Adelboden " The Movie "

Hi Ian,
Well, at the moment all I seem to do is type messages on this website!

On my tax return etc. it says 'self-employed farmer'. But these days the farming side of what I do has got pretty small - it's mostly just paperwork and standing in the road to stop the cattle, from time to time, and helping with handling the cattle during T.B. tests etc.

We used to have a dairy herd and kept all the calves as either dairy replacements or as beef. We had about 100 head of cattle. And we used to grow arable crops as well. So I can milk cows, drive a tractor, and I even used to drive the combine harvester as well. But milk prices fell through the floor, so we got rid of the dairy cows, let out most of the land, and now I have time to go ski-ing and type message on this website.

We are now farming holidaymakers, mainly, plus we have another house we let long term. We've been letting one holiday cottage for 11 years, and we're starting another one this year. So I spend my time cleaning them, painting, gardening, being pleasant to our guests and helping them with any of their little problems (e.g. we lent one family our spare car one year when theirs broke down).

And I play stockmarkets, but haven't done too well just lately!

Is that enough info? My daughter says my messages are much too long, but I learnt to touch type years ago, in evening classes when I was at school, and it doesn't take me long.

I live in Pembrokeshire, in the Coastal National Park, about a mile from a fantastic sandy beach (if anyone wants a holiday here just let me know - we still have some vacancies for this year :lol: ).

Ally

AllyG wrote: I even used to drive the combine harvester

Pretty sure there is a song about that...

Pablo - what cheek!

As a matter of fact, driving a combine is a very skilful job, especially where I was doing it, on the edge of a 300 foot cliff, above the sea. Of course, the view was fantastic, but it wasn't so clever if you lost your concentration.

My husband had a contractor doing the combining one year, and he temporarily lost it, and ended up practically hanging off the cliff, and he was so frightened that he literally went rigid and they couldn't get his arms off the wheel for ages. And my brother-in-law got off once to clear the chain harrow and forgot to put on the hand brake, and the tractor took off. He ran after it, nearly caught it, got half run over, and the whole tractor went off the cliff, straight through the coastal path (be very careful walking on this path in case you get hit by a runaway tractor), and over the cliff. Bits of it are still to be found on the rocks 100 foot below.

Ally

Looks like a advert for your business Ally, no charge for my time in a promotional capacity :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Well,
I'll just have to hope the Admin man doesn't wipe it off then, won't I?

And Pablo, I'm not really cross - but that was an awful song wasn't it? And farmers aren't really like that, as I'm sure you know. The ones I know are very smart, resourceful, and hard working, or they'd have gone bankrupt a long time ago.

Ally

AllyG wrote:Well,
I'll just have to hope the Admin man doesn't wipe it off then, won't I?

And Pablo, I'm not really cross - but that was an awful song wasn't it? And farmers aren't really like that, as I'm sure you know. The ones I know are very smart, resourceful, and hard working, or they'd have gone bankrupt a long time ago.

Ally

I am just bitter that I've only got 20 acres and you have 43 :D

Yeh I know, fair sized farming community round here too although I did visit Devon last year...

Ha Pablo!
How come you can still remember the words of that awful song - my daughter says you probably weren't even born when it came out (seems like yesterday to me), or has it been turned into another terrible ad?

Ally

I do not have a clue. Far too much time on my hands just now :roll:

1976 which makes it 14 years before my time :lol: