Monthly Archive

On Saturday evening we visited a farm. Robert knew of it many years back when it was owned by two extremely ancient old boys. For numerous decades the farm sat in glorious isolation and neglect, the land and buildings softened and crumbled; definition of field and hedge, lane and track, farmhouse and barn sagged into tangled green obscurity. The old boys continued to live in their decaying farmhouse looking out over a farmyard of bent disintegrating barns and humped undulating roofs; astonishingly they were still using the original cloam oven and still gathering and burning bundles of faggots.

It was sold a few years ago and by chance we met the new owners in the pub. They are a delightful couple. Not in their first flush of youth Jim is instantly noticeable by a shock of wild bright white hair; he’s buzzing with energy, passionate and eager, a zinging wire – his edges rounded and softened by a warm brown voice and a distinct west country burr. Mary has her feet firmly on the ground and a gentle yet tough stoicism. She has an open sincere face and large, expressive eyes in which you glimpse hidden depth. Both of them shine with the ruddy glow of outdoor living and smell of fresh air and wood, plaster and earth. Working ceaselessly on the farmhouse and buildings they have made a temporary home in one of the open crumbling barns and a caravan. To Robert’s delight they didn’t hesitate in inviting him over do some mothing.

Robert returned home his eyes bright with passion for the untamed and unspoiled beauty of the place. Brimming with excitement he said ‘It’s quite extraordinary. You stand in the farm and look out over the surrounding countryside with all those neatly clipped hedges and bright green fields and just know…’

‘Hang on, hang on’ I said ‘Maybe you shouldn’t class it as a farm, should you? I mean it hasn’t actually produced food in an age, has it? Isn’t it an area, a wildlife haven. Extraordinary, yes, but a farm?’

As often happens in our own feisty, ardent relationship a discussion was soon raging about, as Robert will have it, the semantics of the definition of farm…

A farm is the basic unit in agriculture. It is a section of land devoted to the production and management of food, either produce or livestock.
So says Wikipeidia and the Oxford dictionary.

‘Uh!’ poofs Robert ‘That is such outdated thinking’ and dismisses it out of hand.

With us this is an old, well worn and often revisited spat. Robert believes, fervently, that not all farms – land - have to be managed mainly for food. Some of it, just a small proportion should be managed for nature – marginal farms like ours and Jim and Mary’s. We are pretty refined and adept at this dialogue now, but still it manages to get our blood boiling, turns us red in the face, gasping and choking at the heinous atrocities the other is mouthing. Yet we are basically of the same mind and thought about most things. We cycle tandem ninety percent of the time.

Why am I at odds with this? Why do I feel it’s slightly immoral? Why do I feel it’s a luxury to be the custodian of a farm (as that’s what we are) and manage it primarily for wildlife? Running through me is a twist of tough chewed fibre – possibly a remnant of my bog Irish ancestry or strands of my Scottish heritage. Whatever, this part of me feels vaguely uncomfortable - almost guilty. To me, as guardian of a farm, I have a sense of duty, an obligation, to try to grow the best quality produce I can without compromise to my stock, the wildlife or the landscape. Can I achieve the balance I strive for? Robert thinks not. He believes I do compromise nature…and due to the demands of my livestock I’m unable to allow wildlife the unfettered freedom it requires; nor am I able to produce enough food on these marginal soils to render the farm economically viable. I’m falling between two stools. He has a point.

wild crab apple blossom

Don’t despair I’m still in the process of getting pdfs of the Bluetongue presentations. Hopefully either copied onto CDs or emailed to me. It’s taking a little longer than anticipated, but they will be here.

Meanwhile the countryside has undergone a transformation in the last seventy-two hours. Flowers and foliage are burgeoning…by the hour – the minute – the second. Just a few days ago I was bemoaning the lack of early purple orchids – now they are everywhere. A battalion of slender purple-magenta spears guard a corner of the Hatherleigh road; further along a sunlit gathering cluster exotically, decked in shades of rose-mauve, intense red-violet and faded purple-pinks. Truly a meeting of sumptuous beings, their pages tiny dog violets peeping through the formal rosettes of glossy-green spotted leaves.

early purple orchid

Verges explode in a sudden froth of cow parsley.

