Owd Fred's Blog

Calving time for the Suckler Cows12 April 2012

Owd Fred — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 07:25:00 GMT

Yesterday we had an incalf heifer looking as if she was ready to start to calve and she was looking around where to calve, just in the late evening. Two hours later and just going dark, her water had broken and she had got two calves with her, but they...(read more)

War Time Horses

Owd Fred — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 07:50:00 GMT

I watched a program about War Horses the other night, only to realise how many were taken from this country and North America to work abroad during the First World War. What an important role they played in the transportation of supplies out to the front...(read more)

Our Single Farm Payment form is a stickler

Owd Fred — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 07:37:00 GMT

Our Government seems to "Gold Plate" every last rule no matter how petty and small, where as the same rules in France are far more relaxed. For example, all cattle have to have two ear tags, if you’re unlucky enough to have been chosen for an...(read more)

Not so many bulls about farms

Owd Fred — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:55:00 GMT

Not so many bulls about farms these days, particularly the dairy herds. Before the advent of Artificial Insemination, you often reared a bull calf out of one of your own best cows, the resultant heifers coming into your herd and completing their first...(read more)

My own Experience with Suspected Big cats in UK

Owd Fred — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:47:00 GMT

Big cats in UK . The discussion has come around again, about whether there are big “big cats” loose around UK. There has never been one found dead or died, but then you never seem to find dead deer or dead badgers other than road kill. My own experience...(read more)

All the Machinery has taken a wobble at the same time

Owd Fred — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 08:57:00 GMT

We seem to have run into a period in life when all the machinery seems to have taken a wobble at the same time and cannot shake it off. All attempts to put thing right have been thwarted and mechanics who are working on them cannot just put their finger...(read more)

Farmer & Stock Breeder year book and desk diary Christmas 1961

Owd Fred — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:03:00 GMT

Its not every Christmas that its as cold as last year 2010, when we had sustained cold and frost for some six weeks along with more snow than we had had for years. Looking back in the diary just fifty years ago we had a very frosty spell over the run...(read more)

Year End Blog 2011

Owd Fred — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:17:00 GMT

Here is a brief summery of activities of happenings around the farm and the blogs 2011 . Not enough room to do it diary fashion day by day so here goes. I was asked “which is your favourite blog” the answer was,-- The Longest Swath , and I was honoured...(read more)

What we were doing 50 years ago this day 27.11.1961

Owd Fred — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:51:00 GMT

Just been looking back in the old farm diary on what we were doing just fifty years ago today This was the nearest they had to a cattle crush, and note the cattle, young stock all had horns, the cows would be tied up in the cowsheds by the chain. There...(read more)

A Farmers Gardening Blog

Owd Fred — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:35:00 GMT

Gardening as a Pastime(with tractors always in the picture) Many potential gardeners who work, and travel some distance to and from work, just physically do not have much time to do what they would like to do in the garden. Then there is the people who...(read more)

Cheese and Mustard (1940’s)

Owd Fred — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 20:25:00 GMT

Every now and then, in the pantry the last lump of cheese would be going dry and crumbly, but it was still all used, very very rare for good food to be wasted back then. I’m not talking about the fiddly bits of cheese you see in the shops and super markets...(read more)

Carting & cutting Kale 65 years ago with the cowman

Owd Fred — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:28:00 GMT

This was tale about what happened to my brother and I when I was 9 years old and my brother just over 6years . I was just old enough to work helping the then cowman Philip to load kale for the cows, a job he did every afternoon ready for the following...(read more)

That Unsettled Feeling

Owd Fred — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 10:09:00 GMT

Occasionally in life you get the uneasy and unsettled feeling when you’re unsure of the future and not certain as to which way life is taking you, well I got that feeling this last few months. Looking back over the years I got it when I first started...(read more)

An unwelcome brush with the Law

Owd Fred — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 19:04:00 GMT

A Sunday morning brush with the Law One Sunday morning ten years ago I was taking a load of rotted muck with the tractor and trailer down to an allotment in town, on the way I had to pass the police depot along side the M6 motorway. As I was loaded I...(read more)

The Standard Fordson

Owd Fred — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 07:37:00 GMT

This was drawn by the Standard Fordson I remember as a kid of six or seven how we loved to have a ride on the empty trailers back to the field to be loaded. On this occasion I had just missed my chance for a ride and I was on my own, when I though I would...(read more)

Grandma had a very strong ‘best’ float

Owd Fred — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:59:00 GMT

With one wheel on the grass and a steady eye for the road beyond she got through, slowed the cob to a trot she never looked back. If she had looked back as some of her family helpers did, she would have seen a trap still moving along the road slowly,...(read more)

The main cash crop, (1940's)

Owd Fred — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:10:00 GMT

The main cash crop apart from sugar beet, was wheat this was sown usually after a break crop of grass as in the Norfolk four coarse rotation of Roots Barley Seeds Wheat , Wheat stooked in the field and left for 2 church bells ( ten to fourteen days) before...(read more)

Our Cows have got a Leader

Owd Fred — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:17:00 GMT

Well its that time of year again when the calves have got to be weaned , the shed has been prepare , the troughs along the front have got gates above them to stop the jumpers, the water trough has extra rails to stop them going through, enough bedding...(read more)

The cow that carries its own fence

Owd Fred — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:25:00 GMT

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up. G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) read more http://bit.ly/qGZYGN...(read more)

Second view of "Need long toe nails"

Owd Fred — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 07:40:00 GMT

Dad always said that, "you're only as good as your feet," But then he was talking bout, horse's cows and bullocks for meat. Anyone who died in the village were said to have "fell off the perch" read more on this link http:...(read more)

How do you define a working farmer’s car?

Owd Fred — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 06:20:00 GMT

Pulled out all parcels and shopping and stood back, while the old Austin Montego finally cremated itself in the middle of the road. The old Austin Montego Estate Car, it was a farmers car, or life before we had a Landrover 1970’s / 80’s ( The demise of...(read more)

Domino the Spotted Stallion.

Owd Fred — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 06:24:00 GMT

It was fourteen years ago that Domino was born to a small black Shetland mare, a mare that was not big enough to go in the standard Shetland show classes 38/42inches , and too big to go in the miniature Shetland showing classes 30/34 inches, in fact she...(read more)

To Market Drayton Sell (Cattle Market)

Owd Fred — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 06:58:00 GMT

Our local cattle market is at Market Drayton, about half an hour's drive west, it's usually store cattle that I sell there, having a suckler herd, I run them on to just short of two years old and sell them to finishers. I buy no corn (barley or...(read more)

Farming on a peat bog (only part of the farm)

Owd Fred — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 20:51:00 GMT

Almost a quarter of our farm is on a peat bog, at one time each of the farms in the village had a proportion of this peat ground, splitting and fragmenting the farms. In the last forty years as farms became vacant with retirements the estate amalgamated...(read more)

We wus Brung up Proper (1940's)

Owd Fred — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 07:27:00 GMT

On hearing the back door open, it was never locked, Foot steps in the kitchen, bedroom door we chocked, Then we heard mothers Coo-eee, relieved to hear her call, Have you missed me duckies, we bloomin have an all. (Our farm house was out on its own and...(read more)