Tag Archives: sheep

Where did it go?

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This weekend, the house was full of enormous men reading maps and talking about Land Rovers.  Our annual adventure to the Sahara is drawing closer, and they were here to discuss routes, and suitable dunes to camp beneath etc.  When it comes to food they like quantity above all else, so the kitchen was full of steaming pots brimming with chilli.

In among everything I tiptoed out to the computer to upload my latest blog, and discovered to my bleak horror that my website had disappeared and in its place was a bland message full of acronyms telling me to download my feeder (I think) and various other incomprehensible messages.

And I realised again the disadvantage of growing up before technology changed the world.  My childhood was spent deep in the country and mainly outdoors.  Television was there for the evenings, I loved Batman and something called Snowy White Horses, but you only watched it for a few minutes and then rushed off and did something real.  There were books in plenty:  we had a huge haunted library which I didn’t like to linger in, but would grab an armful of books ancient and modern from the long, dusty shelves and bear them away to my lair under an old dresser in a disused kitchen.  It all sounds gothic and strange from a distance, but it was entirely normal to me.

Anyway, back to the point of this blog.  If I encounter a sheep on its back, or a horse on three legs or a goose that is walking backwards (all of these have happened in the last month) I have a pretty good idea what to do.  I’d like to think I could sort it, and probably wouldn’t need help.  But confronted by a screen telling me that my website had gone walkabout and it was probably all my fault, and hearing in the distance the large men trying to find where I’d put the apple crumble, I hadn’t a clue how to proceed.

Mikey, my eldest son and IT man, has inherited the adventure gene and is far, far away.  By texting I contacted him (how I love texting, it can reach him in the furthest flung places which often have better reception than I do in these nearly-Cotswold hills) and he made his way to a computer which every town seems to have no matter how improbable.  And he got my website back.  Huzzah!

I suppose I can console myself with the knowledge that I am unrivalled at digging sickly chicks out of their eggs.  But actually (let it be whispered) it would be far more useful to be able to grapple with a vanished website.  Far, far more useful.

Bad Harry gets fatter

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Yesterday I had a spectacularly busy day doing things entirely unrelated to animals.  In the evening we were going to the theatre in Bath (happens once a year) and I had a small window of opportunity to feed the animals before putting on my pretties.

There has been an uneasy relationship between the sheep and Indie ever since he arrived and though now he’s getting his spontaneity under control, the sheep still don’t trust him an inch.  The moment I walked through the gate with Indie trotting soberly at heel, a halo gleaming very obviously over his black and white head, the more impressionable sheep formed into a panicky posse and started to do laps of the field at warp speed.  Indie and me ignored them and headed for the hay barn.

There I found Slip who was doing short sprints in random directions, which is what he does when things aren’t right in his world.  I thought he had been spooked by the sheep.  But no.  He was trying to tell me that Harry had been Bad.

Bad Harry had somehow managed to lift the gate of the hay barn off its hinges, walk carefully over it and gorge himself on hay.  ‘Gorge’ is the only word that does justice to a big fat hairy horse eating as much as he can fit in the shortest possible time.  He’d cunningly positioned himself so his enormous bottom was blocking the door and Slip couldn’t fit round to reach any of the hay.  And Slip was hungry.

So I pushed Harry out, who was as easy to shift as a well-upholstered block of granite, and lifted the gate back onto its hinges.  And I tried to clear up the mess that used to be a neat pile of precious hay, being carefully eked out until the Spring grass arrives.  And I gave Slip some hay.  And although Harry had eaten so much that he looked like an enormous fluffy pom-pom, he still waddled over and took Slip’s hay.  So I had to bring Slip indoors to eat his hay without Fatso making faces at him.

And then I dimly realised that the sheep were still zooming around the field like racehorses, only now they were accompanied by a black and white pirate who had got bored watching me wrestling with fat horses and decided that as the sheep were the most exciting thing going on, he’d join them and make their life more exciting still.

To cut a long story short, we were just in time for the play which was excellent (‘Noises Off’, very funny).  But the animals were no help at all, none of them.

Indie. A pirate.

