying to flee the country, WITH THE HELP OF HIS ATTORNEY. The GOP hung its entire anti-Biden case on this guy and now he gets arrested trying to flee the country with the help of his GOP-paid attorney (that last one is a rumour) but still.   If you saw this in a movie your first reaction would be  -- this if fake. Trump is in trouble video emerged this morning of him at an ultra-nationalist Christian meeting where he made zero sense, it was a total word salad for 20 minutes.  There were no sentences just slurred words.  This is beyond cognitive decline this is actually serious. Vice president selection is starting to look like the selection for the next president... What a day

Today is the last Friday of the Month, and so I am starting a little tradition of naming and shaming: (1) The Florida Surgeon General said that unvaccinated children exposed to measles have a right to go to school, they don't need to quarantine.  You can bet that when little Johnny catches measles because mom and dad refuse to vaccinate him, they will sue the school for $100 billion dollars...because little Johnny's life was so precious they didn't vaccinate him.  BTW, the Florida surgeon general also believes that Covid was BS.  That's Florida's top medical authority speaking. (2) Donald Trump's lawyers got caught this week trying to move assets out of New York jurisdiction to avoid paying the $500 million fine.  How stupid do you have to be to represent Trump?  There's a very long list of disbarred ex-Trump lawyers.  Maybe they don't read the news? (3) The conservative party thinks they can turn the tide, no additional explanation is needed (4)  Last w

At most I got 7 comments on a post, the average is more like 1-2.  Sometimes it's none, but boy-o-boy did I get comments about my Liz post! I seem to have poked the bear there, for saying what is evident: (1) Once she got elected as PM, the cabinet realized the error they made, it took them 50 days to correct that mistake and get her to resign.  It was a familicide (2) She is the nominated candidate for her constituency.  She got kicked out as PM but is still running for them (3) Being a woman is not enough, I'm sorry but who can argue that your gender is enough to qualify you to be a representative of the people? (4) Read her Wikipedia biography, her parents were far-left labour supporters...it's not a secret, it is well known.   Anyway, believe what you will I don't care.  As for the 12 of you who thought that death threats were a good idea...please stop proving my point that conservative supporters are crazy.

Thursday night is farmer's night, tonight was a bit unusual at our local, we had a fistfight, the real thing too.  It all started because we were raising a toast to the wedding of one of my neighbour's daughters.  It went well until one guy asked the groom's name, and of course, the name was not a bloke, but a lass.  The farmer who asked the question decided that it would be a good idea to throw his beer to the face of the farmer (glass and all)  who was celebrating his daughter's wedding.  Now context, everyone around here knows that his middle daughter is gay, everyone, we've all met her wife several times, they have their own farm, where they raise sheep, about 300 miles away.  The guy is not a local, he got the farmer to buy him a drink, and flung it in his face, with some rather unpleasant words.  What happened next was tremendous, all these welly-wearing old conservative guys started kicking his ass.  Eventually, the constable showed up, and it was reported th

Today, we are segregating the cattle that have been earmarked for slaughter in the coming quarter.  We do this every 12 weeks, because cattle create family groups, and the process of removing certain animals is more humane when large groups are suddenly reshuffled.  Our cattleman introduced this when our number became large enough for it to be worthwhile, and it has helped to reduce herd stress (it's a thing).   In the United Kingdom, there are mountains of rules and regulations on cattle slaughter and aging.  In 2020, we had a programmer create a nice little add-on to Excel that helps the animal selection process.  Our selection process is entirely driven by the software, which gets its input from government regulations, current meat prices, weight and age.  In all, our software considers 30 variables.  Our cattle foreman initially double-checked everything in disbelief that all this could be done automatically in seconds, but now he just audits the process, when the selection see

