February 2008 - Posts
I've got a very expensive trip to the post office this evening – an enormous parcel to send to my darling mother, as well as a thick package full of equine passports to be sent off to relevant authorities for stamping.
Having been at university for four years, and not being able to see my mum for Mothering Sunday, I began a tradition of making up a goodie box to send to her. This year it is heavier than preceding years, and I have left it until later to send, resulting in no option other than first class. Still, she is worth every penny, and many more, so I have no regrets.
I am waiting for the show schedules to come pouring in – I have already written out the entry forms for some of the shows – still eagerly awaiting my schedule for Royal Windsor. I keep having nightmares of being late into the ring, or missing class's altogether. I expect these will get worse and worse as the showing season approaches.
We are also left with a dilemma of what to do with our lorry – put it through an MOT or swap it onto a new chassis. I know what I would prefer, but unfortunately the bank man might have a few words to say about that… Watch this space…
It's been an interesting week as far as the day job is concerned – I watched as markets shot through the roof on Monday, calling all my chaps and letting them know. Unfortunately most came out with the, now common, line "I'll wait until it hits £200". Well, Tuesday saw it peak at £200 for just 14 minutes, after which it crashed £15, and has since been trading around the £185 mark. That just goes to show the volatility everyone is currently facing. In fact the market has been so volatile that in America the market limits have been removed, allowing movements of over £80 a day – wow!
Fertiliser is another sore point at the moment, with many farms facing bills of far over £300/mt. This is only going to rise, as the fertiliser companies realise that people are able (if not willing) to pay higher prices. One trader, when asked why fertiliser had increased so suddenly, stated "pure greed – this is the fert companies harvest".
So, another volatile week – lambing is nearly over at home (thankfully) and my other half smells more like a muck heap than a human. I can't remember when he last had a shower, but the drain rods are on standby – his "stubble" alone will probably clog the ancient farmhouse pipe work. If terrorists want a biological weapon, it's here in Suffolk!
As Friday afternoon draws to a close, I am trying to decide whether to persuade my chaps to sell their grain, or whether to wait until after the weekend. They say a farmer never sells on a Friday, but with the prices up a bit from yesterday, perhaps they should…
This week has been a mad rush of meetings, phone calls and hours spent behind a desk. In the small amount of spare time that I've had, I have worked hard with the horses to get them all in top shape, ready for the show season that looms ahead. Taylor has been with us a short while now, and so far has been a pleasure to have around. In fact, I already have three people interested in buying him – perhaps I should give up the day job and work with horses instead!
I spent several evenings this week trying to get my website up and running, and finally, it is finished! If anyone wants to see pictures of the herd (horses that is, not cattle) you can see them at www.ayemkaystud.co.uk
The show schedules arrived for South of England and the Suffolk Agricultural shows this week. I'm not sure what is going on with the SoE, but they seem to have fewer and fewer classes for equines each year! In fact, there is only one class that we would enter, and that hardly justifies the two days, £35 overnight stabling fee, 260 mile roundtrip and all the other hassle that goes with it, so this year, we will most likely not be attending.
As for the Suffolk – well, there are six classes, all one after the other, that we would like to enter, but as that would present a bill of well over £100, as well as tire out us and the horse's, we need to narrow it down. We were also concerned over the fact that, despite having mares and foals, and therefore needing at least 4 people to safely handle and show them, we will only be allowed 3 exhibitors passes. This seems to be non negotiable – if we need extra passes we have to purchase them. Then there is the slight problem of the closing date for entries – this seems to get earlier and earlier every year. This year they want all entries in by the 20th March – seeing as our mares aren't due (at the earliest) until the 21st March, this leaves us with the impossible task of trying to enter foals, that have not yet been born. When you are expected to enter details such as sex, name and registration number, I am left scratching my head… Surely I am not the only breeder in this predicament – after all, our foals are earlier this year than they ever have been before!
When I finally get home and kick off my boots, I have become addicted to the goings-on in Hollyoaks this week. Is it just me, or was the whole Darren being shot thing a little unbelievable? At the end of one episode he is dying in his fathers arms having been shot, the beginning of the next episode sees him fit and well, dishing out insults despite just coming round from a life saving operation. A few 'hours' (so minutes in telly time) later, he is at home, brash as ever and dolling out threats and ultimatums. I swear this soap just goes from bad to worse!
The weekend looms, and it looks to be a busy one from the diary. Endless running about – we have a pony returning from her loan home, as well as endless lessons scheduled, for which I have to travel all over Suffolk and Norfolk. Still, I might get a chance to tidy the house…. Possibly….
Another weekend has passed in a complete blur! Thankfully lambing is now over halfway through, but the hard frosts of the past few days, has meant 3am starts on the cultivator instead! Of course, you roll back into the yard by 7am to start the morning routine, to find all the water is frozen solid, the taps not working, and the feed bins frozen shut. Perfect.