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Apart from Flat Whippets, I haven’t written about Indie for a while and this is an oversight because he is quite something.  For a whippet he is most unusual, as he is afraid of nothing and he is never cold.  But then there is his alter ego – the Black Moth, a pirate.  And for a pirate he is completely typical, swashbuckling around the place looking for treasure to pillage.  Yesterday’s booty, for example, was the whistle out of the Aga kettle:  he seized it from the kitchen worktop and sailed off into the garden with it where he presumably made it walk the plank, because it was never seen again.  Now the kettle has no whistle, and keeps boiling dry.

He is growing into a very beautiful whippet, shining black with white extremities.  The overall effect is of a dog wearing immaculate evening dress, including white gloves all round.  Training goes in leaps and bounds:  he is intelligent and knows what is wanted, but the question is whether he will bend his proud spirit to do what is required.  Pirates are like that – they don’t do mindless obedience.

We’re coming to an agreement that hens and sheep are off limits when it comes to piratical activity.  Geese, on the other hand, he sees as fair game.  When the Black Moth sees geese heaving over the horizon, he puts his vessel on war footing, loads his cannons and he’s away.  You can practically see the cutlass between his teeth and his gold earring glinting as he prepares to board the enemy.  The geese are well up for it, every one of them a scurvy varmint.  Then we have the grand naval battle, with Porous (gander) firing all cannons at the Black Moth, who leaps, laughing, out of the way and then swings in out of the sun on the rigging, his cutlass dripping with the blood of the unwashed.  Anyway, it’s very noisy and usually ends with the Black Moth insolently chewing up a cast-off feather just out of reach of the hysterical geese.

Indoors, he tends to put off his piracy (apart things like the kettle whistle, just to keep his hand in) and is a delightful chap to have around the place.  He is polite, clean in his habits and excellent company.  He confers style on a chair just by lounging on it.  The Labradors regard him with mixed emotions: they are very fond of mild mannered Indie, but when he hoists the skull and crossbones, they retreat to their baskets and don’t venture out until the Black Moth has hung up his cutlass for the day.

RIP Pippa (a sweet hen)

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“We are as gods to the beasts o’ the field …We order the time o’ their birth and the time o’ their death.  Between times, we ha’ a duty.”  The words of Granny Aching, written by the great Terry Pratchett.

I’m with Granny Aching all the way – ‘We ha’ a duty’.  And the duty which I ha’ is the duty to keep the animals in my care well-fed and well cared-for, and that indefinable quality:  happy.  A hen can be as happy as a very obviously happy Labrador, in her own way.  A Labrador will show its delight in life by galumphing in circles around the garden, picking up socks and waggingly presenting them to you, and bouncing around your legs when its time for a walk.  A hen will show it by enjoying long, luxurious dust baths, by preening, and by gazing up at you, confident and bright-eyed when she feels that meal time may be approaching.

Sheep, too, have the most heart warming ways of demonstrating that all’s right with the world.  I’ve just come in from feeding my little flock, and when they spotted me they went bananas – galloped towards me, then paused to bounce for a while with stiff legs.  When they reached me they jumped right up in the air like animated fur coats, bubbling up with joy that I was there, and about to feed them.  Even the old girls, who will be 11 this year, were behaving like carefree lambs, and that’s the way I like it.

This helps enormously when things go pear-shaped.  I went to let out the hens this morning and found that a weasel had insinuated itself through the tiniest gap between the door and door frame and killed one of my favourite hens -  Pippa, one of last year’s chicks, golden with a white crest, who loved being picked up and carried about, and who had just started laying her long white eggs.  The weasel had ignored (of course) the tough old battleaxes who stopped laying long ago and now just exist to eat and gossip, and had taken the pick of the flock.  I should be used to it by now, but somehow I never am.

But at least as I buried her, having blocked up the gap, I knew that Pippa had a great time on this earth.  I ordered the time of her birth (she was born in an incubator) though I didn’t order the time of her death, far from it.  But during her short life I know very well that she had as much fun as a hen can have, and she never knew want or cruelty.  That was my duty, and it’s strangely comforting to know that I fulfilled it.

Happy New Year!

