Hi there, the above heading was one of my late fathers favourite sayings on mornings such as this, where we are experiencing a lovely warm, sunny, spell of spring weather which really gladdens the heart.
My Dad would always announce his presence with this enthusiastic greeting at the beginning of the day, no matter what problems may have been lurking deep in the back of his mind, on a glorious morning such as this those matters would be placed on the back burner to be sorted at a more appropriate time, for today being springtime it’s a sign of new beginnings a new start, things (whatever they may have been) can only get better. In reality they very rarely did, but being very musically minded those sort headaches were simply whistled or sung away, nothing would distract my Dads appreciation of this fine day.
As kids growing up on the Farm our fathers enthusiasm for the improving conditions would only be bad news for us, as it meant all those horrible mucky or labour intensive chores which he’d been wanting to get on with, were stored up for the weekends when we were around to lend a hand if somewhat reluctantly. I had four siblings and we all took it in turns to help out our parents when needs must, and despite the hardships of trying to make such a small dairy farm pay, mum & dad would always do their best to help us pursue our interests away from the homestead with sport and various youth activities high on our agenda’s, it really was a case of work hard and play hard during those formative years.
Returning to the present time now, and unfortunately March has for my business been something of a none event, but that’s the way it seems to go nowadays when your working to such fine margins in this ever more competitive world. After what was for me a much improved hedge cutting winter period, the on set of early spring has dumped me back to face the harsh realities of business. The small farming businesses which were the lifeblood of my contracting operations have declined notably in the last few years meaning all those little handy jobs I used to do to tide me over until the busier times have all but disappeared, so I have been trying to counteract this with the introduction of haylage and forage sales in recent years, but unfortunately due to the glut of forage about this year the prices have now dropped to less than cost of production which is obviously bad news, so I find myself at the end of the season with half of my stock unsold which is causing me a real concern. I did try to eleviate the situation by entering some haylage bales in a forage auction, and despite reducing the price it didn’t make the reserve so I’ll have to hope things pick up soon, but in the meantime it’s backs against the wall again, but at least the ” Sun is shining and the birds are singing!”
Bye for now.
9th April 2017