The soft pink-white flowers of the quince tree open like stars. A wild crab apple is a vision of blossom at the entrance to Scadsbury where heather-pink lousewort carpets the field between wet fronds of mosses and shoots of purple moor grass.

common lousewort

Not only are my eyes bombarded at every turn by colour, growth, life, but my ears are assailed by a hundred different bird songs. I’m not nearly good enough; I can’t decipher the many different tunes. I need Robert to point out the blackcap, the willow warbler, the coal tit and tree pipit. Yesterday garden warblers returned as did our first resident swallow and, at last, an orange tip butterfly appeared, to be quickly followed by others.

Yet amongst this achingly beautiful confusion of life, a tragedy. This morning, early, in the softest soft green drizzle, a ewe cast herself. Brutally split by ravens her guts spilled in glistening slippery warm pink ribbons across the green grass; eyes empty bloodied sockets; her mouth, tongue and tail cavernous dark black-red wounds slowly oozing bloody streams. Alone in the field by her side her lamb called and called and called.

Enough, enough. Enough of the doom and gloom. I want to be cheerful and enjoy the newness happening out there. A bit of lightness and brightness to feed the soul, top up our optimism and give us the energy to face the future.

Now here’s a thought. Midges are insects. Flowers are designed to attract insects; therefore without insects we wouldn’t have the glorious diversity of flowers we anticipate and marvel at each year. In effect insects are enriching our lives too. How curious is nature? Robert is quite keen I write a poem. Something along the lines of
‘Where the midge sucks, there suck I
In a cowslip bell I lie…’ Cowslip, cow’s lip? Ummm, maybe not. I’ll work at it.

But this evening I’m off. My gorgeous friend who winkles me out of the farm and takes me to opera, theatre and ballet – recently Matthew Bourne’s exuberant, colour extravaganza Nutcracker – is treating me to a Seth Lakeman concert at Plymouth Uni.

Meanwhile I leave you with some glorious insect inspired flowers just on our doorstep!

“So you think it’s going to be bad? Well, you’re wrong…

We shuffle in our seats, steal surreptitious glances at one another, clear our throats and half smile. A rustle of whispers stirs through the listeners.

…it’s going to be devastating! Don’t underestimate for a second what effect this disease will have on your stock, you and your business.”

Jaws drop. We sit stock still. He has everyone’s undivided attention: Marco Zerhoef, the vet from Holland who has hands-on experience of dealing with Bluetongue, the disease that’s decimated the livestock industry in much of Northern Europe.

He continues “In Holland we were unprepared. We’d heard of it yes, but we thought the handful of cases that bubbled up in 2006 and then died down was the end of it. A one off, nothing to get excited about. How wrong we were! In 2007 the first cases in Holland occurred in July, but we misdiagnosed them as sunburn – it had been an unusually hot spring – and photosensitisation. We correctly identified the disease too late and by August nearly every farm in our practice had contracted Bluetongue. The disease continued to snowball with unprecedented effects.”

He went on to explain what we could expect. Showed us images of cows and sheep; oedematous, encrusted with lesions, lame and unable to drink or walk; and calves, malformed, mummified, suffering severe encephalitis and other unusual deformities. Youngsters that failed to thrive. Depressing graphs, facts and figures.

The only thing they could do was nurse the sick and dying, helping to relieve the excruciating symptoms. It’s an awful disease, killing 40% of sheep and causing long-term damage to those that survive and to cattle.

“You” he carried on “have a chance. Have a chance to be a little more prepared. And a chance, maybe, to get in front of it with the vaccine.”

A Dutch dairy farmer gave his first hand experiences of coping with Bluetongue in his well kept milking cows, calves and heifers and the ongoing effects the disease is continuing to have on his stock and business. Needless to say, milk production has been severely reduced; his followers lack growth and are giving just a small percentage of their expected yield, his cows are difficult to get in calf, calves die in utero, and so on.

