Farmer Focus: Sad goodbye to faithful friend

Cleaning, clearing and maintenance are top of our farming agenda for the month of September. All those little jobs that never get done during the busy spring and summer seasons are on the to-do list.

I will feel better once they’re done.

See also: Handy tools and equipment to ease farm fencing jobs

About the author

Dafydd Parry Jones

Dafydd Parry Jones and wife Glenys, Machynlleth, Powys, run a closed flock of 750 Texel and Aberfield cross ewes and 70 Hereford cross sucklers cows on 180ha. Their upland organic system uses Hereford bulls, Charollais terminal sires and red clover silage, multispecies leys and rotational grazing.

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The workshop, which we could hardly walk into, has been sorted. All buildings have been cleaned, pressure washed and disinfected, ready for the winter.

Any scrap metal such as old fencing wire and broken gates have been taken to the scrap yard.

The fencing timber around the yard and fields has been pressure washed, followed by a spray coat of creosote to help preserve them for another few years.

As materials have become very expensive, negligence can become a huge cost.

We’ve got about 10ha (25 acres) of second-cut grass silage to do. That said, September has been very wet so far, and the forecast for the rest of the month doesn’t promise any sunshine.

We will have to assess the situation in early October and decide on the best course of action. Maybe we will have to graze it off with cattle – they will be very happy.

September has also been a month of saying goodbye. I had to take my old faithful dog Ben to the vet to put him to rest, and we buried him in the bottom of the garden under a stone.

He had become a poorly old chap. It was a sad day for us all.

By the end of the month, we will also have said goodbye to both daughters, as one will be going back to university, and the other one starting at university this year.

This is a familiar story for many families: enjoying the children growing up, with the house full of activities and plenty of help to be had on the farm.

This is an important process for them to widen their horizons, to be out of their comfort zone as they experience life in a large city.

We hope they will return home one day and appreciate the farm life that we as a family have always enjoyed, bringing their own ideas and visions to a family farm after absorbing the wisdom of education.