Saxlingham – November News

In the last post I glibly mentioned that our Canola and Soy Beans stored in the silo would bring good money in December /January. This was wrong. To explain, if I was playing on one of the in-game maps almost all the price cycles work that way with the peaks in that period of the Winter season. So I slipped into a false memory while writing that! Saxlingham Farm Estate is a mod map and Farmsim Brisco, the author, has modified both the crop and price cycles to more closely reflect what happens in the UK. The upshot is that Canola prices peak in November while the price of Soy Beans will peak in June when Beef and Dairy herds are at their largest. Information corrected, let’s get on with the farming…

Fittingly I was back out with the bale-wrapper to kick off the first week of November…

…My starts getting later and finishes earlier as the days really shorten. I spent a lovely mid-week collecting stones for a neighbour in steady rain…

…And finished off the week by rolling my grass fields, finally heading home around 6:30pm after that task was done…

The second week saw some progress on the arable side of the farm – I checked the price of Canola and found the Old Mill was offering a good price above the predicted high for the crop…

… Time to sell! I hitched up the Valtra and Bailey trailer and began deliveries…

…Three trips in all netting £62364 with an eco bonus of £4845! With the money in the bank I could go and buy one of the fields I have had my eye on. I chose field 48 as the price (£313k) would leave a healthy working balance in my account and also because I have worked it quite recently and feel it will be a solid addition to my farm. A quick look at the map shows my fields highlighted in green…

…With field 48 on the right of the map.

Back to work – I took on a harvest contract in field 11 to boost my finances during the rest of the week…

…Nice to get one of the new Volvo Electric trucks for this work and that Krampe 3in1 trailer was definitely a lot better than the last Krampe I was loaned!

In the 3rd week of November I fertilized my grass fields. Then sent a worker off to cultivate a neighbours field while I myself did some hoeing…

…and Mowing contracts…

…Not even 4pm and the sun is already low in the sky as I head home with nothing more planned for the day…

Up before the lark and I made a predictable start to the last week of November – Bale-Wrapping for my neighbour…

With rain for much of the early week, I sent a worker off to do a large ploughing job in field 18 – so large I was wondering if it’d get done before December! Meanwhile I had to twiddle my thumbs and do some forward planning.

Late in the week I was able to get out and do a hoeing task in field 43…

…before driving over to survey my freshly acquired field 48…

…It’s going to need lime but looks like I won’t need to plough just yet. There’s an interesting grass area beside the entrance track which forms part of the plot…

…That provides space for positioning Harvester Headers away from the road. I’m wondering if there could also be space for a greenhouse there too in the future? I’ll be able to judge that more easily when I do the next harvest.

The expansion has begun – Ideally I would like to buy another field to partner with field 48 but for the coming season I’ll probably sow it with Wheat alongside fields 2 and 7. The depths of winter are upon us – see you next post 👍