If there is to be a weekend in farming, you begin to get a whiff of it on Saturday afternoon. The milking will continue twice a day, rest assured. The slurry tank is filled and makes it’s way to the field for spreading, cows will continue to calf but it’s the weekend. The farmhouse is in definitely in weekend mode.

On this very beautiful sunshiny Saturday, the smell of butter baking amid eggs, flour and maybe some chocolate sets the mood. The cakes hardly get a chance to cool as very young men come and eat them in compensation for Saturday jobs. Jobs in this instance is a very loose term, there is no room for perfection here, just prizes for effort. A car wash is really a little boy wash as they stand before me soaked while the car watches on crying out for soap and water.

Dinner time comes early, there might be a sit down with a newspaper and coffee in the afternoon for the farmer’s wife before the children are bathed and settle down for the Saturday night movie. All very ordinary I assure you. The stuff of life, the stuff of Saturdays.