The Field of Blue!

Posted on July 8, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

This year we are growing a field of linseed. The flowers come out in the morning and disappear in the afternoon/evening. This has led to much confusion with passing commuters who find the constant changing scene hard to accept…

I passed this field of blue flowers,
Could have watched the scene for hours!
Then that evening it was green,
Perhaps the strangest thing I have seen!
Then this morning it was blue again,
We’d had a warm night without rain.
So I asked the farmer ‘why?’
The changing scene when I drive by?
And he said “I guess you now know,
That’s just how linseed does grow!”
© Baldock Bard 2015
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The Farmers Last Ride!

Posted on July 7, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

Yesterday I went to the funeral of my cousin and old friend, Roger. The church was packed with standing-room outside the only option for late-comers. A slight shower when we came out of the service reminded us that, to us farmers, rain is an important ingredient in life. Afterwards we all congregated in the empty grain barn to chat and reminisce. However before the funeral, Roger had one last wish…

In back of the old Toyota,
one last chance you see,
for the farmer to look around his crops,
‘A farmer’s always a farmer, he be!’

Down the side of the oats,
across the road to the wheat,
back past the field of beans,
now his tour is complete.

So it’s up to the church for Roger,
where friends are waiting inside,
tears and remembrance a-plenty,
after the farmer’s last ride.

Take care old friend. May your furrow be always straight and the following winds always be warm and fair! BB.

© Baldock Bard 2015
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For The Chop

Posted on July 4, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

I like farm machinery, however there is one machine on the farm that I detest – the chainsaw. Luckily my son-in-law, John, has passed all his tests and is competent with a machine that, in the wrong hands, can result in what they now term ‘life-changing injuries’…

I knew a bloke called Andy,
Trees he went to lop,
Didn’t wear protective trousers,
Friends now call him ‘Hop’.

Stay safe out there, and if you’re using a chainsaw, get yourself some protection. £100 for a good pair of protective trousers is a small price to pay.

© Baldock Bard 2015
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Rogue Sheep!

Posted on July 3, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

Yesterday morning I looked out of the window and was shocked to see ewes and lambs. This wasn’t because there were ewes and lambs on an all-arable farm (they belong to another farmer and are grazing our grass), but more because they were in the wrong field heading for the wood! I managed to get most of them in a fenced-off field, opened the adjoining gate to where they should have been, when disaster struck…

Yesterday morning chasing sheep,
only just got up from sleep!
Twelve of them have ‘gone rogue’,
don’t want them near the busy road.
Towards the wood they start to run,
I feel with me they’re poking fun!
Into a neighbouring field called ‘Struthers’,
“I’ll open a gate they’ll join the others!”
The others were grazing until then you see,
I’ve now got fifty joining me!
I look to the skies wave a fist and bark:
“Why did Noah put sheep in the Ark?”

Thanks to David and Charlie, neighbouring farmers with sheep and more importantly – sheepdogs, who helped me return the flock to the field!

Bob Fox’s Weather Vane!

Posted on July 2, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

It is remarkable what you can find for sale at a Bootsale. Sometimes in amongst the clothes, books and tools is a surprise! Last week this was rather more than one buyer bargained for…

Bob went to the bootsale,
looking for a box,
to store stuff in,
came away with a fox!

“That thing stole my chickens!,”
a lady at him screamed,
“Can’t have been this one,
it’s crime you must have dreamed!”

If you’re passing Bob’s house,
look up to the roof,
there’s a mighty car boot fox,
it’s expression all aloof!

Things Are Looking Up!

Posted on July 1, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

Do you find that sometimes it takes somebody else to make you appreciate what you see daily but ignore? Last week I did a UAV course in Newcastle that covered Meteorology and clouds. Ever since schooldays and geography lessons I have ignored the subject. Sion, our instructor last week, spread his enthusiasm around as a gardener might do manure on favourite roses. Now, after some forty-five years since the classroom, I am in danger of falling flat on my face as I re-discover the beauty of the skies…

Oh good grief! What a surprise,
I’ve rediscovered cloudy skies!
They must have been always there,
But now I tend to stop and stare!

From Cumulo-Nimbus,
such bad boys!
Torrential rain,
horrendous noise!

To highest level Cirrus see,
Nature’s beauty just for me!
If you see me looking, eyes open wide,
Please take my hand, lead me inside!

