Monthly Archive

The cows are out! A huge and happy relief to all of us. A few days before, their unremitting bawling made me rush off to get some organic rolled barley from Roger. Roger was suffering from the same predicament. Cathartic commiseration was exchanged in the grain store.

Saturday was the day. We fed them early and had our breakfast while they packed away theirs. Organisation is the key. We knew they’d be over-excited and attempting to take them down the road in a highly volatile state would be too dangerous. They needed half a day in a home field to get rid of their pent up angst before being moved on to the grassy river meadows. First though we had to clip off an in-growing spur on one of Desiree’s horns – a cattle crush job - and pen off a couple of late calvers who will remain at the farm in Top Meadow, a stone’s throw from our kitchen window.

Gates in place, field decided upon, all inappropriate avenues of misdirection barricaded we were ready for the off….a red laval flow of jutting hip bones, moulting moth-eaten coats, snaking necks, cavernous maws and rubbery wet pink noses stampeded out of the cow palace; with saliva flying in whippy sticky streamers they bellowed and charged their way down the drive without a moment’s hesitation, calves ricocheting between flying legs and lethal hooves. It was over in seconds and in total surprise they found themselves in Cow Moor where grass is still a rarity. The bull, who seems to have doubled in size over the winter, and maiden heifers were the next to join the herd. This caused even more excitement, as heated sexual tension combined with testing hierarchical fights. Sweat and foam glistened, steam rose in huge huffing bursts.

A quick breather before hitching up the trailer and loading batches of young stock to take over to Pulworthy – the yearlings’ summer grazing lands. Surprisingly co-operative, we accomplished this in a couple of easy journeys, returning in good time to move the now chilled-out herd down the road.

They were exemplary. With heads down, grazing earnestly, we left them in the first river meadow and wandered off, relaxed and happy, to check gates and the wire across the drinking gully. Busily tightening the wire across the gap we were completely unaware that the herd had followed and were bearing down the gully in a heaving panting mass. Calves forsaken, their mothers single-mindedly exploded into the river with all the force of enormous red battle ships. Abandoned bewildered babies shouted at the retreating armada from the top of the river bank. Suddenly in unison and like wildebeest crossing the Mara they launched themselves into the deep river which completely submerged them, up they popped like corks and seemingly unphased they proceeded to swim after their fast disappearing mothers! I was paralysed with surprise and shock as was Robert, who clinging to submerged tree roots, had managed to get out of the way in the very nick of time!

“Did you see that? Did you see it?” he exclaimed “I couldn’t believe my eyes, it was just like the Serengetti! That’s extraordinary. And they weren’t concerned…they disappeared, went right under. Completely submerged, totally! Popped up and just swam as if they’d always done it. That is extraordinary. Quite, quite extraordinary.”

Having carefully checked over the herd we ushered them back into the first river meadow. Gradually peace was restored once more.
Where it reigns and reigns and reigns….
Ahhhhhh, bliss.

Locks Park is thought by some to be rather special. When visiting ecologists, environmentalists and conservationists ooh and ahh over our flower-filled meadows, the butterflies, birds and bees, the richness and diversity of the wildlife, hedgerows and pastures I feel privileged to live and farm such a piece of land. But I’m also made to feel culpable. When completing the infamous Higher Level Stewardship application I was brought to task over keeping sheep and ‘lost points’ as this is considered detrimental to the wildlife.
‘Bbbut’ I stammered ‘Sheep are good little farmers. They aerate the soils, break open rush clumps, encourage other plant species. Mixed grazing is important for many reasons too. And …’
I was cut short. Sheep, I was informed, eat flowers, so are unwelcome.
I also have too many cattle. More points lost. What about replenishing nutrients in depleted soils, sensitively of course, as in dung spreading and liming? Frowned upon.

I’m told that farms like this have always been subsistence farms. Minimal stock was kept, I mean just look at the buildings. Proves a point really.

I scratched my head and thought ‘I wonder. I’ll ask Elli’. Elli is the daughter of the couple we bought the farm from eighteen years ago. Elli is enthusiastic and a keen member of the community. Athletic, up before the crack of dawn and when not working all god’s hours she’s often seen cycling up three-in-one hills with her graceful dog Mel beside her. Her father, George, came to Locks Park when he was a small boy of six and seamlessly took over farming it from his father and mother when they retired. Elli has a deep affinity for the place. She remembers well the stories her grandparents and father told of their lives here. She reminisces on those fabled forever, long hot summers and winters of snow and icicles. Helping out on the farm throughout her childhood she continued even after she’d left and married running her sheep on the Rutleighs. She loves the place and I believe if circumstances had been different she would have gladly taken over from her parents.

