Opinion: Brief break from farm interrupted by fire brigade call

It’s never going to be a good thing when the phone rings at 3am. Harvest was over — the earliest either my father or I could recall on this farm — and praise be, it wasn’t a disaster.

Notwithstanding the paltry 64mm of rain over four months, we still managed 3t/acre, which will cue an audible sigh from fellow farmers. In a sensible world I would describe that as almost 7.5t/ha, but alas I still struggle with units.

In my world, cold weather is measured in Celsius, while warm weather is measured in Fahrenheit; I buy diesel in litres but calculate miles per gallon.

Is that just me, or an affliction of those of us born in a certain time – people who can remember lyrics from the 1980s but struggle with the names of their friends’ children?

See also: Opinion – ministerial ‘musical chairs’ is damaging for farming

I digress. Harvest being over presented an opportunity to get away for a few days, to try to reset a little and delay burnout, if only briefly.

I decided to spend a week in Scotland and Northumberland seeing some cattle and friends.

I was due to spend a few days relaxing with my partner’s parents. I had managed a full 21 hours off the farm when the call came. Scrambling to find my phone in an unfamiliar room, concern for my elderly parents foremost in my mind, I answered.

“Mr Harman? This is the fire brigade. Your farm is on fire and your cows are running around. Can you come and put them back?”

“Where? Where is the fire?” I asked.

“In your field,” he said, somewhat unhelpfully. I was staying in Burradon, a good five-hour drive from home, so I tried to ascertain a more precise location of the fire before calling potential helpers all while jumping in the pickup to head back.

I have a brilliant guy, Dan, who helps out on the farm: no answer (who can blame him at 3am). I finally raised Nick, an old school friend who occasionally lends a hand since his retirement.

He was amazing, as were the fire brigade and, in the end, disaster was downgraded to crisis and then further to inconvenience.

We were lucky. We lost a couple of acres of advanced overwintered stubble and a few fence posts; as for the cows, they weren’t out at all. In fact, within minutes they were reported as lying unfazed, cudding among the fire appliances, blue lights flashing all around.

I sort of knew this was coming; my neighbours had all had fires over the preceding weeks and I probably got away lighter than any of them.

As the false autumn gives way to the real thing, the fire risk has now passed, but I am left wondering what the longer-term damage will be from the worst drought since at least 1976.

I watch with a degree of horror as around me autumn cultivations have begun, the clouds of dust that follow, mimicking the fires that preceded them.

With most of my pastures looking like a flat wicket in Lahore, the only plants showing signs of life are the onion couch and creeping thistle.

Even my attempts at herbal leys have given up and gone the same way as my attempted “busman’s holiday”. My farm, it turns out, remains stubbornly unwilling to respect my calendar or the concept of personal time.