Cold Snap Bites hard

The cold weather is really starting to cause problems on the farm now after the enjoyment and picturesque beauty of the fields and farmland when it first arrived.  Water pipes are frozen up and with up to 8" of snow in places we are having to feed hay out in the fields.  This wouldn't be so bad, except that the fuel in the tractors is turning 'waxy' and blocking up the fuel filters.  Pershore, only 6miles away, recorded a temperature of somewhere near -19 Celsius of Saturday night.  This morning I went to Chris Tallis Farm Machinery to get some diesel anti-freeze and we're adding it to the tractors and farm trucks as we thaw them out.  I have never experienced problems, to this degree, before although I'm sure it's nothing compared to Scottish and Northern England farmers who would experience this much more frequently. Just a case of wrap up warm and keep the home fires burning ready to thaw us out when we return!

Hands Off Our Kit!

As part of the one going battle against farm theft we have installed the CESAR cesarscheme datatag system on our farm tractors, JCB and combine.  The potential problem really came home to roost when a neighbouring farmer had a tractor, very similar to one of ours, stolen a couple of weeks ago.  There are some shocking statistics from the agricultural and construction industry with 11,174 machines stolen in the last two years. That's more than 15/day, with huge cost to the industries and major hassle when a machine is stolen.  Gone are the days when you could just pick up another tractor off the shelf, they're normally built to specification and to order.

We do take farm and village security very seriously and so this seemed the logical next step.  The system was very quickly installed by Chris Tallis Farm Machinery christallis and was up and running immediately.  I first saw the service in the Farmers Weekly security supplement and thought that the combination of stickers, chips and DNA paint seemed a belt and braces approach that meant we would be more secure.  The photo attached was taken by John from dark arts marketing who are running the marketing campaign for CESAR.  Keep your eyes open for our combine appearing (in print) all over the place, it is after all quite distinguished!