Old Pond publishing days

Volvo F10 & F12 at Work 1977-83 new hardback book by Patrick W Dyer is now in stock

Patrick W Dyer's popular 'Trucks at Work' series of highly illustrated hardback books has a new addition: Volvo F10& F12 at Work 1977-83 . This is now in stock at Old Pond at £19.95. Secure online ordering and details are here.

Absolutely Appleby new paperback book by Heidi M Sands is now in stock

Enthusiasts for the Appleby Horse Fair will enjoy the new paperback Absolutely Appleby by Heidi M Sands. Heidi's book is now in stock at Old Pond at £9.95. It is packed with beautiful photographs. Details and secure online ordering are here.

Ice Road Truckers Season Six now in stock

Old Pond now has stock of Ice Road Truckers Season Six. This 4-DVD set lasts about 11 hours 30 minutes. The Old Pond price is £24.95. Information and online ordering are here.

Country Calendar: the Best of 2012 DVD advance information

Country Calendar: the Best of 2012, TVNZ. DVD, approx 4½ hours. ISBN 978-1-908397-72-0. Now in stock at Old Pond at £17.95 inc. VAT.

New Zealand’s long-running television series Country Calendar keeps making well-told stories about strong characters doing interesting things in great rural locations. Each of the stories is told in depth.

The twelve episodes chosen as the best of 2012 feature a wide range of farming and outdoors activities. There are musters of cattle and sheep on remote farms, a highly successful shearing partnership, contrasting accounts of fishing, a forestry enterprise and hunting. There are novel approaches to farming from small-acreage lavender cultivation to new developments in cattle feeding. There are plenty of horses, too.

Most of these family-run enterprises use direct marketing to achieve commercial success. Their owners pay close attention to the environment in some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes.

DISC ONE
Precious Catch: A Westland family catch whitebait in an unspoiled spot.
Remote Run: A family copes with remoteness on their mountain station.
Horse Heaven: Youngsters at camp learn adventurous horse riding.
Fare Game: Callum Hughes hunts wild deer in spectacular scenery.
Healthy Harvest: How Rex gets a living from a ‘lifestyle’ block of 1 hectare.
Slice of Paradise: Raising cattle and running a campsite in a conservation area.

DISC TWO
Paddock Poet: A family that reclaimed eroded land for sheep, cattle and poetry.
Fishing Wild Waters: A fisherman who braves the wild waters of Cook Strait.
Girl in the Bush: ‘Stormy’ is a 21-year-old girl who works with men as a logger.
Son of the Soil: A dairy farmer who has adapted to more sustainable agriculture.
The Last Ride: Veteran stockmen ride with wild horses and check their condition.
Shear Hard Slog: Meet Emily and Sam – both champion shearers.

Old Pond has previously licensed two other Country Calendar programmes from TVNZ.See here for Country Calendar: Director's Pick.

Extreme Earthmovers at Work new DVD by Eric Orlemann and Keith Haddock is now in stock

'The Silver Spade', one of the largest stripping shovels ever built, is the outstanding piece of machinery among other giants of their classes to be seen on the new DVD Extreme Earthmovers at Work. With filming by Eric Orlemann and words by Keith Haddock, this is as authoritative and absorbing a programme as you can find in the earthmoving world. It is now in stock at old Pond. Details and secure online ordering are here.

Ransomes and Their Tractor Share Ploughs hardback book is back in print

Anthony Clare's book Ransomes and their Tractor Share Ploughs, first published in 2001, remains the best published source of information on the topic. It has now been brought back into print by Old Pond with some slight revisions. More details and secure online ordering are here.

Old Pond Publishing summer catalogue of books and DVDs

At Old Pond we are about to mail our summer catalogue of books and DVDs. This contains details of the titles released or distributed between January and July this year.

A pdf of the catalogue is now available from a link on the home page of the Old Pond website or direct here.

The front cover shows a Scania R580 Topline run by the Yorkshire-based Fred Greenwood & Son. It is derived from one of the many fine photographs contributed by Xavier Stéfaniak and Ferdy De Martin to The World of Custom Trucks published this spring by Old Pond.