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Well, that was fun!  We’ve had a lovely Christmas holiday, and I do hope you did too.  Here there was holly, tinsel, carols etc, but because we live in a rural village in the middle of nowhere there was also Frank’s ram who got bored with his pallid ranks of identikit white wives, escaped from his field and went in search of exotic new love.  He ended up in Julia’s garden besottedly chasing her fluffy little orange dog round and round the flower beds.  We all rallied to corner and remove him, but the little dog Frimble is apparently still having nightmares.  Frank’s ram is one tough dude and Frimble is petite and impressionable.

Back here we consumed mountains of turkey/Christmas pudding etc and went on numerous family walks in the mud.  I’m always fascinated by the footwear my relations bring when they visit us.  Some know what they’re letting themselves in for and bring workmanlike wellies, suitable for sliding about in glutinous squelch.  Others bring novelty wellies, decorated with pictures of dogs/roses/love hearts etc which they don’t really want to get dirty.  Big mistake.  Others still bring nice leather boots, saying breezily that they’ve been for lots of walks in them and they are much more comfortable than wellies.  I can well believe this, but as they pick their shrinking way around puddles and watch in horror as the mud works its inexorable way up their legs and through any zip or buckle hole it can find, I rejoice in my solid green wellies.  They are not a pretty sight, but they are great at keeping Wiltshire on the outside and my feet warm and dry in the inside.

Probably my favourite Christmas moment was watching an aunt cradle Indie (whippet puppy) on her lap while she talked to her next door neighbour and while Indie gently and scientifically removed one of her dangly earrings (mercifully made for an unpierced ear).  Once he had secured it he launched himself smoothly off her lap and set off on multiple laps of the sitting room triumphantly flourishing the earring while we all blundered after him, knocking over small tables and bowls of nuts etc in our haste to relieve him of the earring before he swallowed it or inserted it down a crack between the floorboards.  He spat it out eventually as it was hampering his progress, but the great Christmas Earring Indie Chase was an excellent way of shaking down the mince pies.

So here we are in 2013.  Happy New Year to all of you – may it be a joyous one!

CL Xmas Fair – there and back again

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Well, I’m back!  The Country Living Christmas Fair was quite amazing – I’ve never seen so many Christmas tree decorations/silk scarves/cinnamon candles etc and (this is important) so many people buying them, in my life.  I’ve been to plenty of Christmas Fairs in my time, but this really took the biscuit.  And of course it was great to be part of it, and siphon off some of the happy shoppers to come and listen to me burbling about my book, and the people and animals that made it happen.

It’s a lovely thing to be able to talk about something close to your heart, and have an audience who laughs with you, and shows genuine interest in the pretty pictures up on the screen.  If any of you are reading this, thank you for being there and special thanks with extra gold stars to the brave souls who asked questions afterwards.

But when I had finished my talks, and signed my books, and threaded my way out through the exit with a steady stream of people carrying Christmas presents for the masses in bulging carrier bags, and trundled along on the tube and then leaped onto a train at Paddington, and finally got home – my, it was good to stand on the bridge over the stream and just let the sounds and scents of the countryside wash over me.

Home brings you back to earth, too.  I was still on a bit of a high, as I stood on the bridge, but there were the geese to shut in.  And the hens.  And the sheep to find in the darkness and check.  And Slip wanted an apple, and Harry bit Slip because he wanted one first so Slip needed his injured feelings soothed.  And the dogs were pleased to see me, but reminded me that it was actually their supper time.  And for the cat too.  And when I was slow with supper, Scarab brought a mouse indoors instead and let it go.  And then we had a mouse hunt around the kitchen with the mouse leading and going like the clappers pursued by me and the dogs (Scarab had lost interest in the mouse when he placed it on the floor:  he was just making a point anyway).  I opened the kitchen door, and the mouse shot through it and into the night, and by then the glamour of London was a distant memory.

So I’m back and it was fab.  And to coin a phrase (John Denver?) “gee but it’s great to be back home!”

 

 

Rain (again)

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Rain.  It’s always at the forefront of my mind at the moment.  I’m sure I can remember a time when green, trembling Spring developed into glorious warm Summer followed by mellow golden Autumn then by crisp icy Winter but all we seem to get in this particular corner of England is grey soggy sameness.  Whatever the time of year it’s damp, mild-ish, grey/white skies, heavy dew and usually drizzle.

