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jac
ParticipantHi Mathew.. There could be 50% of the folks on this forum in the same boat as you, myself included. I would give anything to be able to farm with my team but silly land prices, brought about by the doctor/lawyer/banker types buying up the old farms with 10 acres to keep there daughters/sons pony :(..
means we have to rent land . We do all our field work with horses. I do parades and fairs with the waggon and local companies pay to put their signage on the waggon. What Im trying to say is, dont lose the dream but perhaps alter it to suit the “here and now”. Steping off the treadmill is, I agree, easier with a bucket of money or if you inherit a farm but if we dont have those we need to attack it from a new angle {took me way too long to figure that one}.. I am self employed and am perhaps luckier that I can alter my work patern. The more money we can stop going out the door on stuff that can be made or grown at home means less time I need to work away from home..By the time you figure the tax on your hard earned $ or £ and the time we spend in traffic jams at both ends of the day,the money needed to keep a reliable car and so on, your cheap food from the big store is actualy very expensive.. I make my own bread now for example and the amount of times I hear “oh I can buy a loaf for 30 pence” and my answer is yes but you have to eat the addatives in it to and when I make my loaf my family are around me.. that may sound as if Im off track but im trying to say take it in smaller bites…
JohnParticipantI agree Marshall, its a great feeling taking your place in the big wheel as a “passer”..
JohnParticipantStableman farm work is what I call an honouable way to make a living..pay isnt great but the side perks are priceless.. Check out Erikas post on the “elite” discussion in the equipment page to read about a truly reprehensible act and what a lowlife lawyer must have done to get his “elite” client off a fatal “accident”. and that kind of crap goes on in all western civilisations.. money shouts:(.. As Ive grown older I’ve come to realise you dont need 1 good paying job.. 2 or 3 lesser paying pursuits can still cut it.. the 3 skills you mentioned.. spinning ,leatherwork,and farmwork are all valuable and are now with the greater want for people to have localy made stuff, you can develope that and make a decent honourable living… Dont know if you get the Small Farmers Journal but they run a few pages of books on skills and craft.. including spinning and leatherwork…
JohnParticipantI read somewhere that in, I think , Scandinavia, they use horses to feed the outer extremities of the skylines reach and in this way halved the number of times the rig had to be taken down and set up …
JohnParticipantThis side of the pond we call them Chelsea Tractors …..Chelsea is a suburb of London… and most never see mud..
JohnParticipantWhen you study the video clip he has made a great job of the convertion.. looks nicely proprtioned.. Wonder if it would catch of for weddings ??? after all, those stretched limo’s did, and they are the ugliest vehicles ever to hit the tar . Perhaps a Jaguar or even an older Roller:D
JohnParticipantWell Carl Im pretty wealthy after all then.. Im glad not measuring my wealth in $$$$ or £££££.. If more folks reasoned that way perhaps the planet wouldnt be in the mess she’s in now…
Good point there Tim . Totaly agree
JohnParticipantAh.. but will there still be the “elite” after oil ????? is their so called wealth not built on the back of cheap oil ????