Photographs taken by Chris Lockwood during the filming of One Farm, One Year

Here are some of the photographs taken by Chris Lockwood during the filming of One Farm, One Year. Reading from left to right, top to bottom: Vervaet Beeteater 617 harvesting sugar beet; Claas Xerion 5000 with a Simba Cultipress; John Deere 6930 on Terra-tyres; John Deere 6410 drilling sugar beet; Ford 8340 SLE spraying spring barley; Ford 3000 power-harrowing; Claas Challenger 75E pulling 10-furrow plough; Claas Lexion 760 & 570+ combining wheat. See Mid Suffolk Agri Photos for many more of Chris's photographs.

One Farm One Year new DVDs by Chris Lockwood advance information

One Farm, One Year January–August, Chris Lockwood, DVD approx 125 minutes, £17.95, see here.
One Farm, One Year August–December, Chris Lockwood, DVD approx 117 minutes, £17.95, see here.
To save money on the set of 2 DVDs at £29.95 see the Old Pond Offers page.

 

This pair of DVDs constitute the most detailed programmes ever released about the farming year on a large arable enterprise. We say ‘enterprise’ because Loose Hall Farm Ltd runs to 3,600 acres on eight farms stretching over eight miles.

The manager is Kevin Easey who for 48 years has worked the heavy clay soils in the heart of Suffolk. In 2012 – the year of filming – his main crops were winter wheat, winter and spring barley, oilseed rape and sugar beet. A few beef cattle were also kept.

January–August, the first programme, follows Kevin and his staff through the spring drilling of barley and beet, spraying for crop protection, fertilising, hoeing the young beet, mowing grass and baling. Battling against very wet conditions, Kevin combines the winter barley and the rape and by mid-August is once again drilling rape.

August–September starts with the wheat harvest, close on the heels of which are cultivations for next year’s crops. The new rape crop is already coming through – and so are the slugs. After a very variable summer the wheat harvest finally ends in early September and a week later Kevin starts drilling next year’s cereals. Drilling, fertilising and spraying are the order of the day until beet lifting from the end of October, during what turned out to be one of the wettest autumns for a hundred years.

Chris Lockwood’s clear script describes over 160 sequences during the course of these programmes which together run for four hours. There are interviews with Kevin Easey who is to be seen in the centre of the Loose Hall Farm team photograph here. The others, left to right, are Graham, Annie, Stuart and Mike.

Many ancillary activities are on view including truck-loading, crop-drying, drilling maize for game cover, hedge-cutting, ditching and demonstrations of new machinery. Enthusiasts will appreciate the wide variety of different tractors and equipment seen at work.

Suffolk-based Chris Lockwood, a freelance agricultural journalist, is the author of three books and creator of a growing list of programmes on farming and farm machinery.

Some photographs taken by Chris Lockwood during filming are here.

Absolutely Appleby new book by Heidi M Sands about the Appleby Horse fair advance information

Absolutely Appleby, Heidi M Sands. Paperback, 147 x 210 mm, 128 pages inc. 134 photographs. ISBN 978-1-908397-59-1. Now available from Old Pond at £9.95.

The Eden valley is a beautiful yet little-known area of Cumbria except, that is, for one week in June each year when thousands of people flock to Appleby, the old county town of Westmorland.

Appleby plays host to the largest horse fair of its kind in the UK, and possibly the world. As far as spectacles go Appleby Fair is unrivalled: horses are paraded for sale, allowed to run loose in groups, graze the grass verges and almost move at will. For a few short days it is as though the clock has been turned back to a time when horse power ruled the road.

With over a hundred photographs of horses and people on the move, action shots in the ‘flashing lane’, handlers and their horses enjoying the river and some of those quiet and peaceful moments in between, this book provides the reader with an insight into the experience of the fair and all that is ‘Absolutely Appleby’. 

Accompanied by introductions and captions, the photos show that Appleby Fair is as much about community and tradition as it is about horses. Beautiful bow-top caravans abound, life takes on a slower pace and friendships are re-kindled.

Heidi M. Sands is an award-winning writer and regular contributor to several rural publications, as well as a professional photographer of countryside subjects. Born and bred in the rural north-west, Heidi lives on the family farm with her Fell ponies and a flock of Herdwick sheep. This is her second book for Old Pond Publishing.