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My relaxation journey started way back in April of this year when @LuxuryHideaways was the custodian of the Farmers of the UK twitter account. Caroline and her husband Ross gave us a week long insight into their business and the farm they run in Angus just north of Dundee, the city of discovery. Towards the end of the week they ran a competition, simply re-tweet their tweet and a winner would be drawn at random at the end of the week. In for a penny... 

For my first actual review for this site I’m going to review…a book. One on sheep funnily enough. “Counting Sheep” by Philip Waller is an excellent read for anybody remotely interested in the sheep of Great Britain and their history. Waller is a retired barrister who took to the law after a stint of farming Herdwicks in the Lake District. He deconstructs many of the myths around British sheep and their origins in the forensic... 

We are told by the farming press that we are lagging behind the antipodes in sheep breeding because they are using science and technology to drive towards profit, unhampered by the sentiment or tradition often associated with agriculture here. Who could have failed to wonder when watching the scene setting episode of this year’s “Lambing Live” if the progressive elements hell bent on copying them have a point. Swaledales and Scottish... 

A New Zealand style sheep system. Is this as new and as revolutionary as the farming press and converts are telling us? Outdoor lambing and grass based systems are nothing new. Reading the farming press there are no shortage of converts, but are systems like this the future for the British sheep sector, or are they just the current trend in the agricultural fashion show. A wide spread conversion looks unlikely, with tradition being a major influence... 

If I’d known how much effort it requires to keep the @TheFarmersOfTheUK account going for a week I’m not sure I’d have volunteered to do the job whilst lambing……. Startling revelation? I don’t think so, more a reflection of the fact I threw myself at the job completely whilst trying to do the day job (and night job) to the best of my ability. Despite the fact someone kindly said it looked planned, I’ll be honest and say on Monday morning... 

Saturday morning dawned and by 7am I was getting on the road to the first farm to collect the fodder. By 10:30 I had collected the load from the last of the farms, just north of Banbury, had a group photo of myself, Georgina, and the final donating Farmer taken by the local paper, and began the run to Somerset. All loaded and ready to go I stopped twice in the first few miles to check the ratchet straps as the heavy silage on the top of the load... 

You can’t have escaped the news of the devastating floods that are continuing to affect Somerset residents and farmers. The news clips struggle to convey the magnitude of the problem, but when, as a farmer, I saw farms completely underwater, farmhouse and all, it became painfully clear that they face a problem that eclipses anything we’ve seen locally in my lifetime, if ever. Soon after the floods had begun to have a serious effect, my... 

The Royal Agricultural Society of England was set up to improve agriculture, holding it’s first show in Oxford in 1837. County shows had started a century before for the same purpose. However according to a History Today article, by the 1850s: “Show appearance bore little relation to practical utility, stock were often hopelessly over-fed. Pigs could not stand. Rams ‘like the Romans of old, preferred taking their meal in a reclining... 

“So, smarty pants, what if we don’t want to record?” Can you really walk through a tent or shed full of rams and pick the ideal one? Let’s say you want to take a few lambs to the mart, so good tops and skin mean more to you than figures. Or, you take a few lambs to the abattoir, so it’s spec that you want. You have Heinz 57 varieties of ewes and distrust boffins. Every tup sold is a product of it’s genetics and... 

A debate on EBVs has been raging in the Scottish Farmer. Accurate, objective or reasoned letters must be too boring to print given the polarity of much seen. The “pros” are characterised by missionary zeal, the “antis” are reactionary and conservative. Who has the moral high ground? Unless you understand BLUP you won’t understand EBVs. BLUP is a statistical model for the prediction of random effects. If you need to know... 

I am in a long term relationship and it’s not my wife….. I know that’s a startling revelation for the Farmers review Website, and trust me I had reservations about this topic. But to reassure you my wife was aware of this relationship long before we got married, and has resigned herself to playing second fiddle to my ‘other woman’. My life and business is ruled by this volatile temptress, holidays have been cancelled on her whim, and... 

Goodbye 2013, hello 2014! And hands up all those who made New Year’s resolutions? What is it this year? To quit smoking, join a gym, give up chocolate (don’t be stupid!) or stop swearing? I for one don’t have a habit of making resolutions as I rarely keep them, but this year I have decided to make just one. To have more patience. Now stop choking on your coffee and sniggering, husband! I know this may seem funny to you as I am a... 

I always feel rather dispirited whilst at the meat counter of a shop listening to a parent scrabbling around for an answer to their child’s question of where the meat came from. The natural assumption at this point is the child is aged ten and parent circa forty. Not always the case, on more than one occasion the child has been circa forty. Can you blame the consumer for being uneducated as to where on an animal their meat comes from, how it’s... 

My first blog, my name is James & we have a mostly tenanted farm. The farm is spread over three steading. The cattle numbers range from 180-200 on and off, all depending upon the on the time of year. The farms are on (mostly) free draining land on the Northern end of the Eden valley. For my first blog I thought I’d write something about home mixing & what I find works well for me. With over 100 acres or so of barley (roughly 90 spring /... 

Now the field work is pretty much up together I have time to think a bit more about our new dairy development. Planning permission was finally granted a few weeks ago. The old parlour is a herringbone that has been there for about 40 years and we are working with loose housing and a slurry lagoon that needs replacing. As the farm is right in the middle of the village there is no space to expand on the current dairy site and problems with SCC counts...