For Flock's Sake - Please Let it End .....

One of the few books I’ve read more than once is “The Farming Ladder” by George Henderson.  I liked it so much, I named my Nuffield Scholarship study after it.  Oddly - even though there is so much wisdom within his book's cover - I would have hated to meet George.  He seemed to be incredibly opinionated, self-satisfied and humourless.  Yet he left a book to the world that - almost 70 years on - will still be inspirational to some and was, certainly, to me.

One thing he spoke of ... which was, in many ways, totally out of character to his normally practical and coldly objective attitude .... was of a spiritual connection with sheep.  If I’m weirding you out skip this next bit and go to the even weirder next post.

He described a couple of occasions of significant spiritual liaisons with sheep and sharing them with other shepherds.  Even though sheep became of less and less significance to his business, he described the overwhelming contentedness he felt like no other in farming ... when he knew all was well with his flock.

I can identify with this.  And I reckon even alot of proper stockmen might.  You feel uneasy when all is not well.  Every now and then you act on a gut feeling and think its weird because there was something a bit psychic to it (obviously I imagine this and it is simply coincidence but I like the idea).

The flock now has not seen grass for 4 weeks.  The Met Office keep teasing about a thaw but it never comes.  I’m not a real farmer - no tractor, don’t make silage, no shed.  My mission is to operate with very little fixed costs hence - no tractor, don’t make silage, no shed.  Its times like these, unlikely to be repeated,  extreme conditions, that you wish your fixed costs were extravagant and thus the sheep were happy.  Its like torture relying so heavily on something you can't control. Please let it end, please let the thaw come, please let them see grass, please let all be well with the flock once again.

To prove there is a special relationship between Shepherd and his Sheep, one of my flock gave me the following yesterday .....

The Diary of Lamb Fank ....

18th November 2010 - Day 1

This has to be a first! I am a sheep and I’m actually writing a diary .... coooool!  Not only do I shed my own wool but I am genetically bred to be literate, to have an appreciation of the melancholic genius of Del Amitri lyrics and to have strong opinions on the subtleties of test cricket.

I live in the uplands above the Firth of Forth in West Fife and weigh 65 kg ... though horrifically, I’m pushing 70 at the moment.  Worse still my wool is growing and making my bum look really big. Otherwise, I’m feeling good and have lots of girl friends I can relate to on a spiritual and deeply emotional level.  I love life, though this does not constitute a contract and I may decide to end things at any time for no apparent reason.

19th November - Day 2

Feeling a bit odd today ... restless .... tense.  My mind calender reckons The Master of Disaster (our “shepherd” - Michael ) should have supplied a boy sheep to me by now.  He constantly disappoints me and needs to seriously up his game.

20th November - Day 3

At last - Boy Sheep supplied for my delectation. He is semi-gorgeous, though not exactly Brad Tup-Pitt.  However, he is kind and generous with his love ... albeit his chat needs work for him to be “The One”.

26th November - Day 9

Sorry for not writing for a while.  Been a bit busy. Mind elsewhere.  Boy Sheep bores me and I am ... like ... sooo vanilla about him.  He is a bit of a dog anyway .... God, I hate him ... he is dead to me.

27th November - Day 10

It snowed yesterday which was nice ... makes my nose tingle when I bury to eat the grass.  Boy Sheep really getting on my nerves.

28th November - Day 11

Still snowing. Feeling a bit peckish.  Burying to get at grass becoming tiresome, I prefer grazing without the foreplay, if you know what I mean.  Which reminds me ... Boy Sheep is potentially the biggest loser in the world.

2nd December - Day 15

Two feet of snow and not a lot to eat apart from rushes - the culinary equivalent of cardboard spread with doggy do-do, for sheep.  Boy Sheep doesn’t understand me - I am putting him in my mind box and shutting the lid forever!

