Feeding the Fields!

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This is the time of year where the crops should be growing like crazy! It is most important that they don’t go hungry and so we feed them with some fertiliser. In an ideal world we’d use dung from cattle, sheep or pigs, unfortunately we’d need so many to cover even a small farm like ours, that there would be no room to grow crops. So the ‘feed’ has to come from a one-tonne bag…

Feeding the Fields

This is the time on the farm you know,
When crops need feeding to make them grow.
We use calculations as a guide,
To work out the fertilizer rate applied.
If we lifted the bag we’d come unstuck,
It has to be raised by a fork-lift truck!
Into the spreader the granules flow,
Spread twenty-four metres in one go.
A little warm rain and ‘Hey Presto’,
The crop sighs with relief and continues to grow!

© Baldock Bard
The Baldock Car Boot Sale’s 20th anniversary season continues next Saturday!

www.u-boot.co.uk
BootLine: 07852 707 074

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A Special Duck’s Nest

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Living on a small farm and being us, we tend to name our animals and birds! It started, quite naturally with our pets, dogs and cats, but spread (to the alarm of our friends) to chickens, geese, pigeons (either Peter or Penny!) and even wild ducks! This is the story of a wild duck, her husband and a surprising, gifted and precocious child called ‘Chirpy’.

Ducky Wucky’s Nest

Ducky Wucky’s decided
She needs a safe place for her nest
She’s built it on an ivy wall
Because only she knows best

Disgraceful Darren, her husband
Is nowhere to be seen
He’s off down the pond with his mates
On nest-building he’s not keen

Three years ago about this time
(In duck-years she was thirty)
She had a shock climbing off her nest
Out popped a chick called ‘Chirpy’

Now Chirpy is a special hen
A cut above the rest
She welcomes schoolchildren to her farm
Because she knows she’s the best

We’re keeping an eye on Ducky’s nest
Hoping that it survives
Just what she’ll hatch we won’t know
Until Stanley Stork arrives!

 © Baldock Bard
Just 1 day until the Baldock Saturday Car Boot Sale returnsfor its 20th anniversary season on the 14th April 2012

www.u-boot.co.uk
Bootphone: 07852 707 074

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Faulty Access Friday!

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As you know, I live in a cave outside the town of Baldock. Living like this has it’s advantages (no roof maintenance, no windows to clean and no stairs), however a downside is dial-up-like internet speeds that prompts cave visitors to come over all nostalgic (along with a yearning for the return of Wooly Mammoth burgers and Man the hunter and provider). This week I decided to do something about my access and, being never wrong, turned my ‘righteous dial’ up to maximum with disastrous results…

Faulty Access Friday

My internet access has been the worst that you know,
Despite engineer’s visit, it was tortoise-like slow,
He plugged in a tester that showed it’s ok,
And said it would speed up some other day.

It took many minutes to load the test site,
No ‘Mega Barks Per Susan’ confirmed it not right,
We’re not up a mountain or a remote part of Wales,
“I want to upgrade to dialup,” I told them in sales!

Good Friday morning, eight days to go!
Tried to update my website, it was a definite ‘No’,
Took twenty minutes to load up the test,
Went and had a coffee, give my temper a rest.

Sitting at the table I had an idea,
I had purchased a protection plan with the laptop last year,
At a call centre in Ireland a teckie drank tea,
Waiting for a complainer who happened to be me.

Over the telephone (an outdated mode),
Rory gave instructions to avoid an implode.
“Don’t worry, it’s simple, my thirteenth today,
We’ll fix that in a minute just do as I say.”

So now I must apologise to those I have sworn at,
The providers of technology (that confuses the cat)
BT and Apple, I’ve maligned you with glee,
The real stupid idiot, all along was just ME!

And now that I’ve written this silly little rhyme
It’s off to the blog site to put it on line
Click on to ‘Publish’, everything goes real slow
If this has now surfaced will someone let me know?

© Baldock Bard
Just 8 days until the Baldock Saturday Car Boot Sale returnsfor its 20th season on the 14th April 2012

www.u-boot.co.uk

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House Hunting the Morris Way!

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Some people hate moving house. They procrastinate for days, weeks, months or even years in a perpetual ‘shall we? shan’t we?’. Some eventually preferring to stay put rather than make a decision. I have a friend who is the exact opposite. While out jogging the other day she spied a similar house to hers in an estate agent’s window and within the fortnight had not only sold her house but bought her latest ‘dream house’ as well. This, in verse form is her story…

House Hunting the Morris Way!

Some people stay in just one place
Because moving house they cannot face
Well there’s a woman that we know
She moves house in just one go

A few weeks since she was jogging past
an Estate Agents window, “gotta move fast!”
Looked at the photos – that’s like our dwelling
Oh good heavens look at the price it’s selling!

Rushed back home to tell the old man
“We’re moving house – a cunning plan!”
“But I’m quite happy with this one”
“Don’t worry dear, it’ll be such fun!”

A couple of weeks of looking spent
She’s found a house in a village in Kent
So from town they’re going to fly
She may even join the WI

In the garden live three chooks
They’ll be studying poultry books
What’s to follow? Maybe a sow?
They’re going to be like farmers now!

In Barbour and headscarf she’ll be seen
Taking tea on the village green
So if changing house is tiresome proving
Follow her example – just get speed-moving!

© Baldock Bard
Just 10 days until the Baldock Saturday Car Boot Sale returnsfor its 20th season on the 14th April 2012

www.u-boot.co.uk

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Warm Numbers

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The temperature has been spring-like for a number of days but could turn colder.
We have been using our new saw bench for cutting up firewood for the log burner.
Years ago, when I worked on a farm near Cambridge, there was an old farmhand called Derek. He always used to say that you got a ‘number of warms before a fire is lit!’
Remembering this saying prompted me to write this, it doesn’t rhyme nor meter but I believe it ‘does what it says on the tin’.
I once entered it into a poetry competition, needless to say it didn’t win, but it remains one of my favourites, I hope you like it too.

I took a walk in the woods with my chainsaw
A branch lay prostrate across my path
I donned my protective clothing, helmet and gloves
To protect me from the ferocious machine bucking in my hands
The sweat ran down my face like lava
Warm number one

I split the sawn timber into cheese-shaped logs
Wielding the axe like an irate backwoodsman
I felt the sweat on my collar
Warm number two

I hurled the logs onto the trailer
The smell of fresh split wood drifted in the still air
By then my shirt was awash!
Warm number three

I unloaded the logs into the wood shed
Trundling wheelbarrow loads up the path
The sweat dripped from my nose like rain droplets
From a jungle leaf
Warm number four

The frost crept in after dark
I lit the fire in the grate
The white smoke curled out of the chimney
As I sat back to enjoy
Warm number five

© Baldock Bard

The Baldock Saturday Car Boot Sale returns on the 14th April 2012
www.u-boot.co.uk

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Bird Killer

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Recent reports by so-called experts have theorised about the diminishing numbers of birds in our gardens.
Some have blamed birds of prey and some have suggested farmers are at fault.
One culprit seems to have escaped criticism.
Having watched our cat, Snuggles (no, I didn’t choose the name), from my office window, I felt I ought to add my name to the list of experts…

A sparrow trilled a trilly-tweet,
perched upon our garden seat.
Struggling to reach top ‘C’ (flat),
failed to spot the neighbours cat,
and that…
was that!

© Baldock Bard

 

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