Welcome to The Flat Out Farming™ blog
In my ‘old’ job I used to do a fair bit of writing, and I loved that part of what I did. I don’t read as much as I should, and definitely don’t write much anymore, but it occurred to me it could be a nice thing to keep a bit of a diary here on the farm by writing a regular(ish) blog. We can also include other farmers, agri, farm life and country living topics… but I wasn’t really sure how to kick it off, having been pondering over it for weeks and so, with a brew in hand here’s the first go at writing about ‘happenings on the farm’ and everything in between. Welcome to the Flat Out Farming™ blog!
Jen and James - JB Farming
I’m Jen, one half of JB Farming. Not originally from a farming background, I’ve been embracing life on the farm since meeting my other half James, and I’ve been trying to understand this complex topic that just looks so simplified from the outside. From driving machines, to getting into the paperwork.. of which there is SO much more than I realised... life is super interesting, frustrating and everything in between. James has been farming his entire life, and the uncertain prospect of farming in the future in the UK is certainly a main topic of conversation daily here, but it is that, a way of life, a passion and one we hang in the balance of succeeding and failing with for multiple gambles and reasons on an almost daily basis. Farming is bloody bonkers. That’s about the only conclusion I can come to after being here for five or so years. Thankfully, due to the various happenings over the last month or so, the public are also starting to see that too.
“ Farming is bloody bonkers. That’s about the only conclusion I can come to after being here for five or so years. ”
Guardians of the land is one expression I love though. The nature we enjoy here on the farm is as good as any of more renowned nature spots in the country – helping to preserve it is something I’d love to try to do more of, whether that’s by improving nesting spots, or simply supporting our wildlife in winter.. I’m wondering how to do more to be honest. We have two large ponds, which have begun eroding quite badly, so one mission is to try and plant them up with vegetation this spring (as long as there’s no nesting birds to disturb) to try and slow the water down to the edges. To use ‘faggots’ or other methods sounds quite expensive, so we’ve bought a small inflatable boat and I’m looking forward to some better weather to have a crack at that. It’s deep in there though, and we’ll need to transplant from the established ponds!
Today I’m watching on as a local sheep farmer moves some of his sheep off our hay paddock, which I’ve really enjoyed seeing out of our window over the last week or so as they’ve munched the grass off; apparently this stimulates it to grow better, and having not had any winter munchers since it was re-seeded, I’m interested to see how this year’s hay crop fares. Peter approached us about grazing a while ago and he’s a chap working full-time for a local farm, while fitting in his own sheep in between, quite cool to hear his story with his new flock and watch him walk them down the road with quad and dog! The sheep are lovely, and it's been impressive to watch his dog Pip working them. Not something an arable farm in Lincolnshire sees much of, sheep being worked, so here’s a few photos of them. You can see where they’ve been grazing, it’s rained a ton the last few days so it looks muddy but hopefully it will spring back once the warmer weather comes and we’ll have some nice grass off it.
I’m keeping it short and sweet for now, other than grass munching there’s not much happening right now here as the crops are in the ground, but if you want to know more about us or follow our daily stories you can find us on Facebook and Instagram on: www.facebook.com/jbfarminglife and www.instagram.com/jbfarminglife - we also try to upload to our YouTube fairly regularly – beit from our own farm or others. Lots of tractor stuff on there: www.youtube.com/@jbfarminglife
Over and out.. and looking forward to the next one.
Jen
