One of the coolest things about my job is learning about technical stuff from other occupations. Case in point: in this personalised caricature of a dairy consultant I had to draw a plate meter (the thing he’s holding in his left hand). I’d never heard of a plate meter so I was very curious about what it is and what it’s for! Turns out it’s a device for measuring grass height! It also never occurred to me that grass needed to be measured, and if someone had asked me to do it I’d have gotten on my hands and knees with a ruler and a comb. The customer gave me some details:
“The plate meter has a suspended plate that measures grass height. It converts this height into Kg of dry matter grass per hectare. The aim is to graze the grass at the correct stage. Too high and quality reduces. Too low and growth rates reduce.” I learned something about dairy farming!
The subject here is an agriculture dairy consultant who was returning home to New Zealand (what a good place to be”) after working in Ireland for years. He’s pictured in his work shirt with his company logo on it. He’s got his bag packed for his return trip and it contains a bottle of glenlivit 18 whiskey, running shoes, and a sticker for the Kerry Way Ultra run, a 200km run that happens around the Ring of Kerry! Also pictured are a particular breed of cow and a bag of fertiliser with some Post-It notes! In this instance I even had to get a particular type of grass for the field the subject is standing in, called multi-species. I learned something else! In the background are 26 mountain peaks representing another run the subject did across the 26 highest peaks in Wicklow.
“Allan created a brilliant representation of a good friend. Couldn’t speak highly enough of the end product and delivery was very prompt.”