Farming

After my banking troubles, I got money into my new bank and paid everyone. I hate owing money, particularly to small businesses who need it most.

It came as a shock, whilst I was paying a bill with my bank card, to find that my bank account of the last 43 years, had been closed without notice. My money is still with them and finally they have sent a cheque, but this is only payable into the account which is already…

I am feeling my age. In my head I am still 22 but when I set off to run after a sheep or a cow, I feel more like 90.

If the weather dries up in the coming month, then that will be perfect. Almost all of the first crop of grass has been made into hay because it was drying out so fast in the sunshine that I just left it for hay.

I write this on the day after Scruton Fest. When I returned home, I checked the sheep because I had a nagging feeling that something was wrong.

May has been a month where the crops have grown fast because of the combination of warm weather and sufficient moisture in the ground.

I always look forward to May, a month of promise of warm summer days. An easy month when the cattle and sheep are outdoors, eating the spring grass, after the winter when they needed feeding twice a day, bedding up every second day, and mucking out every six weeks.

The dry February has become a wet March. I like to sow spring barley during the first two weeks of March but rain and snow prevented this.

Well, we’re over the bleakest months of the year. I can’t say that the coldest part is yet over because recent years have brought a cold east wind during March and April.

Last Autumn I responded to a Facebook advert which was requesting Leeds based artists.