If having read this, you look up and trip over the garden rake that you meant to put away yesterday, please don’t blame me! Have a great day and look up! You may also want to visit https://cloudappreciationsociety.org/ Thanks Sion! (pron: Shaun)

Goodbye Old Friend

Posted on June 29, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

There is a time for all of us to hang up our coat, take a bow and leave the world’s stage. This weekend it was the turn of my cousin and friend, Roger, to give a final wave and disappear from sight.

Roger was a gentle-man, farmer and engineer. Had circumstances been different he might have been one of the greatest engineers of our generation. Some years ago he took an old Land Rover and built himself a self-propelled sprayer, because he felt he could do better than what was available on the market at the time. He also built a rough-terrain forklift and a seed drill than would still outshine much of what is on the market today.

He used to say how jealous of me he was of me with my ‘oh look there’s a squirrel’ ways. I used to say that I wished my welding looked like his and not a pile of bird droppings!

He could sometimes be nervous and sweat profusely. Once, when returning from a holiday in France, he was nervous about entering the customs shed in our over-laden car. Unfortunately he knew only too well that the car had been almost empty on the outward crossing. He sat in the back, sweating profusely as the customs officer looked in the boot, an inch away from many many bottles of wine, before we were waved clear much to his relief!

Although we saw little of each other in the latter years, when we did meet up it was as if it had been but days.

I was his best man (twice out of three) but never the better man.

Goodbye old friend, keep those plough lines straight and the combine fire extinguisher charged.

UAV Exam Nerves!

Posted on June 25, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

Almost fifty years ago when I was in school, I had an Australian geography teacher called Sidney Smith. He only ever said one thing to me: “You’ll come a cropper in the exams!” He was invariably right and his prediction hung around my neck for all of my school career. This morning I am taking a Civil Aviation Authority exam. Part of it includes remembering CAA laws, so I have devised the following in an attempt to shake off Sidney Smith’s curse…

CAP 722
Unmanned Aircraft System -You!
CAP 393
Air Navigation Order – what yours be?
CAP 382
Mandatory Reporting System – if crash you’ll do!
CAP 737
Crew Resource (air hostess heaven!)
CAP 403
A flying display is what you’ll see!
CAP 658
Safe model flying (that’s just great!)

In hindsight I accept it was only his interpretation of: “fail to prepare, prepare to fail!” Thanks Sidney, this one’s for you. RIP.

© Baldock Bard 2015
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above

Facebook: Baldock Bard 
Twitter: @baldockbard
 E-mail: baldockbard@www.baldockbard.co.uk  

The Baldock Boot Sale
Every Saturday until the end of October
 With more FREE parking and billions of bargains!
 www.u-boot.co.uk

Droning On!

Posted on June 24, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

I am spending this week in Newcastle learning how to pilot a UAV or Drone. This involves learning about the principles of flight, air law, weather and the millions of other bytes of information that enable competent and safe flying. My old rusty brain complains about the amount of fresh information I am cramming into that empty aircraft-hanger-sized space. Hopefully, at the end of the week I shall pass the exam and be on the road to safer, qualified, flying…

I want to be a pilot,
See the world from the sky you see,
But the closest I will ever get,
Is flying a UAV!

Helliguy are the suppliers and RUSTA are the trainers.
Thinking of flying a drone commercially or safely? Google them.

Danger! It’s a Drone!

Posted on June 22, 2015 by The Baldock Bard.

There are certain daily items that over the years have been used by the press as props for a ‘let’s-make-up-a-story’ on a lack-lustre news day. Sometimes these have been based around ‘inventions of the devil’: The motor-car (great frightener of horses), television (destroyer of children’s brains), up to today’s beloved bête noire, the UAV, commonly known as a drone…

Hold the front page I’ve a story to tell,
There’s an object in the sky and it’s coming from Hell!
It’s capable of anything the press can decide,
Will suddenly appear to take your pet for a ride!

It can crash into your garden, bring down a jet,
A thousand other uses we haven’t thought of yet!
Those who use them will spy on your bed,
Then lose control and injure your head!

“He is an outcast,” the papers will say,
On innocent lives apparently I prey!
But the truth is simple, no cause for alarm,
I’m spying on wheat around my own farm!

© Baldock Bard 2015
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above

Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: baldockbard@www.baldockbard.co.uk

The Baldock Boot Sale
Every Saturday until the end of October
With more FREE parking and billions of bargains!
www.u-boot.co.uk

Baldock Bard

Verse and Worse from the Baldock Versemonger

Category Archives: Farm and Countryside Life