Karin Darple, a vet from Pirbright and a Bluetongue expert who has been working on the disease and vaccine, gave her presentation next – and it was superb. What she doesn’t know about Bluetongue isn’t worth knowing. She had very practical advice on how to cope with the disease, whether and when insecticides would be appropriate, housing versus the outdoors and much, much, more.

Karin would like to see 100% take up of the vaccine as soon as it hits the shelves, but EU legislation prevents this! Vaccine can only be given in Protection Zones where the disease has already struck, not in the surrounding Surveillance Zones. Karin couldn’t stress enough that speed is of the essence: to stand a chance of avoiding the devastating effects of the disease we must vaccinate ahead of it – we must prevent the virus from getting established.

There was far too much useful information to put in this post. I have asked my vet for pdf copies of all three presentations. Those that I’m able to, I’ll link to from my blog. If they are too large I’d be willing to email you a copy if you are interested. Leave me some contact detail in the comment section and I’ll get back to you. Please also look at the Warmwell site and the link Jane Barribal left for more information.

bluetongue 4

The infuriating niggle-niggle that keeps irritating and scratching persistently away in my mind’s eye is ‘you!-you-ostrich-head-in-the-sand’ and ‘maybe-if-I-look-from-behind-my-hands-it-won’t-happen’ as well as the ‘if-I-squint-I-might-not-really-see-what-I’m-looking-at’. I don’t know if you experience them…those irksome posters that march across your field of vision making sure you are perpetually aware of a subject you really don’t want to think about. This particular no-no is, of course, Bluetongue. And no, it won’t go away however much I will it.

As I breathe deeply, sigh and marvel at the fabulous weather of the last few days, another part of me is scanning for midges and hoping that the cold, frosty mornings and chilly Easterly wind might give us a few more weeks grace. Might, miracles of miracles, allow us to evade the next month of certain infestation and infection. At least, get us a little bit nearer the promised vaccination.

I’m itching – operative word here – to get the cows out. But if cold wet rain, sleet and snow – in fact a ‘fimble-winter’ - is the recipe for that miracle, well, bring it on!

The day before yesterday the midges were biting…and hard. The cows were careering about, bellowing and kicking; a heavily fleeced sheep cast herself itching; and the rams decided that the persistent irritation obviously originated from one of the others which resulted in a bloody battle. I also frenziedly scratched and pulled at my hair. It hasn’t been too bad since then.

This evening I’m attending a talk arranged by my vets on Bluetongue. The speakers will be a Dutch vet who has first hand experience, Intervet, the vaccine manufactures and possibly a vet from Animal Health. I wait to see what, if anything, I can do.

Uuuhuu…big breath. I’m down to only six in the household and have a little more room to expand.

Today I managed to take the dogs for a walk over Hannaborough and in just a few days so much has appeared and the countryside has shifted and changed. I love the way it alters and moves, infinitesimally, but directionally and forever forward. It sometimes seems the landscape is locked in time, but remove yourself from it for just a memory flash and all changes.

This afternoon I found lousewort, lady’s smock, oak trees in the initial explosion of bud burst, skylarks ascending heaven high on a note and the first swallow flying over the farm. The deer have rearranged their groups and are subtly preparing to drop their calves. I felt I was walking a bridge between disappearing winter and oncoming spring.