This morning for instance I struggled into wellies, coat, hat to go and do the round of feeding and checking animals.  A horse came past and a friendly voice hailed me, and when I looked up all I could see was a cone of Gortex riding along.  Could have been anybody – all identifying features of both horse and rider were swathed in waterproofs.  It’s like living in a grey-tiled bathroom with the shower constantly dribbling cold-ish water down on us.

The English, bless them, rise to the occasion.  We still plan fetes, garden parties, shows and ploughing matches and either trudge about in them underneath serious hats and umbrellas saying things like “I’m sure they said it was going to improve by teatime”, or if they get cancelled “do you remember five years ago?  It was lovely then”.  But really, by the law of averages, we deserve just a little let up soon.

We have a sort of stream running through the property.  I say ‘sort of’ because it’s a winterbourne – only flows in the winter months.  In between it’s just a grassy ditch in which lambs like to hide and then jump out to surprise their mothers.  Not this year though: it’s run steadily since April.  In a way it’s nice, because as time goes by it looks more and more stream-like and I start to wonder when the first minnows and crayfish will arrive.  But it’s not spring-fed, it’s just a drainage ditch and it’ll never really be a proper stream.  It’s a shame for this year’s lambs.  Without a ditch to play tigers in they were at a loose end until I brought a bale of straw into the field for them.  Then they played king of the castle instead, until the bale gave up the unequal struggle and exploded, and their mothers boringly ate it.

The horse field is mud, and the sheep field is dripping grass, and the hens are on strike because their dust baths aren’t dusty.  The geese love it, and spaddle about in the puddles sneering at all the less aquatic animals.  The dogs are continually getting muddy up to their armpits and coming indoors and shaking messily over everything.  Cat gets wet and zips rapidly upstairs and onto somebody’s bed where he cleans himself thoroughly and transfers the debris to the duvet cover.  And my wellies leak.  Please come back, sun, you are so badly missed!

An exciting morning (yes, really!)

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We’ve just had a very exciting morning.  Exciting that is, for a very small village in a very rural area of Wiltshire.  No rockets were launched, no crowds did Mexican waves, no fanfares were blown, but (for us) it was still very exciting.  An unfeasibly enormous lorry drove down the tiny lane next to our field and knocked down a low hanging ash tree.  The tree, less than enthusiastic about being knocked down, dived through the lorry’s windscreen and came to a halt about an inch from the startled lorry driver’s face, where it stuck, waving its leaves at him.

The lorry driver was unhurt, but shocked.  The sheep were fascinated and clustered around the gate, trying to reach the enormous quantities of ash leaves (their favourite) which were suddenly becoming available.  The only way the lorry driver could get to our cottage for a Nice Cup of Tea (the great British relief in time of trouble) was through our field, as the lane was blocked by the tree.  I opened the gate for him but he stopped dead, looked worriedly at the sheep and asked a truly urban question:  “Do they bite?”

I explained that one of the glories of sheep is that they don’t bite, or kick, or anything nasty at all.  I even opened Foxy’s mouth to show him her nice safe gums on the upper row.  He wasn’t convinced, and sidled worriedly along the hedgerow until he could get back out again.  He didn’t like the dogs, and he didn’t like the geese (for good reasons, they are awful to strangers).  What he did like, and what brought his pulse rate right back down to normal aided by the tea, were the hens.

They are looking particularly winsome at the moment, especially the frizzles who are adorable in a pretty mass of frills.  “Cor, get a load of them!!” said the lorry driver happily, and drank his tea in the henrun, surrounded by a rim of hens gazing up adoringly at him (he shared his biscuit with them).

He’s gone now, and soon Frank will arrive with his chainsaw and cut up the tree for some free and excellent firewood.  It’s the end of our excitement, but the lorry driver’s parting thought is that he is going to breed frizzles in his backgarden.  Lovely little things, he reckons,  and the wife will be well-chuffed.  Just keep him well away from those killer sheep!

