Michael Nixon – A walk in their Wellies blog

As part of our campaign to support British farming, we created this blog to provide farmers with a platform to share their stories and experiences, offering insights beyond what you see on their Instagram accounts. Read below to take a walk in Michael Nixon’s (@mikewheelchairfarming) wellies, a farmer who suffered a bad fall on his farm, leaving him disabled, but astonishingly didn’t let this stop his passion for agriculture…

Hi, my name is Michael

I’m 37 years old and I’m from Milton Keynes. I’ve been farming since the age of 14 but from a very young age always had a love for farming and the countryside.

At the age of 17 I started working on the farm where we had 3 1/2 thousand acres of arable and around 1000 head of cattle as well.

On the 14th of October 2019 we realised that the calves were getting pneumonia and it was because the gutters were basically full of rubbish and when it rained it overflowed down into the calf sheds. So, I got up onto the roof and started to clear the gutters out and I basically lost my footing and ended up falling through the roof and fell 28 feet where I ended up hitting the scrap passage and ended up breaking my back and seven ribs on my left hand side as well as breaking my sternum. I was then taken by ambulance to Coventry where I spent three months flat on my back with no operation.

On the 27th of December 2019  I was taken to a rehab centre at Stoke Mandeville where I spent the next three months working hard on transfers and just working on my body, to get stronger. I came out from Stoke Mandeville on the 27th of March 2020, obviously this was Covid time so everything was on lockdown and I did struggle a little bit mentally. So, after about three or four weeks at home I got in touch with my friend who farms a couple of villages away and asked if I could come and do little jobs for him, and ended up going to him and doing little jobs around on his farm.

We then found a property what you could call a small holding about 3 to 4 miles away from where we live for sale, so we managed to buy that, it had 3 acres with it, and some outbuildings. One of the outbuildings was already transformed into a studio, so I ended up opening up the gym so it’s an accessible gym for Wheelchair users, but also it’s open to able bodied people. On the 3 acres, we have sheep and I also have the 20 X battery Hens which we sell the eggs outside the gym and they sell really well.

Obviously on the farm where I had my accident we had Cattle and I’ve always loved working with cattle but now I am in a wheelchair so the idea of working with Cattle is quite difficult from a Wheelchair due to the size of them, so we made the decision to get sheep so I can still manage to work with them. My son and my wife still continue to do the jobs with them.

The jobs I do on the farm include shearing, dagging, worming, vaccinating, and any sort of things like that with the sheep. I also now have battery operated equipment so I can handle it myself, that includes a chainsaw, strimmer, hedge cutters, and I have a ride on lawn mower which I do all the grass cutting with which is hand controlled.

Obviously farming from a Wheelchair there’s jobs that I can’t do that’s where my wife and son will help me, but I have a wheelchair with an electronic piece of equipment on the front which helps me get across rough ground and I’m very fortunate with my level of my injury I still have full use of my arms so I can still do majority of jobs.

The biggest thing I would say I struggle with is the days where there’s not really much to do and I’m just sitting about, that’s where I struggle a bit mentally, so I try my best to keep myself busy. I’m really lucky that I have my wife and son around but also I have a really close friend who I mentioned before and I get to go and help him when I can. The farming community is quite a tight knit community, so I’m really lucky that if I’m struggling a bit I can just ring people or go and see them.

My general day usually starts at 7:30 which I go into the gym then head out and check the animals, once that’s done I’ll take the dog for a walk and then see whatever jobs need doing maybe some fencing strimming lawn mowing chain sawing I then usually go in the gym again around 4 o’clock once I’ve done that I have a standing frame which I go in that for an hour by then, it’s usually around 6 o’clock so it’s time for me to chill out then.

If there’s anybody like me that suffered a life changing injury but would still like to do a job outside the advice I would give to them is go into every job with a positive mindset if things don’t go according to plan, if you have people around, you always ask for help but just do the best you can Mike.

If you’re a farmer and you’d like to contribute in our campaign to raise awareness for the incredible work in British agriculture, please drop us a DM on Instagram – @_howdenrural