Ms Truss is an MP for a constituency in South West Norfolk, that has voted Torie since the 1960s. She stands as the personification of why I left the party.  In her constituency the elections are won at the selection committee level and as such Ms Truss can stand as an MP for a very long time.   One of her more unattractive features is her ability to blame everything on everyone else. I will admit that I have only met her twice, and that was with a group of Tories supporters (some years ago) long before she became the shortest-tenured Prime Minister.   As a politician, her most attractive feature is that she's a woman.  Unfortunately, that's the extent of her positive features, and that is evidently not enough.  She grew up in what could charitably be considered an ultra-left-wing household to well-educated parents who thought so much of communism that they briefly moved the Poland...which may explain Ms Truss' own diametrically opposed political views. For a while now she

The first interview I saw about Tesla was from a well-known car analyst who marvelled at how quickly Tesla would introduce changes to its vehicles.  He said one day, that the 2023 Model S and the 2019 Model S looked the same on the outside, but inside they were very different. The reason Tesla was able to make changes is that he controlled the entire manufacturing process.  From owning battery plants to forging the vehicle parts to the software, it is entirely controlled inside of Tesla. The analogy with farming is not evident but it is there.  We now own 5 companies that purchase and transform our produces, creating massive value added.   To give an example, 35% of our production is transformed. One of the businesses makes pies, that are sold through internet  The reasons, (1) our volumes are too small (2) the organic/bio/natural/ecological branding used is not appealing to the high street market, and (3) our pies use no additives, their shelf life is short.  This is a major issue for

Not exactly news to our UK readers, but the weather around Norfolk has been atrocious in January and February looks to be as bad.   We are not yet concerned as we don't usually plant until April, but it also means that we have restricted our cattle to the barns a lot more than we usually do.  The soil is saturated with water and cattle will easily damage root systems.  We still have a lot of forage and sillage for the animals, 2023 was a bumper year for the farm, and we nearly doubled our forage grasses when we acquired the new farm.   During the break in the weather, several neighbours worked day and night to replace or improve tiles and drainage.  We even lent our backhoe to the farmer who saw his farmyard under 5 inches of water so that he could do remedial work.   The Met Office forecast that the ending of El Nino should bring dryer weather by the end of March.  Lets hope so 

I have often said that we do not set the price of our produce, that it is set by the wholesalers and more specifically, the market.  Prices for produce are based on auction results for base goods, and the price you receive varies depending on the quality of the good you produce.  It is convoluted, it requires a lot of supervision, and the vast majority of changes are market-driven.  However, because there's money involved, always expect some level of fraud. All our financial assets are managed by my old firm.  I have dealt with the same broker group my entire career.   Inside asset management firms there are various broker groupings, sometimes they are family, geographical or language-related.  My old firm had two teams of brokers that had a high concentration of german speakers.  In my case, my broker joined the firm the same week I did, we trained together and I was his first client.  I liked how he thought, we still have weekly conversations and he remains a good friend and a gr

Yesterday, my wife and I made the trek to France, to Macon about 70 km from Lyon following the death of my brother.  I saw him last at Christmas at the wedding of our eldest son, it had been the first time in nearly 3 years.  He looked younger than his 74, he had lost a lot of weight, I actually complimented him on his good looks.  What I didn't know was that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, which is often deadly but the debility only struck at the very end.  And no he didn't share the news with us! I already said that I didn't know my brother very well due to our age difference.  He graduated young and almost immediately took over the management of my parent's vineyards in France.  He married before I was born.  His eldest son is about 4 years older than me.    All the children and grandchildren were there, a large group that I had never really met.  It was bloody freezing in Macon, far colder than in Norfolk, but such is the weather.  We spent about five

Our meat chickens currently abode in several chicken tractors, but one of our new-ish employees suggested that we change this entirely.  She said that we could have our chickens 100% free range because we have so much extra pasture, the key, according to her is a few lean-to, water and high-quality electric fencing.  Also once a week, we feed them with chicken feed. The 1,200 chickens we do now require twice-a-day supervision, and about £ 8,000 of chicken feed.  Their suggestion is that we cut the total feed costs by 90%, but that we leave the chicken to their own devices, The once-a-week feed is to get them together in one spot.    This employee suggested that we increase the male/female ratio from 1/20 to 1/1 males are larger and quicker but more aggressive and will create their protection flocks.   There are several differences, we can easily increase brooding operations (chicks are in a special area for the first two weeks).  We will have some losses, but since the cost of each chi