 

A fun morning on the smallholding

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Our main field usually contains the following:  Slip (horse) mild-mannered but sensitive; Harry (horse) equine sofa in build and temperament; Lupin, Foxy, Coco, Brazil (sheep) plus random lambs.  Yesterday morning, very early, I looked out to discover that it contained an unknown Highland mare and foal and absolutely nothing else.

I raced out to the field at about the same time that the sheep reappeared in a tight flock, going like the clappers back through a gap between my field and our neighbours’, where no gap was meant to be.  In the distance but unseen I could hear Slip having nervous hysterics.  This was not how I had intended to start my day.

I rapidly discovered that the gate to the next door field had been pushed over (I suspect Harry rubbing his tail against the bars, he’s a big chap and the gate probably couldn’t take the strain), and every equine within sight had decided to change fields.  Then they all got very excited, and as I didn’t want an Incident I quickly pulled the gate upright and tied it shut.

After a texting conversation with my neighbour I learned that the mare and foal (Morag and Mabel) had just arrived from Scotland, and that my neighbour was at a show all day so couldn’t help.  Morag was having the best morning of her life, and now zoomed over to interview my sheep, who did a starburst and disappeared at speed to all points of the compass.  Meanwhile Slip continued to bellow from a distant field – he likes the idea of going somewhere new, but actually in his heart he is a home-boy.  Then my geese heard the sounds of stress and destruction and sailed in under the fence to improve the shining hour by chasing any sheep or horse that came near them.

At this point it started to rain heavily.  I’ll spare you more details, but I went next door, caught Harry who was doing his sofa-impression in the middle of the field then caught Slip who was quivering in a corner, and led them back by the road.  I managed to trap the sheep in another of my fields and shut the gate before they could all rocket out again, and I took the gate down so that Morag and Mabel could go back into their own field.  And I managed to tempt my honking, flapping geese back into their orchard with some corn.  And it took me the entire morning.  And, to cut a long story short, this is why I didn’t blog yesterday!

Sun! Yes, really!

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It’s happened!  The sun is shining and (you can’t always take this for granted) it’s warm with it.  Not hot yet, that would be too much to hope for, but the forecasters are quietly confident that we may yet ‘bask’.  And basking would be nice after so much shivering and sheltering.

The village has burst into colourful life after months of hibernating under grey skies swollen with rain.  Over the weekend my neighbours split into traditional roles, easily and naturally and without discussion.  Mars dug out the lawnmower/strimmer/any other power tool that he could seize and make noise with, and roared about the garden cutting things down.  Venus either made a trip to the farm shop if she could be bothered and bought steaks/burgers/BBQ chicken portions or disinterred frozen sausages from the very bottom of the freezer and in both cases gave them to Mars to burn on the barbecue.

Sun umbrellas were erected.  People tried to remember how to mix a Pimms, and some of the loudest jollity came from the gardens where people had forgotten and got the proportions wrong.  And Mr Addington appeared in a pair of empire-building shorts that were belted just beneath his armpits and reached nearly down to his ankles.  For months now he has been telling anybody who would listen that a second ice age is on its way and we are doomed.  Yesterday he was flagging down passers-by and telling them that global warming has now arrived and we are doomed.

Meanwhile every farmer in the vicinity has leaped aboard their biggest tractor and taken to the lanes and fields.  Most cut their hay yesterday, though some waited another 24 hours for the unprecedented sun/ breeze combo to transform lakes back into meadows.  I’m just back from walking the dogs, and the air is full of the unforgettable, primal, glorious smell of drying grass.

As for my animals, we have mixed reviews on the change in the weather.  The hens are thrilled, and are lying about in attitudes with their wings fanned out, sunbathing.  The sheep say it’s Too Hot and have withdrawn to the back of the field shelter.  The horses, though swaddled in fly rugs and face masks, are the centre of a buzzing mass of flies and have joined the sheep in the field shelter.  The dogs are two black lumps in the shadow of a crab apple tree, and Scarab the cat is sun-worshipping from the depths of a cat mint bed.

In fact it’s fab here right now.  Looks good, smells great, and helps me remember all over again why, despite everything, North Wiltshire can be a sort of earthly paradise.  Once the mud has dried up.