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winning smiles - Salar cow and calf
For the last two years the Okehampton Show, our local one day show, has been cancelled due to impossibly wet weather. If it was rained off again this year it wouldn’t survive.
As you can imagine the weather’s been minutely monitored. Certainly it appeared the forecast was better than July, but definitely not settled.
Tentatively, a week or so before the actual day, skeletons for the large marquees began to appear; cautiously, almost furtively, the show ground began to take shape…cattle lines, sheep and cattle pens, goat and pig tents, show rings, walk ways, beer tents, an army of porta-loos – every day a little more emerged. We scarcely dared look as we passed by – it was as if even looking was enough to tip the balance between rain or shine. Instead we sucked in our breath, crossed fingers and bit nails.
Nine days earlier the North Devon show made it…just, though conditions were far from easy. Talking to friends who’d been there showing we heard how stock trailers were unhitched, towed onto the show ground and left, dotted about randomly, in a sinking quagmire of churned mud…’Lucky’ Sally said ‘the only white bit in danger was the end of the cattle’s tail. Otherwise we’d have been in an even sorrier state!’
The night before Okehampton show it rained. I woke in the night to hear its patter-pittering on the leaves of the trees outside our bedroom window and the soft sighing hiss of waterlogged ground. The morning dawned in a grey shroud of misty drizzle. Though not, mercifully, torrential rain
Armed with wellies, hats, waterproofs and warmish clothes we set off. We’d planned to get there first thing as a cousin of Robert’s was paying us a visit in the afternoon. Even at that early hour the car parks were swelling; folk seemed determined to make the show a success come rain or shine.
A serious moment - judging a young Devon bull...
As we hung over the rails of the show ring the misty drizzle gathered itself up into a leaden sky – a bruising layer of cloud enveloped the tops of the tors. Uncertain fingers of sunlight hit the sides of the valley. For a few moments clouds and sun vied with one another when unexpectedly, so it seemed, the sun decided enough was enough and with determind force blistered its way through, burning back layer upon layer of cloud to sizzle and shine gloriously over the show for the rest of the day!
even dogs had to wear sunglasses in the glare!
Overheating and dripping with sweat in our rainy weather clothing, we squinted, smiled and laughed our way around the show ground bumping into a plethora of friends and those acquaintances that we generally see on occasions such as this. When it was time for us to leave we felt completely exhausted from the sheer exuberance of the event (and the heat!). As we drove away were amazed to see cars still pouring in. Hoorah! The Okehampton Show was a resounding success and lives to see another year…
young sheep handlers wait to be called...the 2nd in is a Dartmoor Whiteface two tooth and the end ram's a Whiteface too.
I’m back, I’m back! Well, actually I’ve been back since last Wednesday…but it’s been full on. We hit the ground running. So much has happened, with so much to tell that I’ve been stalling in the starting; consequently everything has backed-up into enormous unwieldy stacks. (I have a great analogy, but do forgive its bucolic nature. Sometimes when a freshly calved cow first comes into milk her udder becomes severely engorged. The pressure is so great it prevents the milk from flowing through the teat freely; the newborn calf finds it difficult to get milk out so stops sucking, exacerbating the problem. One needs to completely strip the affected quarters out, release the pressure, relax the valves and start again…so, that’s where I am – just about to begin the stripping out and trying to establish a smooth seamless written flow!)
Leaving the farm at any time of year is difficult, but during the second half of June it’s particularly so as I’m generally gearing up for haylage and hay making. Following the last two diabolical wet weather years I’m even more jittery than usual. Ideally I need to make enough good quality first-cut haylage before the end of June to allow sufficient growth for a second cut at the end of August. So before we left I’d had long searching talks with my contractors, and it was decided that they would go ahead with haylaging if the weather set fair.
We left chaotically early in the morning. Matt and Clare, our friends, had kindly moved in to look after the farmhouse, dogs and stock.