We have been growing so fast, that the nature of our farm has changed. My wife and I noted the change on returning to the farm from holidays, while we knew just about all our staff and their family it is increasingly difficult because so many new faces have joined the company.  The facts are that having 22 high tunnels and has forced us to add a lot a new people, in addition, the higher productivity of each of the existing ones has also lead to more staff.  We have four different types of harvest containers.   It is one of the changes that Jennifer implemented, the pickers do that at the end of each shift, we have 7-9 pickers and 2 transport people, per high tunnel.  The first phase is picking and transporting the produce from the plant to the sorting warehouse.  the former pick the fruits and vegetables and the transport people ensure that the pickers always have the appropriate harvest containers (not simple in a polyculture environment)  and that the full ones are brought to the war

This is more of a funny than anything else.  Imagine that you are facing Alzheimer's a debilitating disease that eats your personality away.  Your body remains your mind goes.  Everything that makes you, you disappears.  Turns out that a new breakthrough drug has some serious side effect, it could kill you. As a patient you have a choice, kill your body or kill your mind.  To me the choice is obvious, but what say you? One you know you die the other you don't know that your mind is dead.  One for the Philosophers   

Watching our Prime Minister right now is like watching a prisoner on death row, he's only got his last meal to look forward to.  The rest is a void.  Civil servants have shut down, and MPs are working in their constituency and getting ready for an election that will be declared in the next few months (or weeks).  The policy machines are stopped and ministers have gone home.  There is no point in preparing or introducing new legislation, everyone knows that it's going nowhere.  There is, of course, a bit of makework, and some ministers, especially those who know that they are almost done, are enjoying the last few bits.   Before Christmas, I had dinner with two very old friends both Tory MPs.  One, who won his seat by the skin of his teeth at the last election knows that he's done.  He told us that he is polling third.  He was re-selected by default no one wanted to run against him for the Tory ticket.  He's a ridiculously smart fellow, got a first, and postgrad degree i

Farm inflation over the past four years has been brutal.   Fertilizers are a massive cost to the farming community.  Costs in 2020 were below-trend for fertilizers. 2021 was a strange year because of covid.  In 2022, the Russian attack on Ukraine led to a massive rise in fertilizer prices, as the world's top two fertilizer-exporting nations went offline (Russia & Ukraine).  In 2020 UK farmers spent a total of £ 470 million on fertilizers.  In 2022, UK farmers spent £ 1,620 million on fertilizers.  2023 estimates are that the total will be close to £ 1,900 million.   Feed: The next item is the price of grain, an important cost in livestock (we only feed grains to our livestock when it's very cold).  For the majority of farmers, grain feed is 30% to 40% of their livestock's calorie intake, and prices have risen by nearly 80% over the past 4 years.   Third, red diesel which was £ 0.58 in June 2020 is now £0.83 per litre nearly 45% increase, LPG prices have only in the past

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, is Singaporean.  Singapore is in Asia, but it is located at the southern tip of Malaysia, just a few degrees from the equator.  China is a big country about 4,000 km away.  Tom Cotton a Senior Senator from Arkansas, a Republican asked Shou Zi Chew if he was a Chinese national, if he was a member of the Communist party and basically if he also holds a Chinese passport.  Singapore was kicked out of Malaya in 1965, it is about 75% ethnic Chinese.  Until 1945, Singapore was a British colony.  Shou Zi Chew servers in Singapore's military for two years -- like all Singaporean males.  Yet, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee could not tell the difference between China and Singapore.   It is actually hard to understand what Cotton was trying to prove.  The line of questioning is so deranged that you have to wonder about the sanity of some of these guys, as well as the sheer and absolute laziness.   In 20 seconds you can see he's from Singapore and wh

