Sheeting the Pit

Here's what I've learned:
1. It's sheeting the pit not pitting the sheet (but try telling my brain that). 
2. Apparently it was really easy this year (but try telling my body that). 

For a few weeks now I've been hearing rumours that I would be involved in sheeting the pit this year. Like many things in life, I didn't give the reality much thought (I once agreed to walk 500 miles across Spain in my summer holidays without thinking about what that actually meant. Luckily it turned out to be amazing, despite being proposed to by an Australian and an Austrian. But that's another story). 

Somewhere in Spain, 1994

Last Thursday after tea, I was instructed to don my boilersuit, leggings and wellies and join the Wacky Races to the silage pit. I ended up as a hanger-on on the loadall after turning down a lift on the quad (I didn't think Ivie's brother and nephew would appreciate me clinging to them the way I do to Ivie) and in the loadbed of the pick-up (I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of Ivie's sister-in-law, niece and two of her friends by tripping on the way in and on the way out). 

Another member of the team was already up the hill (via tractor) so that was us up to nine. 

This is how the pit looked by the time we'd finished. 

It looks that way for five or six months of the year. 

I've walked past it often in the last couple of years. 

I've never once contemplated how it gets like that. 

For the uninitiated, the pit consists of three concrete sides and an open front. It is filled with cut grass then covered in two layers of plastic, a layer of green mesh and weighted down with tyres. 

BUT the layers of plastic aren't just two single massive sheets. Because that would be too easy - and too difficult (imagine trying to transport a bin bag that size). So, there are side sheets that are rolled in from the sides then the main sheets are rolled down in sections and weighted down at the seams with tyres. I didn't quite grasp which sheets go under and which go over but Ivie seemed to have it under control. At one point, I was sure we were folding French seams Patrick and Esme would be proud of. 

Socially distant teamwork

This was us rolling down the last sheet. By this point, I was sweaty, out of breath and had aching muscles. And we hadn't even started chucking tyres around yet. It was a rude awakening from my 14 weeks of shielding where I haven't ventured off the farm. Apart from a fantastic online Pilates class (thank you, Di), there hasn't been a huge amount of lockdown exercise. That certainly changed last Thursday...

I probably did a bit less than everyone else, partly because I was always one step behind, standing on the wrong sheet or putting a tyre in the wrong place. Frequently all three. But it was one of those occasions I'd have been sad to miss (but don't remind anyone I said so this time next year). It felt like I was making a contribution, however small and unskilled, to the people and place I call home. 

Silage: The Untold Story

Things you should know:

1. The title was just to draw you in. 
2. Sometimes I don't want to know. 

Silaging began this week at The Spittal. The short version of events is that Ivie et al cut the grass, pick it up, put it in a big heap and leave it till winter. Oh, and I don't see Ivie from morning till night. It's like lambing all over again but without the cute lambs to show for it. 

#lambing2020

Of course, there's much more to it than that. I went up the hill to take a look and have a five minute tractor date and kind of wished I hadn't. One of the team was in a big tractor driving (quickly!) up and down the big pile to make it neat, tidy and compact. Obviously if you've grown up around farming things like this are an everyday sight and don't phase you in the slightest (I've yet to find something that does phase Ivie to be fair). But for a townie like me it all looked like a precarious bucking bronco and I didn't like it one bit.

#silage2018
(apparently)

One of the things that you are never far from on the farm is the changing of the seasons. There's a time for everything and it all has a knock-on effect on other jobs and other parts of the year. 

• If there's not enough silage, it will be more expensive to feed the cows in winter. And farmers don't like spending money they don't have to.
• If there's not enough water, farmers spend time filling up troughs when there are plenty of other jobs to do. Like moaning about the weather. 
• And if you don't take the tups away from the ewes by a certain date lambing will go on beyond my birthday. And we don't want that. 

Don't laugh but when I first started seeing Ivie I did a bit of research into going out with a farmer. I found this on the Farmers Weekly website, which was more helpful than it looks. 

I put together my own rules for dating a farmer (Ivie specifically 😉), which include:

• Redefine dates - if you're not going to see your farmer for a while, go to them. This once involved a 90-minute drive to another farm but we got to spend the afternoon together. 
• Have a five minute date if that's all there's time for. Jump in the tractor for a blether about the day and a discussion about what's for tea. 
• Ban phones from the kitchen table! There are times when we only see each other at meal times and I definitely want to see Ivie's smiling face, rather than the top of his head. 
• Laugh every single day. 

The last one is non negotiable. 

#actualdate2018

Of course, there are aspects of silaging that I'll never understand. Did you know that #silage2020 is trending in certain circles these days? Nope me either. Apparently farmers post countless photos and videos of tractors, rows of grass and big machines (forage wagons and choppers, I'm told). That's one circle I'm happy to stand outside. Perhaps that's what's known as a crop circle...

Rain, Rain Come Away In

Things you should know:

1. Farmers like it when it rains

2. You're unlikely to go on a date with a farmer on a sunny day

As I write these points above it makes me realise that the chances of actually going on a date with a farmer at all are pretty slim. Even when we're not in isolation. 