I knew she would know exactly what was farmed here and how – it’s part of her very being, her core. “Well now, twenty-five to thirty milking cows. They were up at the house and in all winter. Followers, young stock and the like: we wintered them out on the bottom of Scadsbury. Never in. Again twenty-five to thirty. You know max, Paula.”

the out-wintering land, Scadsbury meadow

Scadsbury was forty acres of rented land. Land, unfortunately, we never managed to acquire, and the out-wintering field she was talking about is the most glorious ten acres of flower-filled culm.

“The cows were grazed at home on Top, Flop, Little Hill, Five Acres, Dung and Rushy. Followers continued over at Scadsbury, you know, when the grass came on in the better fields.”

She went on to say they never brought in any forage, cutting it all at Locks. Fertiliser, 20-10-10, was applied, sparingly of course, as well as lime and slag when needed.
“Even on Dillings?” I chip in. Dillings being our ultra special flower filled meadow.
“Yes, yes, of course.”
They used to bale up rushes for bedding and she can’t remember them ever buying in straw. “Nothing was ever tilled at Locks, too wet, not even in the war. Yes, I know I’m right, though I think they once did a small piece over Scadsbury and we must’ve baled that as straw.”

And sheep? “Oh, eighty ewes give or take.”’

So who’s right? These small, beautiful, diverse farms were working, commercial farms. We’ve been left a legacy that no money can create. Should we now treat their land as museum pieces – to be polished and treated with kid gloves, or should we too work them to provide food and income, allowing them to reflect the character of our age, not ages past?

An afterthought. I believe I’m trying to express my idea of what I feel is wondrous and astonishing. So let me try and find an analogy. To me true beauty in a human has nothing to do with the plastic nip and tucked, contrived, gleaming and polished doll-like exterior we are apparently meant to aspire to in today’s consumer-driven/celebrity-culture existence. True beauty is an extraordinary mix of the physical and metaphysical, the body and soul to use a well worn phrase. A magnetic pull towards a radiating working energy. Not a self-serving manufactured appearance deprived of age or history. So if you can translate these clumsy thought images to farms (the physical) and nature (the spirit) maybe you’ll have an inkling of what I’m trying to express.

flowers in Dillings

A quick update on the bluetongue information. Unfortunately there has been a technical hitch with converting the two Dutch power point presentations into pdfs. Andrew, who is very kindly doing this for me, is away on holiday this week, but as soon as he is back I’m sure that the problem will be resolved and we’ll be able to either upload the pdfs or give a link to them.

The good news is that I’m in contact with Karin from Pirbright who is keen to help and is willing put some information together for the blog. Though due to the warmer weather over the past week she has been extremely busy and won’t be able to do much before the weekend.

But, with a bit of luck, by next week I should have pulled together some useful sources of information that you will hopefully find helpful.

We still have no grass. I’m waiting patiently for the current warm weather to have its magic stimulating effect on the recalcitrant stuff. The cattle are not! As I write this, the perfect, here-at-last, golden-green evening is reverberating with deafening booming bellows, bouncing and crashing up from the yard just metres below me. This noise thunders around my head, twangs and plunks every taut stretched fibre in my body with insistent persistent discord. Of course this is exactly what it is meant to do. I, as number one food provider, am failing at my duty. The unrelenting bawling coupled with the compelling force of combined herd psyche is designed to send me into a spin, in much the same way as the cry of a newborn.

I’ll explain. Last year’s wet summer and very late harvest meant the forage we made was not as nutritious as usual. In the winter, when the cows are in-calf, this is not a problem. But now they are coping with the demands of their fast growing calves with an ever increasing need for milk. My cows are telling me they need plenty of accessible protein, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins as well as roughage, and last year’s haylage is not delivering. Fresh grass would!

Trouble is, the cold wet spring over the last two months has meant the ground is still soggy and producing little forage. Coupled with this, our landlord on the ground we normally turn out onto – our best drained land – has entered into an Environmental Stewardship Scheme which prohibits the use of round feeders. So we can’t put the cattle out just yet. It’s been a long winter, very nearly six months of looking after the herd indoors. And they are not stupid - they know full well they should be out by now - it’s close to summer and they can smell what fresh grass there is: it’s time to be munching that first delicious bite. So the psychological warfare escalates….