The New York fraud case that just ended a few days ago, at which Donald Trump was condemned to pay fines over $350 million, smelled of politics until I read parts of the judgment.   Honestly, I don't understand how he's not in jail, granted its a civil trial, but still the level of proven fraud is astounding.  Even more remarkable is that a bank such as Deutsche Bank would still do business with the Trump organization.  If I were a banker I would be alarmed by the legal risks in dealing with such a borrower.  Although they may soon call their loans, if DB's legal department just takes the trouble of reading the judgment, the Trump organization is clearly in breach of loan covenants.  The judgment outlines which covenants are in breach!   Since September 2023, there has been no CFO, they have not sought one or appointed one.  Trump's son was not aware that there is no CFO (He is a director of the company).  The past CFO is in prison. It is the most sensational judgement

The Invictus games were 100% the brainchild of  Prince Harry, I've been following his comings and going around events in British Columbia.  It is evident that this is a passion project, and that he is entirely dedicated to the men and women who serve their nation.  In the context of the Invictus game, he gave an interesting interview on Good Morning America.   He knew the question was going to come up, about his father, his role in the monarchy and his relationship with the United Kingdom.  He said, (1) sickness can bring families together, (2) he intends to see his father in the future, (3) that his life is in the United States, with his wife and children.    It's funny because if you read the UK royal press about the interview and listen to the interview, you wonder if were they listening to something different?  The royal press instead heard that he wanted to go home and ditch his wife, and get back to being a Prince full-time and that it was unacceptable.  Go figure! Note: 

So to the absolute surprise of no one, the Conservative party lost another byelection.  As they say, the chickens have come home to roost, and no statement can change the fact that they have been entirely responsible for the country's poor economic prospects.   One of our guests last night, an American, who lives in the district where George Santos', probably the most spectacular case of outright lying even seen in US politics, seat was the subject of a byelection.  The winner was the ex-incumbent Democrats, who won by 55/45.  In 2022 Santos had won by a 56/43 margin.  It is easy to ascribe more meaning to a byelection, but both parties invested heavily, and the Republicans lost, because the facts are with the Democrats, the US economy is doing very well, unemployment is low, the participation rate is high and inflation falling quickly, partly because the dollar is strong.  The facts are there for all to see. The same reasoning applies to the UK.  The election will occur this y

I kept it quiet, but this morning, at 9 am all the kids arrived at the house.  It was a huge surprise to my wife, who had no idea they would all show up.  It is her 50th birthday today so it's a big day.  My wife said she didn't want a celebration, but really she did. I could see she was disappointed when the kids said they were stuck either at university or for work and they promised to call today.  It is considered bad luck to wish a happy birthday before the day itself. Instead, as my wife got up this morning, I had a nice breakfast ready for her, with a birth card and a nice gift.  I called the kids, who had stayed nearby overnight to come as soon as she got up.  We were having our breakfast in the kitchen when we heard tires in the courtyard. My wife assuming it was our cook, I told my wife that I had planned to have a few friends over for dinner tonight to celebrate.   The kids burst into the kitchen with a lit cake, streamers and singing Happy Birthday.  After breakfast

My brother is 25 years older than me, and my sister's children are only a few years younger than I am.  I never really knew my brother as he had left home before I was born.  I was 17 when my mother died, two years after my father.  My parents were wealthy, and my sister and brother inherited all of my parents' physical assets, which included a vineyard in France, that my brother managed, he graduated from university to become a vintner, and my sister inherited a rather substantial real estate portfolio in France and Germany, and I got a trust, locked up until I turned 30.   This afternoon, I got a call from my sister-in-law, to inform me that my brother had died.  He came to the wedding at Christmas and seemed ok, he had lost a lot of weight, turns out he died of pancreatic cancer.  I was not close to my brother, over the past two decades I may have seen him 4 or 5 times, but we did spend a long holiday weekend at his vineyard when the children were young.  I knew my sister mu

