In your field

With the clocks changing, the dry weather came to an abrupt end on the last day of October. What we were not prepared for, however, was the absolute deluge of rainfall which fell out of the sky on that morning.

The weather the last two weeks has been just what we needed. With being half down on of our normal shed space, we needed to sell a group of calves before we could bring the cows in.

As I sit down to write this we are in the middle of some seriously wet weather.

Rachel and husband Stephen and family farm 66ha (163 acres) mainly tenanted at Baildon, West Yorkshire. They milk 85 pedigree Holstein and Jerseys, selling milk to Meadow Foods. They also have an on farm vending machine. Their son, Ben, works full-time on farm and daughters Felicity and Zoe also work in the agricultural sector. Rachel is a director of the local farmers’ market.

September finally saw the return of sunshine and warmer days which allowed us to finish the cereal harvest with some of the driest combining we had all season, which was a relief.

With the continued good weather, it has been easy to forget that the clocks will soon be changing, and winter will be upon us.

The first Saturday in October saw us attend our final farmers’ market in Huntly.

The leaves are turning and we have had 120mm of rain in the last week or so and we keep on finding mice in the cottage. Autumn is definitely here.

Stephen and Ben have what I think is a fairly typical father/son working relationship; they usually work very well together but occasionally there is a little wobble.

Silly season is upon us and we are right in the thick of it.