|  | | Family man: Each month Anton takes a wry look at life "down on the farm" |
| | Anton Coaker is a Devon hill farmer. Ten years ago he diversified into the sawmill and timber business. Like many others he lost stock to the foot-and-mouth contiguous cull. Each month he takes a look at the state of farming, from grass roots level: |
|  | | September 2002
The first of the season’s lambs will be sizzling under my customers' grills by the time you see this diary. (I should point out that the season for finished lambs is a little later up here than in lower climes).
The Galloways are back out to moor and the South Devons are at the highest point of their annual ascent (and subsequent descent) of the hill, both herds hopefully having been impregnated by their respective bulls.
The ewes are now all sheared (he states with confidence) and the grass is all cut, baled, put away and smelling lovely (unlike my socks!).
 | Mother Nature has been busy this summer |
Mother Nature is filling her proverbial pockets with the fat of the summer, to see us all through another winter. And it is a joy to be privileged enough to work amongst her bounty.
I would be just as happy, mind, if she didn’t bless me with just as many thistles, which have been trying my patience a tad lately, along with the hogweed which has left me with mildly festering fore-arms. (These are both symptoms of having very many fewer animals on the land than I used to.)
Beauro-crap award
Beauro-crap award for the month is a joint prize for the combined efforts of various departments who have managed to send me mail arriving on the same day, asking firstly how many cows I’ve got, then, in the next letter, telling me how many cows I’ve got (to 3 decimal points).
The office co-ordination involved in those letters arriving at the same time is quite laudable.
Non-farming readers (I boldly assume I have readers other than the editor and my loyal wife) will be interested to know that the postie struggles up the hill with one, two, three, or more letters every day, from the government, telling me how to farm the land my forebears have farmed since Queen Victoria was a lass.
 | More from Anton's diary > > |  |
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