Mrs Down's Diary

As a result, we have some very sulky cows. . . Lurking around the foldyard gates. . . Wistfully gazing across to the fields. Luckily not hungry cows as there is still quite a bit of silage to finish and plenty of big straw and hay bales.

When John bought Geoff out of the farm, he knew that he had to look to easier ways of handling areas of work single-handedly. At one time all the hay and straw was in small bales.

Took days, literally, to stack in the fields, load onto trailers, pitchfork off trailers into stacks at home and then pitchfork off the stack for use in the fold yard or stables. A lot of manual handling and aching backs.

That was until the invention of big bales. Purpose created for single-handed farmers. Or, to put it better, farmers working single-handedly.

But you do need the proper equipment to handle it, so when the clutch cable goes on your tractor with the loader, you're stuffed. John's father used to say: "It only breaks down when you're using it" which is a wise truism, if an irritating one.

We have been further stuffed because we can't find the spike for the other tractor, which we know is somewhere on the farm, but where? I can picture it clearly.

It's blue and you would think that a blue bit of kit would stand out from all the green bits of kit. But it must have camouflaged itself very effectively among all the tackle. Or, it has walked. Or, been borrowed and not returned. The last being the most likely.

nDealers no longer carry spare parts as they do not like to have lots of expensive bits and pieces hanging around their sheds.

Instead, you now have to order the part you want, once it has been identified on an ancient microfiche, and then wait for the courier to decide to bring it to one depot, where it is loaded up onto another courier's van to arrive at the dealers '“ several days after it was originally ordered.

It has been very frustrating. To feed the cows and the bulls in the yards, usually 20 minutes max. Without the loader, a couple of hours. Twice a day. The big straw bales are in a field and have to be fetched home and the big hay bales that go in ring feeders in the foldyard are only round at the back of the farm, but still need a loader to get them into the yards.

Fortunately, a neighbour became aware of John's plight after a day or so and gave him a hand with his loader. No thanks to the dopey dealer who rang eventually half way through one morning to say: "We've got the part now. It came yesterday afternoon but we forgot to ring you until now. Sorry about that."

John had only had two lots of feeding round to do and still needed to fit the clutch cable on the tractor before the next feed round. The good side to the story is that the tractor is going a treat.

A week ago we thought a new clutch cable was a stopgap until the machine went in for a new clutch once the cattle went out. But it doesn't look like it needs a new clutch. It's working perfectly now. The dealer's loss is our gain.

This first appeared in the West Sussex Gazette on May 7. To read it first, buy the West Sussex Gazette every Wednesday.