Jon Watt: Combine ‘potholing’ highlights variety in farming

Among my many failings is a fear of both heights and cramped spaces.

A friend of mine once invited me to go potholing with her (she didn’t mean repairing roads, either) and I broke out in a cold sweat at the mere thought.

It strikes me as a sport that involves crawling around in caves with the object of becoming as cramped and in need of rescue as possible.

See also: Jon Watt – don’t shut away the next generation in the farm office

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Jon Watt

Jon Watt runs a mixed arable and beef farm, with a suckler herd of pedigree Hereford cattle and a contracting business, with his dad in Suffolk. He is a former NFU Student and Young Farmer Ambassador.

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One of the joys of farming is the massive variety of things you’ll get to do, which means I still have a similar experience.

Every year after harvest, we take the sieves out of the combine so we can blow any remaining grains out, ensuring it stays rodent-free.

Because it is a superb yellow one (other combines are available) two bolts on each of the pre, top and bottom sieves let them slide out, but removing these bolts must be done from inside the combine.

I donned my overalls, dust mask and headtorch and in I went over the top sieve, hurting my knees and stabbing myself on various sharp objects before crawling forwards further into the perhaps 12in gap between the crankshaft that drives the straw walkers and the top sieve.

I can’t believe people would give up their weekends and choose to pay for this sort of experience.

Harnessing the ever-entrepreneurial spirit needed to be a farmer, it did even strike me that perhaps there could be the basis of a new diversification here?

Once I got to where I needed to be, the phone rang. As I tried to extract my now-tangled overalls, I banged my head and knocked my head torch off.

Fortunately, it was someone I wanted to talk to, otherwise there would have been expletives.

This episode highlighted how varied day-to-day farming life is.

It’s one of the reasons I encourage people to consider a career in this sector. Whatever your skillset, there is a way you can apply it.

I just conveniently forget to tell them that sometimes it might involve being covered in barley awns having a go at potholing.