The journey to France was as uneventful as any journey could be herding a large gaggle of adults and children. Arrived at Avignon, we successfully sorted out hire cars and proceeded to our B & B (a large beautifully dishevelled bastide) with the aid of God (our purposely acquired satnav). It was stunningly hot, 36C or so the car said, and humid…new babies, new mums and super-hyped three year olds were feeling the strain.
the front of the bastide where we were staying...our apartment was down on the left
The Madam de la domaine could speak not a stitch of English but ‘understood’ my expressive gesticulating and stuttering franglaise. This prompted her to talk to me fast and in great depth about all things. I gathered we were short of a room…but she could possibly help out, otherwise we were going to have to double-up in the apartment. Swift instructions were given as to where the supermarche was, the boulangerie, the butcher, the gasoline, the candlestick maker; everything in fact we could wish for.
our apartment at the domain de vallbrillant
I returned to the family who were exploring our apartment. From the shady gravelled courtyard a pair of imposing french doors led into a large spacious living area where an enormous covered pool table acted as a multi-use surface for everything from cooking, eating, sorting, storing to baby changing…leading off this were the bedrooms, architecturally intriguing but unfortunately for us Anglo-Saxons completely dark and windowless! We came to the conclusion that this whole area under the main bastide must have once served as a store or kitchens. From the courtyard we looked down over lawns to an impressive soft-yellow sandstone surround swimming pool. The gardens were bordered by ripe barely fields bleached to wheaten paleness, with a small wooded hill beyond. To the left we had the most stunning views of St Victoire, Cezanne’s mountain, ever-changing from the softest dove grey through washed-out blues into rose quartz pink, magenta and deep palettes of purple.
St Victoire - the intense brightness has unfortuneately killed the photo somewhat
Robert, Olly and I made our way to the shops indicated by Madame to find food for supper and stock up on basics. Still hot even though it was early evening, roads and buildings shimmered, the sound of cicadas swelled as we passed roadside trees and bushes, the smell of sun-baked earth and astringent herbs filled our nostrils. It was so different, so very different from the damp, tangled greenness of Locks Park.
Gwen with her new calf observing Ginny's behaviour. It's such a commical photo!
As my son’s family turned up, jet-lagged and travel-worn from New Zealand with brand new baby Isla and electric three year old Theo, so did the broken-washing-machine-fix-it-man and, on cue, my last very expectant calving cow started bawling in the field. Though desperately wanting to drink in and savour every minute of their arrival the intensity of the moment was shoved to one side as we manhandled broken washing machine into the van (it wasn’t an easy mend) followed by a hasty kiss and hug and a sprint down the lane to bawling cow.
Bawling cow, Ginny, assured us she’d had her calf and it was now lost.
“That cow hasn’t calved” I said
“LOST,” she bellowed “lost.”
It’s in the brambles, over there! NO, no, no, in the ditch, drowning in the DITCH. GET IT OUT NOW! Silly, silly, it ’s stuck in that rush clump. No not there, it had squiggled through the fencing and was bouncing about two fields away. GET MY CALF.
We searched, we waded, we crawled, we prodded, we poked. Just in case…
“That cow hasn’t calved” I said
“Yes I jolly well have” she shouted “AND I’ve lost it”
We eventually left her. We dashed back up the lane to fling arms around the travellers and to settle them into home. We answered a million and one questions about tractors, bobcats, diggers and chainsaws (Theo), welcomed gorgeous tiny baby Isla into the world and shared a garbled eighteen months of news and scandal with Joe and Jess. The cow continued irrepressibly in the background.
“I’ll go check on her quickly.” And off I trotted down the lane. She hadn’t progressed much and a small piece of deflated membrain hung limply from her vulva. I couldn’t feel what was going on so decided to move her up to the cow palace. Moving a cow out of a field and up a lane away from her group and her ‘new-born-calf’ (she was convinced) is not easy. But patience and coercion works in the end, if very slowly…
Little by little I cajoled her out of the field and up the lane to the shed where Robert helped me get her into a pen.
