The ‘hold your breath until they pass’ months: 40% of our customer base take 2-3 weeks of holiday (no milk please;) 75% of our team take holidays with their young families (all routes still need to go out;) 60% of our annual agri contractor bills are received (straw & silage gathering for winter.) The spreadsheet figures at this time of year make the blood run cold. It is only experience that steadies the nerves. We know you will come back from holidays & the return of offices / universities in September, will reset our urban café & coffee shop customers’ orders.
Graham collaborates with other farms & buys the straw left behind as they combine wheat & barley grains. This straw is next winter’s cow bedding for us. Selling straw to us is a welcome additional sale for the crop farmers. Grain prices are near/ below cost of production this year. (Embargoed Russian wheat has hit global markets, via Africa…)
It is important our baling is timely so the ploughs can get into the fields and prep for their next crop. So we bale & stack in the field ready for the straw trailers, load, transport, unload & then stack under cover, until it is needed. In an ideal world, local weather & soils vary so combines are staggered & a single baling team can flow from one farm to the next. However the early, hot weather had everyone hitting it hard & fast at the same time. Our young contractor team of impressive tractors & drivers (& Graham) worked some 19 hour days over the course of 2 weeks, gathering 900 acres of wheat & barley straw. Fast & furious but the quality looks good. Clean, dry straw doesn’t grow mould & is best for the cows’ comfort & respiratory health.
Here is a happy, if tired, Graham modelling some bales.
