July 15 is a date circled on many hill farmers’ calendars as that is the date we can get the mowing machine out and start our harvest.

Just imagine this year how relieved we have all been to have got barns full of hay and silage by the end of July.

The reason many of us can’t mow is quite simple; we receive quite hefty cheques from Her Majesty’s government to refrain from mowing and allow the baby chicks to hatch out and fly away and the seed heads on our flower rich meadows to replenish the forna and flora for the years to come.

So far 2011 is proving to be one of the best years I can remember. As my local hay and straw man said the other day, there is a strong possibility, later in the winter, some of what we think will be surplus hay and straw might be moving north to south not the other way around as is normally the case. I was quite relieved that David said to me, ‘don’t panic too much about the straw’ as he is still reasonably confident that there will be enough to go around.

It isn’t just the fields that are looking fine and dandy, both Jackie and I are keen gardeners and though Jackie’s flowers were a bit late in starting they have certainly caught up and the whole place is awash with colour.

As you can imagine, the missus keeps me away from the delicate flowers and I am in charge of the edibles. I have to boast that we are now getting cabbages big enough to fill a wheel barrow. Only this morning I dug a root of tatties with 26 spuds the size of apples!

The prospects for the autumn sales of store cattle and lambs are also looking quite rosy and first indications are that store lambs will be running a few quid more than last years prices. If the prices I witnessed the other day for store cattle hold firm throughout the autumn months for the second year running, the old tax man looks like taking a bit of brass away from us.

It was our local show in Leek at the end of July and the future of the show has been under threat because the council owned field has been earmarked for a several million pound revamp for the sporty types in the Staffordshire Moorlands. How politicians can wriggle and worm, 12 months ago they told us we were being kicked out and it was the last year we could hold the show on Birchall playing fields but, after a public outcry and unbelievable lobbying and negotiating by our show president Derrick Torr, common sense has prevailed. We have been given a cast iron guarantee that this wonderful show can carry on for years to come.

When Derrick announced this wonderful news it was also fitting on behalf of the show committee to recognise Derrick’s work as president and show director of 30 years with a small token of thanks. It is folk like Derrick, who many of you will know as senior partner in Whittiger and Biggs, who keeps so many of our country traditions rolling. Though I appear at many shows in the roll of show commentator, it isn’t the rent-a-mouths like me who deserve the credits but all the Indians who beaver away through out the year.

I can’t let the topic of shows go by without mentioning one of the best little shows in the country, the Hope Valley Show which is held on August Bank Holiday Monday in the village of Hope a few miles from Buxton. It is still one of those shows that remind me of those wonderful days where countrymen and town meet from the famous TV series All Creatures Great and Small. If you can’t get away on August Bank Holiday Monday the two other events, Longnor, the first Thursday in September, and Hartington Sports two weeks later, are days out well worth visiting.

Over the last few months I have been thinking quite seriously about how best to take advantage of the Government’s offer on making a bit of cash from producing energy. As we have water going through the farm I have looked at harnessing that but the costs are quite prohibited, certainly from a stream like ours which doesn’t have a great grade of fall. Solar power is, I fear, a non starter as the sun only shines on a few days up in the hills so I have decided to go full steam into producing my own energy with hopefully a bit to spare from the wind. There are not many days in the year when the dales of Staffordshire and Derbyshire don’t have a gale rattling around them.

I’ve been looking at all kinds of different forms to finance the erection of wind turbines and I have decided to get involved with a company that seem quite happy to finance my new dream. Let me have all the energy I want and they take the surpluses I don’t require as their proportion of profits. It gives me free electricity, no worries of replacement and repair costs and, if nothing else, just look what it will add to the value of my property should I wish to sell it if it could be sold with absolutely no energy costs.

My only concern is that we live in a National Park and if, in their wisdom, they decide that it is not in their remit to allow reasonably small turbines for farmers like me I think I shall have to go down the road of asking them to compensate me for profits forgone because of their policies.