Page 47 - The Farming Years proof

JUST BARLEY
Jo nished her riding school business in 1989 when she became a hairdresser. She and Richard ran the stables as a livery yard af- ter this. They had no problem in getting the livery started. Many of Jo’s original students came back with their horses. They ran it until 2000 when we sold Home Farm. As residents we would have really missed not having horses about. You subconsciously hardly hear them and the alternative is a very loud silence.
Jo bought Kate’s hairdressing business after an intensive crash course in London. A very different activity, but she enjoyed it. She carried on with the success that Kate had made of the business continuing with employing the 4 staff.
From 1992 Richard made hay on the top eld at Home Farm. Most of my haymaking equipment was in the barn with a new mower so that helped.
Richard did not apply fertilizer. This gave a thinner crop which dried more quickly and did not need so much tedding. This was a cost effective system as it had no fertilizer costs and the hay- making was less labour intensive. He used a big baler for the hay producing large rectangular bales well compressed. He had the right equipment to move the bales to the barn without getting out of the tractor.
After 1992 T Groocock and Co Ltd grew barley on the 15 acre fac- tory elds. Jim did this with my equipment. The farming was set up as a division of company activity with separate farming accounts. I hoped when we sold the 15 acres for building we could get tax free roll-over into an agricultural holding for the company performing separately with a much larger land base, and pro table.
In 1998 Sylvia died from ovarian cancer and this tragedy totally removed all my forward thinking and planning. I could only think of our devastating loss. We had been married for 43 happy years
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