Farmer focus: All I need is the North Country Mule
© Jim Varney Shearing time is a great reminder of how old you are becoming, after your first day in, every single bone in your body aches.
The two young lads on the farm I shear with – Rob and Lowcost (Luke) – are my juniors by quite a few years and it is not advisable to enter any competitions with them about how many sheep we can clip.
The other competition we have is the brightest pants contest, obviously when you’re bent over double and your pant line becomes visible it causes amusement as to who has got the brightest and most feminine pants on.
Rob won last year hands down, sporting a bright pink pair, but Lowcost surpassed himself this year and was shearing in his girlfriend’s G-string.
See also: Antics of a pet lamb called Dave
Shearing and lambing this year have also reminded me of two great British farming icons I could not farm without.
The first one is the North Country Mule. There are plenty of fancy New Zealand breeds, but there is no more easy care than a Mule, who has great mothering instincts, abundance of milk, ease of lambing and by the time you get round to clipping time, all that is left to shear is a fleece in the shape of a small toilet rug.
My quad bike broke down this lambing time, so I have had to fall back on my second great British farming icon – the Land Rover.
Love them or hate them, you can do anything with them, such as chuck sheep, dogs, hay, kids, in the back of them.
They keep you cool in the summer because you cannot drive them without the window down and warm in the winter with their over-heating gearbox.
This is where I must thank Jon Chester at Bowler Land Rover in Derbyshire. I have had some improvements made to aid drive ability and performance.
I must end with a comment made over the farm gate the other day. A rep said: “Jim why is you hair grey only on one side?”
I replied: “Well, it’s either a lack of fertiliser that side or its years of driving a Land Rover with the window down and the bleach of the sun.”
James Read farms in partnership with his father, in Louth, Lincolnshire. They farm 400ha of mainly arable land, run 200 breeding sheep and a pack of working/trialling sheepdogs