I had booked Friday off (from the day job) as holiday, in order to go and see some prospective new horses. Around 3pm my other half received a phone call saying "bring the trailer over, I have just bought a new horse"!! Where would I be without him! For those of you that know horses, Taylor is a 17.1hh ISH that has been in hunt service with the master for 2 years. I have only ridden him twice since we got him home, but so far he seems to be a super chap. I look forward to competing him in the not so distant future.
The weekend was also a very sad one, as we waved goodbye to a much loved horse. We purchased the Suffolk Punch cross last summer, primarily for my other half to ride. However, with harvest and lambing, he has not had much time, so I took over the ride. After half a season hunting, we decided the best thing for her was to find a new home where she would get more attention than we could give her. An advert in Farmers Guide resulted in her sale, and on Sunday we dropped her off at her new home. We couldn't have wished for a better place – a lovely local farmer, with lots of horse knowledge and hundreds of acres to ride over. She is going to be very well looked after, and we left knowing we had made the right decision.
Back to the day job now – a meeting with the bank manager in my lunch hour (uh-oh) and a horse to exercise this evening. If I am lucky I might get home in time to watch Hollyoaks on E4+1 (yes I know its sad, but I am unfortunately addicted – its an illness) and The Palace on ITV. Monday night TV has certainly improved in recent weeks!
With wheat prices down almost £20 mt on lasts week's prices, one wonders when this market volatility will end, and what the actual value of wheat is. It seems that the city boys are playing with wheat stocks on the London and Chicago markets, causing erratic highs and lows on a daily basis. One hopes that they might soon come unstuck, and end up with a silo of physical wheat on their books!
The fog is so thick this morning; I am struggling to see the stores from our office window – daunting as they are only a hundred yards away! Still, these hard frosts, and tranquil afternoons have seen a huge increase in the number of tractors on the road of late. Last night on my drive home, I passed at least 4 lads on the road, and countless others still in the fields (blinding the passing motorists with their array of hi-tech spotlights). Suddenly it's full steam ahead, and let's look towards harvest!
The nights are noticeably starting to draw out – I actually managed to see my horses as I went to retrieve them from the fields last night. Now we just have to wait for the grass to start growing! We are thanking our lucky stars that we purchased our 20-10-10 pre Christmas, at a price over £100 less than they want for it today! Just goes to show that forward thinking sometimes pays off! Now comes the heady task of deciding on stallions to send the broodies to this year, then trying to hide the stud invoice from my other half! "Fools breed horses for rich men to buy".
Just since I've written this short entry, the price of wheat has fallen by £4 and then climbed back up £3 – I guess if you still have wheat to sell, the timing of the call to your local trader could make all the difference!
Its difficult to know how to start that crucial, first entry in a new blog. Should you formally introduce yourself, who you are and what you do, or should you just get on with waffling about your chosen subject, and hope that people catch the gist of the comings and goings in the process… So, I will launch straight into things, and desist from boring you all with a life story!
The sun has been shining for three days now here in Suffolk – Sunny Suffolk at the moment! But with the daytime sun has come early morning ice and fog – and when you are getting up at 5am to feed horses and muck out before work, that ice and fog is even more of a reason to stay in bed!!
The hunt is on to find a sponsor for the 2008 show season – we have a big show team this year, three mares, two foals, a yearling and a two year old for the county ag shows, as well as two affiliated dressage horses and a JA pony for the affiliated circuit! We had a fantastic little rider set up for the pony, but unfortunately she is having to have some time off with an injury (caused by an ill-fitting saddle, fitted by a supposed master saddler) and so an alternate rider will have to be found later into the calendar! I have just sold my hunter, a superb mare that I would have happily kept just for hunting, but the lure of a blank cheque proved too strong, and she has gone to a fantastic new home.
In terms of the farm, lambing is well underway, and so far (touches wood rather quickly) losses have been few and far between. The lambs seem to be growing and piling on weight, they will soon be into creep feed! The pressure is on to purchase a neighbouring field in which to erect polytunnels so that next year things will be ever easier to manage.
Rising grain prices has led to the "this will be the last year of sheep" talk – I am praying that the lamb price rises quickly as the place would seem empty without them. Something has to give sooner rather than later! We had two of the Red Polls killed for the freezer before Christmas – they were never going to be good enough for breeding, and with the market like it was, it made more sense to put them in the freezer at home. This involved the purchase of a new freezer, but it was well worth it.
So, the farm work completed for another weekend, it is back to the day job! The grain trade is brisk, with markets up and down several times a day, volatility is rife and the peaks hard to catch. Farming is on the up (or so they say) so perhaps its time to dust off the wallet and reinvest some of last years profit!