Our Farm & Me

Early memories of farming life include dads green Land Rover defender - being too little to hop up the steps and wedged in the middle between Dad and Mum, going round the fields to fetch in cows. The best and most fun seat of course was in the back under the canopy, with dog Jessie! The Land Rover was well used and very well worn, filled with stuff and plastered in mud and more. I hated it when Dad (on the odd occasion) picked me up from school in it, and when it was finally got rid of I was so happy with the 4 door Isuzu pick up in its place. But of course now defenders are so sort after and have become such an icon in country life that I now regret younger me resenting it at the time. I do anything to have it back!

The farm is a 400 acre dairy farm set in south Pembrokeshire, Wales. We have around 200 cows (including followers) and also keep some beef cattle to sell as stores. We calve all year round, with the cows going out to graze between March and October. During the winter the cows are housed and fed on home grown grass silage and some barley whole crop, all put into a mixed ration. We sell our milk to First Milk, and it goes to their Haverfordwest creamery which produces cheddar cheese for Tesco. (Yes of course we buy it, we are all cheese lover here!)

Dad is boss, in partnership with Mum, and my Grandparents who are retired. Then there's me and my young brother - a tractor and farming mad 13 year old!

Everyone pitches in and has their roles, but we couldn't manage with out our part time general farm worker, plus a couple of relief milkers. My roles are mainly calf rearing, fetching cows in and moving fences in the summer, scraping out, bedding down the cubicles in winter and any other job in between.

I used to sit in the parlour and watch Dad milk when I was little. I'd be at the end on the wide steps that went into the milking pit, and on cold nights Dad would get me a bucket of hot water to put my feet into. When he finished I would help clean up by hand scraping the muck - the hand scraper much taller than me!

Hours of my life have been spent sat in tractors with Dad. I did so much with him - ploughing, cultivating, rolling, fertilising, mowing, baling and possibly more! We'd listen to the radio, but i remember we'd often end up singing 'Row Row Row your boat' and the top of our voices! I'm not sure how it came about, and we'd end up laughing our way down the fields. Its a wonder dad never missed whole sections of field with that distraction. The Case IH 856 is the tractor I spent most time with dad. Sat on the tool box just tucked behind dads seat.

My first solo piece of tractor work I think was actually in the Ford, not long after we had it second hand, and I rolled the field called Stallion park, following Dad who was fertilising.

As I got a older, I was put to task on more jobs such as harrowing, tedding out silage, and driving the tractor and trailer around the field collecting the bales. There is no doubt I am not an expert with the tractor driving. I am still learning. The dent in the parlour door from the Manitou bucket is a gentle reminder of that! But I can do enough for what's required and learn more as each season comes around again.

Of course now these days, my brother is quickly replacing me in this department. After spending most of his short life scouring the pages of the Farmers Weekly and Farmers Guardian, he has come to be some what of an anorak on tractors and machinery. We can only hope that he'll go and study agricultural engineering one day, and maybe save dad a small fortune when things go wrong, which they inevitably do with these machines!

My Grandpa always fed the calves when I was young. If I was out on the yard playing I would often go in and help him collect the buckets and dish out the milk. Mum then took on calf feeding duty when Grandpa retired. After I returned from college it became my job, but Mum is still fills in if I’m not around. Mum is from a dairy farm herself, and grew up in and around it much like me. She too helped my Gran'ma feed calves as well as accompany Gran'pa in the fields on hay or planting and picking potatoes. There's Something special about all ages and generations working together, sharing a laugh (and the odd disagreement of course!), all having an input into the family farm.

Dad is the 4th generation tenant farmer. Our family have rented the farm from the same estate since the 1860's. My Great Great Grandparents came in the 1860s , and had 12 children across 20 years! My Great Grandfather was the youngest, and when married went to live and farm at his wife’s home a few miles away. His older brother was still here and in 50s my grandfather came to farm with his uncle, later taking on the tenancy. My Grandparents married in the 60s, my Granny having an agricultural and equestrian upbringing too. They had my Dad and his two younger brothers, but farming wasn't for them and they have other careers.

Dad and Mum (& then me) lived a mile down the road on a small holding joining the farm. When I was 4 we swapped houses with my grandparents for them to downsize and for us to be in the centre of the farm in the farmhouse.

As I’ve grown up and learnt more about the farm’s history and our family connection to it, I am increasingly proud that we are still here today, keeping tradition, preserving the stories and the artefacts, all while making our own history in our time here too.

In the summer family holidays for us were rare ( and still are!). Though this never bothered me as there was too much fun to had between silage times and racing my push bike around the fields and yard. I just love the buzz of silage time. Wherever you are on the farm, you can hear the drone of the harvester and tractors, and when you get to the clamp, the smell of fresh grass with tractor oil...I wish Yankee Candles could capture that!

We’ve never been without mans best friend. The first dog I knew was Jessie, who grew to look like a sheep, had a few litters of puppies. Jessie was a Collie cross, and when matched with next-door’s spaniel (we think?!) her puppies were a real Heinz 57 mix. Two of her offspring we decided to keep. Floppy was the only brown one in this particular litter, and Flossy his sister was the runt. These two were naughty. No cyclist, runner or walker going past the house in the lane was safe, though their bark genuinely was worse than their bite, they didn’t half give a good shock to passers by. Despite all that, they were great to have around the farm. We have never really trained our dogs as such to round up cattle or do any particular work, just having them as companions, as guard dogs, and good doorbells (*Woof*)!

Our current canine came along shortly after we lost Floppy & Flossy to old age. Kipper came from another farm, another collie type, but with some welsh type as well as good working breeding in him. Unsurmountable amounts of energy, and no concept of ‘stay’ or ‘go home’, he’s taken himself on many many adventures in his four long years. The most friendly and affectionate dog, he’ll happily join walkers, cyclists and runners on their travels, having been round the disused airfield the other side of the village, the nearby woodland several times, and even ending up in Costcutter and the hairdressers in our local town 3 miles away! Needles to say when he manages to sneak away without us realising, with a phone number on his collar, we wait for the phone call , and duly make the trek out ready to profusely apologise to whoever the rescuer of the day is. I reassure you that as he is growing up he is learning to stay in the vicinity more when he’s out and about with us. Now in the summer months, his favourite time of day is coming to fetch the cows with us. Completely in his element doing multiple laps of the fields. When working on the farm there tends to be lots of jobs you do all by yourself, so having a dog by your side can give you company and security. Especially comforting is in the winter when the days are short and you are often still out when it’s dark, having the dog with you to scare off anything lurking in the darkness certainly reassures me!

Of course its tough, there are bad days, cold wet winters, long hot summers, every other cliché you can think of. But the good days and the smallest of moments can outweigh the tough times in a heartbeat. As the weeks, months and seasons move through, routines and work patterns shift and repeat again, sunny days and quieter days are always round the corner. Things progress, memories and milestones made, and occasionally you stop in the middle of the yard, a field or sit around the kitchen table for a moment, to just take in all the wonderment that family farming life brings.