10th December - Day 23

This is getting ridiculous.  We have a crap weather sandwich: Layer of snow - layer of ice above the luscious layer of grass ... I can almost touch it .... thinking about drilling for it.  Have to rely on His Uselessness to provide pityful morsels of hay.  Its bloody freezing.  Only plus point is Boy Sheep looks knackered and well ugly.

Me with my girlfriends.  He-Who-Can't-Be-Named is second from the left .... PRAT! 

15th December - Day 28

I am seriously thinking about giving this lark up.  Taking the “four feet in air” life-option.  If I were carnivorous, I could probably eat a horse.  My favourite colour is green and my favourite organic compound is cellulose .... please provide it to me and my friends (NB this does not include Boy Sheep) timeously!!

20th December - Day 33

Someone, somewhere is having a laugh!  This snow is like the sheep equivalent of water boarding and should be outlawed worldwide.  The big bum syndrome is no longer an issue.  Not weighed myself recently but as diets go this snow has been overly effective.  I have told my girlfriends that talk of Boy Sheep in my presence is totally banned or I will look annoyed.

I am stopping this diary as it bores me and I don’t have the strength any more.  I have decided not to have babies next Spring ... I don’t want to be reminded of their incredibly awful father.  Enjoy your Christmas dinner in the warmth.  Looks like me and 49 friends and one complete plonker will be spending it hungry, cold with occasional annoyed looks and resultant awkward silences. 

The Ghost of Christmas Past ....

Christmas 2008.  Something so right but sooo wrong has happened. This great new scheme has been launched that gives farmer’s access to more capital.  Its the Scottish Rural Development Programme - Rural Priorities ... catchy name.  You can get 50% funding on relevant shiny new stuff. I need it ... I need it bad!

I ignore that 50% means SRDP is a game of TWO halves and that I will actually have to fund the rest .... I get overly excited and, in the festive spirit, I write a wish list as if I were going to send it up the chimney on Christmas Eve.

The resultant application was essentially the following:

Two years on and the Ghost of Christmas Past has come to me ... telling me I am a total pillock.  All the items on the list can be justified ... apart from Number 5.  The others were useful and needed. They added efficiency and enhanced my balance sheet at effectively half their cost.  

Number 5 though! ... Its ostentatious.  Its completely OTT.  I originally planned on getting a Racewell - it senses the sheep,  reads its electronic tag, then grips it, then weighs it, then can draft it three ways according to just about any EID criteria you set ... all by itself ... all whilst I stand behind the sheep making funny body movements and eery sounds to keep them moving.  It was £11,500 in December 2008 ... now its £15,500 - GULP!  The cheque would bounce at this price and as the deadline approached for buying something, I wrote a cheque the other day for a Prattley 3 Way Auto Drafter ... 4 figures (but only just) ... I’ll get half back, but that still means  effectively a five grand investment and for what?  Its almost the same as a Racewell and can weigh and draft (but not grip) up to 600 sheep per hour.  I don’t need it!

This throws up the issue of capital and its efficient use.  Effective capital useage is absolutely key to the scaling of the farming ladder.  On the subject of what to invest in when building a business, the wise old men I have talked to have told me: "the less depreciating rust you have, the better"; “buy flesh, not metal”; “buy legs and land”; “keep it simple”.  Effectively I’ve said in response - “bugger that, I want a cool new toy to play with”.

I’ve bought the auto drafter to enter the complex world of EID.  I want to know what all my sheep are doing and how good or bad each of them are.  This ‘want’ costs money ... in many ways it makes work rather than saves it . What the hell am I doing?

But then there is this hope that the Ghost of Christmas’s Yet to Come will pay a visitation apon me soon and show that in the furure I am getting genetic improvement worth £2/ewe per year.  I am hiring it out.  I even go round farms contracting and consulting. Harvesting data through my pneumatic wonder toy ... spreading genetic gain to all who open their gates.  It pays for itself in a year and as a return on investment it is my best purchase ever .... Don’t stop believing! as the song says.

Simplicity saves, complexity costs.  The auto-drafter is the bastard child of these two extremes ... the end result could be drafted three ways ... its up to me to set the right criteria.