Last Sunday was unlike any other Sunday this year.. and for a change I don't mean because of the weather - although from a farming point of view the wet and miserable weather was a welcome change. The thing that made last Sunday, 12th June, different was that it was Open Farm Sunday and because of this hundreds of farms across the country opened their gates to the public and invited them to see and learn about modern farming.
I've been interested in taking part for a couple of years, but lack of time and also livestock (they seem to be a good 'attraction') I haven't been able to. So this year I popped along to Offley Hoo (take a look at their website here) to see how it was done, here are a few pictures from the day.
Well done to Jon and all of his helpers for putting on such a good day, the weather wasn't great but there was still a steady flow of cars in and out of the car park and plenty of activities going on around the farm to keep the kids entertained and show/explain different aspects of food production and the environment.
I've no idea why, but today I decided to do a spot of gardening... Not something I normally do, and a bit late in the year for the required purpose. That purpose was to get a small bit of garden ready to plant some pumpkins - something we've done since I was about 5 I think, and by some I mean about 40 plants. The result used to be 100-200 odd pumpkins that we would sell at the farm gate to earn some pocket money, as for the reason we still do it; I have no idea.
However, back to the 'gardening' I decided to do. It should probably be described more as an excuse to play about with a couple of my vintage tractors - a diesel 1976 Massey Ferguson 135 and a petrol/TVO 1948 Ferguson T-20.. but it served a useful purpose so i'll claim it was gardening.
It actually turned out better than expected. From the initial plan of just ploughing it, I ended up getting the fergie out of the shed its been sat in for the last 2 years to tine and roll it - all within an hour or so as the conditions were just right -it must be gardening or something, that never happens in farming!
Here's a few pictures..
Even created a tillage train! or more, 'tilth train' - either way, it was pretty effective.
It's strange to think that although I was having abit of fun and playing around on a small bit of ground - 50/60years ago the same machinery would be out working the same fields we use the big kit in nowadays.. How things have changed!