JohnParticipantHey Stableman…. This is the kind of discussion i relish..I know how you feel regards the speed and time issue using draft animals.. My young nephew has started a new job 400 miles away from home on a 3000 acre farm in Oxfordshire. 3 men handle the whole operation with the largest equipment New Holland make, the combine broke the harvesting record last year I believe, and the tractors start at 300hp:eek:… then I look at my own implement shed and think …”is this all just a pipe dream ??? “. In answer to your page title WHAT CAN WE DO… I dont think we can do much more than we do already, keep the skills live in our own families so they are passed on to there children and so on. My own personal experience is you can tell folks over dinner that horses can do the job but you get the usual arguments against.. What i do now is shut up and just plug away and get the horses out,do the work I need to do. The neighbours all come to see what Im up to and are all quietly impressed with what horses can actualy achieve… However… As long as the world has cheap goods and steel from Asia I dont see the populace changing much. Like it or not the percieved wealth of the western world is built on other countries working for a lot less money than we do or in extreme cases outright theft. British Empire being a prime example.Change isnt going to happen overnight and im sad to say no one on this form might see the big change but if I have passed the skills and mindset over to my daughter then Im a happy man… In many ways this latest recession has slowed the change down. I have a friend who has a butchers shop that sells organic. He reports sales down because people can get a chicken that has spent its whole life standing in a shed with 50000 other birds to end up on the shelf for £2 {$3.00}.”Feeds” a family for a meal.. The organic bird can do that to and also make a great pan of soup as well… the other birds bones turn to plastic.. Enough ramblings…
JohnParticipantHi Ed ..Caitlyns dad here.. She’s been so busy this weekend helping me and this is a school night so I said I would answer you on her behalf.. We checked out those Lleyn sheep {how do you pronounce that by the way}… Turns out there is a breeder about an hour from here. Been in touch and plan a visit soon. We thought of just getting commercial breeds but Caitlyn want something off the regular path !!! cant fault her for that:D. Thank you for the idea. will keep you all up to date with her project…
JohnParticipantHey Roscoe would you believe we had a case in the news over here regarding a family butcher that had been making and selling sausages in his shop for generations. He lived in Wales and the product was called Welsh Dragon Sausages…. Enter trading standard officers and said “you cant call them that as you cant prove they contain…. you’ll love this…. dragon meat !!!!!:eek: The butcher tried to fight it but was over ruled.. you couldnt make it up…
JohnParticipantGovernmental common sense seems to be lacking both sides of the Atlantic nowadays.. As Bivol says the EU has some of the most stupid rules.. Farm kids are forbidden to ride on tractors till the age of 16.. I for one would want my child where I know she would be safe.. in the cab !!! I remember as a child {8ish} being sent round to fetch grandfather for dinner. He was in the barn bruising barley and the tractor was at the door with the canvas belt going in the door to the bruiser.. I well remember walking sideways through the gap with the belt dancing before me at eye level, to tell him to go to the house… My point is that my grandmother knew he was bruising but still sent me to get him. It was a foregone conclusion that I knew the dangers and she in no way thought she was doing any wrong to her grandson.. I know there is a lot of deaths on farms even today but I agree that children need to be allowed to develope and the nanny state is not the answer.. And as far as food production goes for the small farmer providing meat and eggs to friends and family.. Ive been getting good meat from a friend for years now with no adverse effects{some might disagree:D}.. Again humans need exposed to a certain amount of germs anyway, and I think this is whats wrong with a big percentage of the human race.. a decline in natural immunity brought on by over clean food…I dont mean dirty food.. you guys know what I mean..
JohnParticipantJust like to put a feather in Pioneers cap.. We purchased a footlift plow in December, the plow is to be shipped out in early April. I read the latest SFJ advert and they have a few mods to the plow. So I foned today to ask how much extra I would have to send to get the latest spec. Was told I was getting the latest plow and no extra charge was required !!! I know of a few companies this side of the pond that would have jumped at the chance to gain a few extra ££££.. Good honest folks to deal with and a pleasure.. Highly recommended..
JohnParticipant26/3/10… Just returned from a working trip to London.. What an eye opener that was.. Concrete jungle and so many people !!!! For a country dweller it was a culture shock. Driving to the hotel we passed endless fast food outlets..eg KFC or as I tell Caitlyn “Krappy Food Company”:D and in between them were small market traders selling fresh fruit and veg !!! nobody seemed to know anyone, then we rounded a corner and were met with the sight of 2 donkys in a small field:rolleyes: They had a 4 lane road on one side, a dissused industrial site on the other. Further on and a 10 acre field had been turned into small veg gardens by lots of people. That single sight made me smile.. It was like a ray of hope in all the madness.. Home now and Caitlyn and me are going sheep hunting tomorrow.
JohnParticipantHi marshall.. Thanks for that, I dicided to just use the rope, two good pulls and the machine is up to full height. Im now going to finish off the linkage and paint also make a proper rope holder for the hitchcart….
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