I know I’ve mentioned that when I walk I think. All your debate and comments over the last few posts are beginning to spill through into my consciousness and form ideas. One that keeps pushing itself to the forefront is our unconscious search for the familiar…what we, or our mind’s eye, are used to. Take livestock, for instance. I choose and breed for certain characteristics and traits that appeal to me, no doubt ones that I picked up from the first stock I ever kept. When I go to look at other people’s animals again I tend to pick qualities out that reinforce my ideal. I believe that this mental process is the same with landscape too. I can remember the day I first saw the countryside around here which I now find so attractive – it was alien, uncomfortable and altogether different from anything I was used to. I searched for the familiar, attempting to compare it other far-flung landscapes I knew, even Indian grasslands, African bush, tropical jungle…but without success, of course. So putting this feeling to our debate on the countryside, perhaps this is why we are so passionate about what we see or want to see – we constantly search out the well-loved familiar? What I fondly romanticise about is another’s bête noir. There are even those who adore the flat fenlands…But as we become accustomed to new environments, so we can come to love them too, as I do now the haphazard countryside I live in. And as the strange becomes familiar, so the desire for order and structure, the need for everything to be explicable and classifiable, diminishes, and we welcome rather than fear the unexpected and unmanaged. At least I do!

Challenge, celebration and chickenpox

All the discussion, opinion, ideas and views on the last three posts has been great and very stimulating. Brilliant!

This week has been extraordinarily busy and I haven’t yet had the time to absorb all the information and ideas.

My son Ben, his fiancée Bérengère, and their baby daughter Camille, are leaving to live in France tomorrow and have been staying with us over the last week not only as a farewell to us and the farm but also to be at my stepdaughter’s Civil Partnership ceremony. Camille developed chickenpox early in the week which nearly put the kybosh on both their travel plans and the family attending the wedding ceremony and  reception. But she’s scarcely been ill and no-one’s been worried by getting the virus. Add to that a house-full of family and friends, including Tony and 4-year old son Vincent over from Canada, a couple more calvings, multitudinous meat orders, testing weather and it’s all been pretty hectic. Not much time for writing!

The CPRE have provided me with a pdf of the Robert Elms’ piece that originally sparked off the posts ‘not so green and pleasant’,  ‘all things bright and beautiful’ and the subsequent discussion threads.

I would be most interested to hear from the man himself.

the future of our countryside

I’m writing another post on this subject spurred on by your comments. Perhaps too I did not make it clear where I was coming from. I’m waiting on the CPRE to find out if they can put Robert Elms’ article on line: if they can there’ll be a link.

The perception of the countryside, and the values we attach to it, vary as much as we do. Even if we’re broadly in agreement, the detail leads to plenty of healthy discussion! None of us holds quite the same views about the Enclosures, wind farms, badgers, hunting, subsidies, green belts, organic farming, gmos…

Just a tiny scrap of the British Isles is left untouched by human hand. We haven’t scarcely an iota of true wilderness left. Ours is a cultural landscape, a record of our history and social evolution. A palimpsest – love that word. And it will continue to change. In the next few decades I believe it will undergo as rapid a transformation as anytime before, apart from perhaps the clearance of the wildwood, through the demands of population growth, climate change, food security and energy generation, but that’s no excuse for not sharing our views on what the future of our landscape should be, so that collectively we can exert some shaping influence.

I’m not a naturally untidy or lazy farmer. Far from it, I’m cursed by obsessive industry. It’s all too easy for me to look at a beautiful farm and see only work to be done. I have farmed various types of land for over three decades and my ideals, passions and expectations have changed dramatically over the years. But I’ve never held sway with intensive agriculture and have always tried to the best of my ability to farm in harmony with the land. When farmer met environmentalist (Robert- husband) there was a meeting of minds on some aspects, but headlong clashes over others. I began to look at certain practices with different eyes, just as Robert began to better understand the needs of a farmer, his stock and crops. Fortunately for us, Locks Park could never be intensively farmed (come Armageddon I will have the greatest of difficulty to even grow a handful of cereal to feed the family) so compromise has not been too difficult.

Reading Robert Elms’ article I was struck not by his dismissal of the countryside (I couldn’t care a toss if he doesn’t want to live in it) but more by his observation of the boring sameness of it all. You see I agree. To me a lot of our countryside has become over manicured, bland and uninteresting. With mono-culture, horsiculture and diesel and unimaginative planning laws we are losing character and individuality.

