Visit from kevin

Friday I was lucky to visit dick Goodwin a leading world expert on compaction from Silsoe university. Compaction focuses as a large part of my Nuffield scholarship I'm grateful for his time.
I've been blessed with Kevin beaty coming to stay for the night on his way to a cow meeting in Stamford, why would anyone organise a meeting for cows in a no cow friendly area could only be a levy board decision. Good to see him.




Up date on the farm. Michael has been working hard digging out ditches and finding new land drains. Chris young has been mole draining and will start drilling spring oilseed rape hopefully tomorrow. Chris Bullen has completed all of the fertilising and spraying to date. We are loading out 2030 tonnes of wheat for frontier this week. Julian is doing a sterling job keeping the rabbits of the crops and the pigeons from leaving the osr alone long enough to grow away.


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Location:Dry drayton

Farmers Weekly

Made it into Farmers weekly looking slim.
Ive told Fiona this is how i looked before she started feeding me. Fiona Bruce is looking good. Edward Morgan a friend of mine told me i must go for the name, 'Bruce'.
It isn't until another person analysis your business you see the changes over a number of years. I'm pleased to see the same staff are present to today. Its interesting to look at a 10 year plan done 4 years ago and see the targets set and the projects long forgotten.
Wedding plans are going slowly, i cant see how anyone would get married twice. Organising a wedding is enough to put you off. Don't mention the W word or prices double and payment terms a month before the event. Been doing the wedding list, hope i don't forget anyone. I didn't realise how many family members I've collected.

Famous in Australia

On my return yesterday from India, Julian Burman who had been working in Australia at another scholars farm bought back an article in the farming press of my time with the Canadian group looking at controlled traffic farming in Australia. I'll put the article on the PX website under the news section if anyone wants to read it.
I've had a message from Kevin that they are going great guns in India and are planning to go to the Taj Mahal, lucky devils.
On another note we have had some theft with 4 batteries being stolen which run our electric netting, im sure a caravan somewhere has power again. I won't report to the police as its not a speeding fine so they wont be interested and id rather poke myself in the eye than waste my time on hold.

Camping in the mountains

Kevin and I shared a tent with a bolt on bathroom for two nights. It's been a long time since I've been camping. We all had a wonderful experience on this trip and learnt a great deal travelling around India and discovering what it must have been like for Englishmen 150 years ago as I believe little has changed in some areas. I would like to thank michael, Rona, Kevin and Tony for being great company and a special thank you to Tony for organising the trip.


On arriving at Delhi the others went off for more adventures and I went to the imperial hotel for high tea and luxury. Nuffield changes your life.

Camel pooh paper

I didn't realise you could make paper out of pooh. Camel manure is milled and added to cotton fibres, pressed and left to dry. We where well looked after for two days and learnt about camels and had a local evening meal. Five of us went 7 km in a tuc tuc which was a slow and bumpy journey but worth the experience. We where returned in a Indian new build Suzuki 4wd. Tony I suspect will be the new importer to the Uk.

Never thought I'd see the day.

On arriving at the field where camels where grazing we where given turbans to wear. This was an honour to be presented and fitted by a warrior.
The camels where in a large group. The arrangement for the travelling camel farmers was they where allowed to graze the fields before cultivation so that manure was spread over the land. The camel farmers made us camel tea which I tried to avoid. I managed to down the tea, but little did I know Tony was enquiring about the camels milk so before I had time to wonder off to inspect a neighbouring wheat field my cup was filled with milk. I must report, it wasn't bad. There was another pot on the boil with lumpy milk and if that was next to be served they wouldn't have caught me on a camel.

Location:Somewhere with camels

Indian sheep farming

Indian sheep farming at it's best. Villagers work together to shear the sheep. Average farmer would have 52 sheep, this village had 120 each. Shearing with old fashioned shears would need to be paid on piece work as one sheep wasn't completed after 1.5 hours. I can't see the world shearing contest happening here. The sheep are taken up the hills at sun rise and the shepherd stays with them and they return at night fall. When you look around its amazing to see that they find something to eat, these sheep seem to enjoy sticks. The connection with livestock was fantastic. All the animals where well handled and where relaxed around humans, A perfect harmony. The Hindi people are vegetarians so the sheep are sold to a dealer who sells to the Muslim population which is about 10% of the 1.2 billion population. Another matter which interested me is that people all seemed to have mobile phones tucked away.