With almost all of the kit back in the yard, bar the sprayer, which will be busy for the next few months, we have finally gotten a chance to wash down and go through each machine.

The machines are washed, greased and fully checked over with a label on a hydraulic hose with what needs to be done or if the machine is okay. It’s also labelled with the initials of the guy who checked it, and the date.

With all the bits and bobs washed down, you start to see some of the battle scars from the season past, some a result of stupidity and others born out of desperation.

While the lads have been busy washing and putting away machines, I have been busy in the office trying to weigh up the need to replace some of these battle weary machines.

We have a fairly mixed makeup of new and old machines and it’s always a topic for debate whether it’s better to pay high depreciation and low maintenance with new kit or high maintenance and low depreciation with old kit.

With the type of work we do, it’s better to pay the depreciation and not suffer any downtime, the only issue is having the capital to buy the newer machine and essentially invest in your depreciation rather than wait for death by a thousand cuts with worn out gear.

Anglo-Julian relations

On the subject of buying in kit, Anglo-Julian relations took a serious hit today after an English farmer reneged on his commitment to sell me a key, and a very hard to come by piece of pack-house equipment. Not until I had somebody in his yard in the UK did he decide to let me know that our original agreement was no longer a runner.

To paraphrase the expletives that were aired in the office very politely in my best Queen’s English, one was not best impressed.