Affluence is part of the problem. We no longer have to mend and make do. We have the cash to throw on the fertilisers, on all-powerful machines, on high tensile wire and smart new gates. You can tell so much about a place by looking at a single old wooden gate, repaired and patched over many years, lichen-smattered, so little from a brand new one.

Then there’s the legacy the Victorians left us, that cleanliness (neatness) is next to godliness. The inordinate desire the stamp our mark on every last square foot, to create order out of Nature’s chaos. Have you any idea how difficult it is to cut a field in wavy lines, so deeply ingrained is the need for everything to be straight and true? Many say that the sign of a good farmer is how neat his land is, but in my view we have to learn to think differently.

And that goes for environmentalists as well as farmers. How many times have I seen the soul of a beautiful place tamed and dulled by the well-meaning but misplaced views of some conservation organisation or another? The sort who believe that tacking an inconspicuous line of fencing wire to an oak tree or two is a sin, requiring instead a line of standard-spec yellow-green fencing to cut across the landscape like a slash across a Constable.

Am I the only one willing to speak up for the rusty tin roof, the abandoned harrow in the hedge, even the ruts in the lane?

A couple of days ago I sat on the bench in front of the house in a tee shirt and ate my lunch, I almost felt too hot. I cut the grass – and sweated. I flung open the windows and doors. Thousands of clusterflies emerged from the roof and the thatch tremmeled with their frenetic infuriating whine-buzz. The dogs looked for shade. The cows shouted expectantly – ‘had I forgotten turnout?’ The sheep could hardly be bothered to rouse themselves for their evening feed. And we cut our first asparagus.

Today there was no looking for midges flying over the sheep. No tea on the bench either. It was April Whiteout!

urban countryside?

I’ve just read an article in the CPRE’s spring edition of Countryside Voice by self-confessed city lover, Robert Elms, who can’t stand the ‘the dreary predictability of muddy little England’. Compared to ‘the buzz, thrill and noisy creative glory of a city’ to him the countryside is ‘a depressing rejection of all that in favour of safe, samey conformity’. And I find myself nodding in partial agreement. Too much of England has become over-sanitised, too safe, too uniform.
Often when Robert (husband) and I return to visit old walking haunts we are surprised to find how much they have changed. Gone are the haphazard pastures and meadows filled with a riot of dandelions and daisies. No more are there crumbling stone or earth banks, gaps stuffed with old bedsprings and handy corrugated iron. Gone is the decrepit rusty fencing tied up with fading fibrous pieces of bailer twine to the nearest gnarled stump of hedgerow bush. Gone too is the exhilarating feeling of a remote and wild place. In its place we find acre after acre of bottle-green nitrogen ryegrass, geometrically divided by straight, neatly trimmed hedges bounded by bright tight squeaky clean fencing. Smart tanalised styles, each with neat dog gate and sporting a brand new painted signpost. Barn conversions all following the same brown-window syndrome

I feel angry, upset and cheated. But, if I’m honest, I can remember thinking once that all that broken decay was a sign of shoddy farming! Okay, so our rush-infested fields and pastures are either a waterlogged, sink-sucking morass or an ankle-breaking, knee-twisting concrete with nothing inbetween, and they are exacting and unproductive, but we are blessed with a farm that has character. It is totally individual and exciting. So we resolve to leave that old dung-spreader where it was in the field corner, not to make any more hedgerows redundant through fencing them, to tolerate those thickets of brambles springing out here and there and to leave that muddy gateway where the house martins collect the mud for their nests.

Would Mr Elms, I wonder, find this countryside - wild, unkempt, unpredictable - a more interesting exchange for his culturally exciting, glorious buzzy urbanity? Or would he still feel all the countryside has to offer is various forms of soil?

to read the whole article see May edition of Devon Today

Checking the sheep yesterday I found green. Look! It’s just beginning…

Touches in the willows alongside the pond in First Rutleigh.

My wolf dog, Ness, waiting patiently whilst I looked for more signs of spring.

Amazing molinia - purple moor grass.