Now I had her in a small enough space to do an internal examination. I was expecting a malpresentation, a dead calf or something that was grossly deformed. Holding my breath I found a fore leg…and then another, groped around and felt the nose and mouth – all fine and dandy. It must be dead…I pinched the pastern…it moved!
I looked up at Robert “It’s alive!” I beamed “It’s alive, though quite a size.” Fiddling about inside I said “I’m going to put the ropes on. She’s not pushing very vigorously either. Let’s go for it. Get it out. It’s getting late too.”
I didn’t have too much trouble attaching the ropes as she wasn’t bearing down hard…and then we began pulling.
The stimulation started much better contraction too. She lay down and with every contraction we eased the calf forward. Luckily she’s an older cow with a roomy pelvic opening, this was one big fellow. We eased the head out and then with a final tremendous heave from Ginny the shoulders and body followed.
He was fine lad. Ginormous and perfect. I cleaned the mucus away from his airways and after a couple of laboured gulps he began a steady rhythmic breathing. Ginny was up within a couple of seconds licking him enthusiastically and lowing softly. After an hour or so I went to help him onto the teat so I would know he’d had a good belly full of colostrum before I went to bed.
Tomorrow I hoped for an uneventful, enjoyable, long awaited catch up day with my family. But….
..and Willow! Watching from a safe distance.
Yesterday I started lambing – at 5.15am precisely!
new born ram lamb
The weather couldn’t have been better, gentle, mild and, most importantly, dry. Three ewes got on with the business almost simultaneously.
Last autumn I made the decision to sell a large proportion of my flock. My sheep were finding it harder and harder to manage on our land as a result of two unprecedented wet years. If summer was a problem, winter was going to be worse.
I kept back a nucleus of flock-aged ewes and a dozen ewe lambs just in case. You see my sheep, being a hill breed, are hefted, or leared, onto my land and are familiar with my system; if I go back into sheep farming it’s vital that years of flock knowledge isn’t lost.
Tail 1 lambing
One of the ewes I kept back was Dot, the wise old matriarch and also a pair of her two-tooth twins, known as the Tails – 1 and 2. I would like to say I kept their tails long so they could be easily identified, though in truth it was one of those lambing-exhaustion oversights. Still it’s been useful, as they weren’t sold and didn’t go for meat. I was hoping they had inherited some of their mother’s exceptional genetic traits.
cleaning her newborn
Tail 1 lambed today. She handled her labour skilfully and calmly, giving birth to the first of her twins standing up. Without hesitation she set about cleaning her baby, nickering and mumbling to her with total concertration and tenderness; she manoeuvred herself into an easy-udder-access position as soon as her lamb began to nuzzle search for the teat. Once her first newborn had sucked and was belly-full warm, she got on with giving birth to the second twin, taking just as much care as well as maintaining contact and giving reassurance to the first. What a first lamber! The beginning of ‘Dot’s Dynasty’ (yes, Tail 1’s twins are ewe lambs)!
finding the udder
I am hopelessly behind. I know I have a legitimate excuse but the things-that-must-be-done mound doesn’t get smaller – it just keeps growing!
The leaver is pulled, my head spins wildly like a fruit machine, then slows to a juddering stop. And the jackpot? Three Cherries? Three Lemons? Three Oranges? No, and no spewing waterfall of bounty either. My fruits are Mucking Out Cow Palace, Lambing Preparations, Straw Delivery, Soil Association Inspection or yet another TB Test. (We are contiguous with infected herds, they say, and must now be tested every six months – but we have been contiguous, no, cirtiguous for ages, and this test will be right in the middle of calving…)
mucking out the cow palace
After landing three Straw Delivery fruits on Thursday, on Friday I pulled the jackpot of Cow Palace Mucking Out . So it was all hands on deck to get the job done and dusted by the afternoon, so cows could be returned to a sparkly clean and carpeted palace in time for imminent calving.
These are savvy cows. Instead of the usual thunderous explosion out of the cow palace, a decorous bunch of gigantic pregnant galleons swayed rhythmically down the lane. Memories of deep frozen wastes still fresh in their minds, they were not too sure if they wanted to spend another day banished to hostile lands without food or water. They need not have worried: temporary accommodation was available in Silage barn with all basic mod cons laid on.