Throughout the year, Ivie and I joke that we'll see each other in November - it's no coincidence that we got together one November. Our first date was crammed in between curling fixtures and car maintenance but we made it. Just. 

So, we've just had some of the warmest, driest weeks on record. It's been great for someone like me who's been shielding since mid-March as I've been able to sit outside and drink tea, go for walks (within the confines of the farm) and top up my vitamin D. 

Not so great for farmers or their cows. Cows drink a HUGE amount of water every day. I've just googled it to try and get a definitive answer but answers varied between 3 and 70 gallons so we'll just leave it at A Lot. 

                   

Ivie has spent an inordinate amount of time guddling about with water, topping up troughs that the cows empty as soon as he can fill them and shaking his head at the low levels in the hydro pond. 

Aside from having an impact on the water needed for cows, the rain (or lack thereof) also affects every single other bloody thing that Ivie does. I don't pretend to understand what conditions are required for each job but it's along the lines of:

"I hope the wind dies down/picks up, the rain starts/stops and the sun shines/doesn't so that I can spray/spread/cut/disc/roll...."

Remember the old cliche of British Rail and the wrong sort of leaves on the line...?

Anyway, this week the dry spell has ended and we've had almost enough rain. Ivie's as happy as Larry, whoever Larry was. 

I've just googled that, too, and got a more satisfactory answer than to cows' capacity for drink:

It originates from an Australian boxer called Larry Foley in the 1890s, who never lost a fight. He retired at 32 and collected a purse of £1,000 for his final fight. 

Thank you, google.

Tuesday morning was the happiest I'd seen Ivie in weeks. He came in for breakfast head to toe in waterproofs, dripping wet and beaming from ear to ear. I half expected him to shake himself like a dog all over the kitchen floor before lying in front of the fire for the rest of the day.

Suffice to say, I'm looking forward to our second date in November 2021. 

Boilersuit Blues

Things you should know:
1. Dirt jumps on me
2. I am quite persistent

One of the best things about living on a farm is having a boiler suit. I wear one when I'm doing anything outside, whether it's farm-related or not. (And let's face it, I don't do anything that's actually farm-related.)

It helps keep my clothes clean which is no mean feat. Dirt has a habit of finding me, even when I'm not looking for it. 

You'd be forgiven for thinking that all this time I've had a boilersuit from Tarff (the local farm supplies store) or from one of the companies that Ivie buys things from. Funnily enough, this time last year Ivie bought a big bit of farm machinery. 

For non-farmers, it's not unusual when a farmer makes a big purchase like this to have a couple of freebies thrown in, like a power tool - or protective clothing (for example...). Ivie requested an angle grinder (which he got) and a boilersuit for me (which I did not). Not mentioning any names but my boiler suit would have been graay* and green - and supplied by one of the 7 Dwarves. If you know, you know.... 

That's not to say I didn't already have one. Many, many years ago I was an exchange student in northern Sweden, about an hour south of the Arctic Circle. One of the things that's a thing in Scandinavia is studentoverall. Each faculty has their own colour and at my uni, as luck would have it, exchange students had navy blue ones. The only slightly unlucky part was that they had a bloody great comic book moose on the back.... 

Exhibit A

You can imagine my delight, then, when I was promised a non-comedy boilersuit. And my disappointment at having to carry on wearing the equivalent of toddler's pyjamas instead. Not that I'm bitter. 

Then the zip went on Ivie's 'one size fits none' boilersuit and he ordered two new ones! 

Bring on the trumpets! 

So, now I have my very own proper boilersuit, which is perfect for protecting me from all the dirt, grime and toothpaste I come into contact with on a daily basis. 

I'm even in vogue for the first time in my life. Probably.

* for non-farmers, this is a deliberate typo.

Sweet Dreams

Things I know:

• Ivie rarely has insomnia. 
• He is much less crabbit than I am.

Last week we were staying up a bit later than usual. With the warmer weather and lighter nights, it felt like those days in the summer holidays where you didn't want to go to bed and would rather play outside for another three and a half hours.

Midge Repellent Firepit

But cows still need fed. So, Ivie gets up at the usual time and I roll over and have another forty winks.

I've been lucky that during lockdown I've been able to work from home. My commute into the village is only usually three minutes, to be fair, but working from a desk in the hallway means that my hair doesn't need to be brushed (or washed for that matter...), my top and bottom halves don't have to match and I can be as smart or as scruffy as I like. But let's be honest, even my smart edges towards other people's scruffy...

Giblin HQ

Since Ivie has been getting less sleep than usual, he's been having the odd nap on the sofa. He has the remarkable ability of falling asleep within a breath and a half. At lambing time, it's even less. Towards the end of lambing we were watching TV and he said, "I think I'll have a nap". Before I'd even had time to turn round and acknowledge him, he was sleeping soundly. (And that was during Countryfile so he must have been tired.)

If I've had less than my eight hours, I get a bit crabbit and oversensitive. At peak lambing, Ivie comes to bed at 3am, gets up again at 7am and never complains. I'm not quite sure how he does it. 

Just another reason that it's a good thing I work in an office and not on the farm.