This spring we had the chance to vote on the future direction of AHDB. I must say at the outset that it has always rankled with me that I have had to pay a levy without having any say in how it was spent.
I once went to an interview in London to try to get on the board of AHDBs predecessor, the Milk and Dairy Council. I was sent packing and quite quickly after I was told you are not what we are looking for.
Those very same questions I suggested 10-12 years ago are being asked today. I havent used AHDB for years and dont think I will again and therefore I dont see why I should pay for it.
Now heres a thing, every so often there turns up a sort of levy board newsletter for dairy farmers. I read it, but then again Im always reading something. I leave it on the kitchen table and there are three generations of us poking about around here: me; my son; and his son.
As far as I can tell, these younger models never read it. This isnt a criticism of them, but its a sort of criticism of the contents of the newsletter. Why dont they read it? Presumably because they dont think it is relevant to their lives milking cows. Which brings us back full circle to having a say in how the levy is spent.
On the same day as I sit writing this I decide to break out the lawn mower. It starts first time, an admirable quality in a lawn mower.
There was a lot more grass on the lawn than I thought and there are more mole hills. I know a man who is very good at catching moles but he charges a lot as well. I try not to think about that as the mower levels all the molehills for now.
The dogs have been here as well. One of the big advantages of a ride on mower is that you dont get covered with dog poo, as opposed to a strimmer which seems to be designed for this purpose.
You can tell a lot about grass growth with a lawn mower. Not as much as a plate meter but nearly as much. I wonder if we will still be using plate meters in years to come? I bet well still be cutting lawns.
I look over the garden fence to see how much grass is in the fields, as it always seems to grow more on the lawn. We never turn the cows out by date, but by ground conditions. I remember one year when it was so dry we turned the cows out on February 1. We were strip grazing at the time and after five days we put them out at night as well.
The field they were on was on the roadside so everyone could see what we were doing. Halfway into March it turned wet and cold so we brought them back in again.
A neighbour remarked one day that didnt work did it? I asked him what hadnt worked. He said: Putting those cows out; you had to get them back in again.
I pointed out that the cows had been out for six weeks and you couldnt take that away from them, but he still couldnt see it. In my experience the past takes a lot of changing.
A lot of years ago I was on licensed premises, as I tend to do, and I got into conversation with a local man who told me he had been kicked out by his mother (with good reason) and was living rough.
On that particular night it was his intention to sleep on the planks in the auction yard. We were in a very cold spell of weather at the time, freezing fog, and I remember being appalled. I took him home and he slept in the attic above our kitchen. There was an old bed in there and it was quite warm because the kitchen was underneath. It was certainly warmer than the auction yard.
The only condition was that I would get him up when I got up to milk, make him a cup of tea, then he would go. He slept there for three nights and my wife never knew.
After three nights I managed to get him a caravan. It wasnt very posh, but it was warm and dry. I hid it up the yard behind a building. It cant have been that bad because he stayed there for 12 years. Now he is in a rented flat and that suits him fine.
He was mostly in work all the time he was there and he never sought to live on benefits. He would get a job, keep it for about six weeks and then have a bit of a breakout, lose the job, and I would sub him while he was out of work. He always paid me back to the last penny.
Theres usually a plus in life, you just have to look for it. His life included so many escapades that it made me look quite sensible, which was a change. I used to have a saying that everything in life is relative and compared to him, and I often was, I was steadfast and reliable.
There are often things to be learned from someone who has lived a different life to you and I will pass on one thing he told me. He told me that if you were sleeping rough, a good place to sleep was the mens toilets.
He said that some hand driers could be jammed on if you used a coin to keep the button in, then you could sleep beneath it and it would blow hot air on you all night.
I just thought I would pass this on. When all this cheap food starts turning up from Australia and New Zealand, we dairy farmers dont know what life has yet to throw at us.
Ive just remembered we used to cut his hair with the cow clippers, I thought Id made a good job of it, but no-one else ever asked me to cut theirs.