Meanwhile back at the ranch all was a hive of activity and in record time we’d mucked out, hosed down, scraped and swept up, re-hung gates, bedded down and fed up.
making the muck heap
On their return, no longer worried about possible banishment, they took time to take in and consider the state of the surrounding countryside, adjust their rather uncomfy corsets, pull nonchalantly at hedgerow ferns or straying binds of ivy and discuss the merits of employing full-time staff 24/7 365 days a year.
After a cursory look at their gleaming accommodation and dragging a haughty hoof along the feed barrier to check for clinging grunge they got down to the all important task of eating, belching, breaking wind and dunging…just to give it back that lived-in appeal!
building sand castles?
The next day my lucky strike was Lambing Shed preparations…
In a blur - cutting against the clock. our little blue tractor whizzes around Out Across
This is a first. Never ever in the years I’ve been farming have we topped fields in January! Yes, I’ve experienced cold spells before, though these have generally been accompanied by snow or wetness of some sort and very often wind. Never before has the ground gone rock hard, hard enough to drive a tractor over without marking it. And, of course, we haven’t actually needed to top in the depths of winter as this has been done and dusted during spring, summer and autumn.
This week meadows we’ve been unable to touch for almost two years have, in the last couple of days of sub zero temperatures (and lack of precipitation since before Christmas), become frozen enough for us to cut. We’re hoping for a permanent freezing death of the rush – yes, forever dreaming, forever hopeful.
topping Out Across on 7 january 2009. A first!
We have only a small window of opportunity. The thaw is expected and we’re trying to top around ten fields and bits of others. It was -5C when I took this photo, during the night and early morning of the 7th January the temperature dropped to -8C.
Mosaic topping of Five Corners
This is Five Corners, one of my favourite fields, secret and unexpected, bursting with wildlife and a hunting haunt of our barn owls. We top this pasture in a mosaic so as to leave cover for the owls’ prey and other wildlife.
topping, topping, topping, topping!
Last week I received a letter from Natural England.
As some of you maybe aware we were refused Higher Level Stewardship (HLS) when our Countryside Stewardship agreement ended almost two years ago; this despite the fact the farm, a county wildlife site, heaves with wildlife.
Briefly, for those of you new to my blog, I was not a happy bunny and set about trying to find out the reason why we’d been refused. It may appear trivial to some but an HLS agreement is gold dust on marginal lands. Locks Park never has, and never will be, a profitable cereal/intensive livestock farm; our cold waterlogged inhospitable clay soils sees to that. What Locks Park is able to do is generate a profusion of nature, support a herd of native, indigenous Red Ruby Devon cattle, a flock of Whiteface Dartmoor sheep and produce superb beef and lamb. It is also used to train and teach people a variety of different management skills for those interested in farming – or those who advise farmers, with the environment, wildlife and a quality product in mind.
Bristling with indignation, I bristled even more when I found there was an astonishing pot of money available for HLS agreements and yet there were a large number of smaller farms up and down the country in a similar situation to us. Why? An administrative cock up! It was easier to award those huge highly productive estates and pension fund farms an additional sugar-sweet honey pot rather than work at putting the money where it was most needed (and would be best used for the environmental benefits for which it was intended), to those thousands of marginal family farms trying to eke a out a living and all too willing to do their bit for the environment.
I made a noise. We reapplied. We were turned down again. Flabbergasted I tackled Helen Phillips, Natural England’s Chief Executive. The mountain quivered; a small hot stream of lava erupted. I thought we’d blown our bridges. We held our breath. Specialists were sent in to re-evaluate our farm a couple of months ago…
…And last week I received a letter from Natural England.
the long awaited letter
For those of you not quite sure what it’s actually saying (I wasn’t) – here’s the punch line.
and the message is...Yes!
Yes, yes yes! It looks as if we’ve got it! Bang on the floor! Whistle, clap! Open a bottle, jump up and down! Hoorah!
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