Dear Diary

When I started this Blog I thought it would be easy to scribble a few words each day. I never intended it to be a recital of my daily routine (got up at 6:30, had 2 slices of toast etc), assuming that there was always something going on that I could talk about. But it’s proving to be a bit difficult. I would hate people to think that we were sitting around doing nothing in between Milkings, and I’m sure most of you realise that there’s more to farming than that. Of course Milking is the backbone of all our work – without it, no milk; no milk, no income.
So this is a brief outline of what the two farmers have been up to today –

(and apologies to farmers for this Dummies Guide approach)

6:00 – alarm goes off in two houses. Henry grabs a banana and goes to get the cows in.
6:15 – James gets the parlour ready for milking.
6:30 – the cows are gathered in the Collecting Yard and start to come through the parlour. It’s an Alfa Laval 12/24 – which means that 24 cows come in at once, 12 down each side. As the cows come in James or Henry recognises them and presses buttons on the Feed Controller so that each one gets the right amount of dairy cake. The units are put on the first side, and the milk starts to flow, filling the large glass jars above the cows. As the flow of milk from each cow lessens the ACR (automatic cluster removal) kicks in and removes the unit from the cow. We then send the milk from the glass jar though to the Dairy next door. The units are then put on the cow on the opposite side. When all of one side has been milked, the exit gate is raised and they head off to the Cattleplan (indoor housing) where they get a bit of buffer feeding (the silage that James has put out). The entrance gate in the parlour is opened and the next 12 come in.
7:30 – as the last cows leave the parlour, the units are washed out and the parlour hosed down, so no traces of muck remain. Clean water and detergent is run through the system and the parlour left clean and hygienic. Meanwhile the milk is cooling in the bulk tank. By it reaches it, it is already several degrees lower than when it entered the system. It passes through a series of pipes which are cooled by the Ice Bank Cooler. It is kept at about 3 degrees until collected by the Milk Tanker.
8:00 – breakfast
8:30 – the cows are let out to the daily pasture. This may be the other side of the road to the buildings, so we try to avoid school run times, though most drivers accept that it’s a fact of country life that cows sometimes have priority on the road.
At this time of year there are not many animals inside to feed, just the youngest calves who are still on the bucket, and the stock bulls. The Cattleplan and alleyways and yard are cleaned up with the scraper tractor.
Most of the stock is outside, so at some point during the day one of us will go round and check them, especially the in-calf cows and heifers.
Most of this morning was taken up with a visit from what could be loosely termed our “feed rep”. I think the correct term might be “Account Manager and/or nutritionist”. This was a planned visit, to look at the whole farm. He took samples of grass, and first cut silage, so we can make informed decisions about feeding.
12:30 – dinner, and as it’s Friday, time to have a quick look at the 3 papers that matter (Westmorland Gazette, Farmers Weekly and Farmers Guardian).
13:15 – back out again.
More routine work – mucking out the two stock bulls (Radar, Hooton Perfection), fixing some spouting that’s been hanging off since someone (nameless) hit it with the loader, and other odd bits of maintenance. (What is sometimes known as “jobbing about”).
15:45 – quick drink and chocolate biscuit
16:00 – time to get the cows in again for milking
18:30 – no extra jobs today, so inside for supper.

And if you want to compare a routine day in 2007, with one in 1940, go to our website - and click on the 1940 Button.