Last year a rambler was injured on our farm, usually, we would have to pay for medical expenses a few hundred pounds, but what ramblers should know is that we've installed motion-activated cameras throughout the farm (it says so when they cross into our land).   Initially, we installed them because the technology is so cheap, and our farm is entirely networked, for cattle tracking.  We can see predators, thieves and idiots too. So last year's injured rambler could easily be seen taking a kid (baby goat) from its doe, to show his children, thinking our farm was a petting zoo.  The doe charged him really hard, she was having none of it.  We put signs where the ramblers enter our fields that cattle are easily spooked and can charge unprovoked, and to stay at least 200 meters away.  As they say, there's always a smartass who knows better.  Even our cattlemen are careful when approaching a herd, they always talk to the animals and know which one can be trouble (it's always t

Alexander Smirnov, the FBI informant was arrested Yesterday (Thursday) in Vegas, the hearings were in camera because the evidence relates to a case (Hunter Biden) being prosecuted, it is also the reason the Senate is proceeding with impeachment hearing against President Biden.  The Informant was arrested for false evidence, fabrication of documents and other unspecified crimes, he has been remanded in custody because he is apparently a flight risk, he was arrested at the Airport in Las Vegas, it was not said if he was leaving or arriving. This is so spectacular that a movie will almost certainly be made.  For what its worth, this is exactly the kind of Perry Masson smoking gun, Donald Trump was hoping to find during his many trials... BTW 100% of the case against Hunter Biden, and his father is entirely based on the evidence that Smirnov provided... American politics, the best show in town! Note:  It gets a lot worse, the FBI has now revealed that the fake information in Biden's so

UK Civil servants are fully aware of what is needed to get a trade deal out of the Americans.  The problem, is they don't like it.  If you think the deal the UK had while it was in Europe was bad, the deal on the table from the Americans is far worse.  The Americans have a limited sense of humour, they still like the Brits, but at the end of the day, if we continue to dick around they will offer the deal to someone else, France for example. The UK has a lot to offer, a decent army and navy, good security services, and a foothold in Europe.  All things that Americans want, and generally already have access to via the security agreement.  The UK on the other hand wants a preferential trade agreement with the Americans, and the Americans agree, as long as the treatment is pro-USA. UK manufacturing is a direct competitor to the US, we operate in the same wage and skills bracket, so that is of limited interest, agriculture which is still highly protected in the UK is something that the

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b) ground beef requires process

Managing a fleet of vehicles on a farm is almost a full-time job.  We have 8 Tractors 5 UTV 9 ATV 5 Hulux Pickups and my old Land Rover, which I use almost exclusively to get around the farm.  David the lead mechanic told me that he's now implementing a full rotation system because he cannot have all tractors in the shop at the same time.  On average, it takes a solid two days to maintain and repair a tractor, every 200 or so hours it needs oil changes and other maintenance, in addition, things break and have to be repaired, and parts have to be ordered.  UTV/ATVs are easy.  Every day check oil, and fluids and top up the gas tank, but there's a lot of plastic, and it has to be fixed regularly (thank god for plastic welders).  We buy parking and other vehicle lights by the dozen.  The facts are that working on a farm is hard on the equipment.  The only thing that doesn't seem to require any maintenance is the 5 Hilux pickup.  Even David is impressed. As for the Land Rover, i

I've been keeping a few thoughts as they were not really worthy of a blog post, considering how some of my posts are a little ridiculous:  We got 20 cats... (but people love cats, that's what my youngest daughter says when she sends me another cat video) Cattle rustling is a thing in the UK, and not a small thing either.  It happens mostly on small farms because road access is easier and the cattle tend to be closer to the roads. Our old farm is "cordoned off" our cattle fields with prairies from which we harvest the winter hay. It increases the difficulty of moving cows off the property.  But it's a problem, most cattle rustling is done at night, although our farm is covered with cameras sometimes we have unwelcomed visitors (mostly of the drunken variety -- the whole cow tipping thing).  Still, that's why we have security at night.    Inflation a bit of a pet peeve for farmers, farmers' input is cattle, feed, fuel, husbandry and overheads. Farmers cont