Recent content by Anton Coaker Blog

Cows in river I haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention to the discussion about the pro-Palestinian/ anti-Israel demonstrations in London of late. But the bit of the chat has caught my ear is that those who want such demonstrations curtailed also mention restricting the activities of the...

My Festive Feelings (27.12.2023) My festive feelings of peace and joy have been somewhat tempered by the extant meteorological conditions. A warming ambivalence to one and all is harder to sustain when yet another morning dawns with raging winds and driving rain. I suppose looking out of the...

OK. The Fursdon Review (19.12.2023) Or whatever it’s titled. Eminent worthy David Fursdon – and he’s a thorough, decent and intelligent man- pulled together an esteemed panel, and examined what’s been going on up here, regarding Natural England’s attempts to drive most of the remaining...

Alpine Trails The morning after last week’s South Tyrolean cattle herding experiences I seemed to have developed a fairly epic headache, residual feelings of nausea, and for reasons unknown, quite notable dehydration. I expect this was all that thin mountain air, or something. Still, a...

Vols Almabtrieb And so, as instructed I found my way to a little town hanging on the side of the 8000’ Dolomite, the ‘Schlern’. There, I presented myself at the coffee bar indicated at 8am sharp, clutching the hazel stick I brought through airport security, 2 flights, 2 trains, and several...

Some sun at last Well it was nice that someone turned the sun on again for a few days at last. Unsurprisingly, every bit of mowablegrass left to cut now has been. There are 3 separate teams working on 3 sites, and we’re all running round like blue-ended flies getting it all baled and saved. I...

Ganga Rolf I’m afraid I didn’t get overly excited about the corrugation- I was busy working right through. Although I’m a staunch fan of the King, I really can’t be doing with all the pomp and ceremony. I’d be just as impressed if he were crowned with a simple unadorned ring of beaten Cornish...

Coincidences are funny things. Two or more quite unrelated things come along together, seemingly in unlikely synchronicity. Events that look uncannily connected sometimes just happen at the same time by random chance. As you know, I graze upon various sciences, and remind you that it was long...

Net buiodivesity gain How nice, hundreds more delegates have flown half way round the world to discuss how we’re destroying the world. This time, they felt compelled to wring their hands specifically about the loss of biodiversity. And rightly so, it’s criminal what we’re doing to this spinning...

Chicken Licken said the sky is falling down ‘Oh no’ cried Chicken Licken, ‘the sky is falling’. And in this case it was, cos poor old Chicken Licken had the avian flu, and all of her mates had to be culled. I don’t know much about it, but could take some guesses. Birds, which make a tasty meal...

Lawn Mowings A dry week has seen me out mowing the last grass cropsof the season. Some was second cut, which –for the want of bagged nitrogen and moisture- has taken a long time to come back. Most was first cut in a very dry parish, which we abandoned as ‘not worth mowing yet’ at midsummer. I...

HM The Queen And so the page has finally turned on the reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. We all knew the day would surely come, but that doesn’t lessen the shock and feeling of national loss. It’s hard to picture a Monarch reigning so flawlessly over such a tumultuous era, or having seen...

Large Families While we’ve been sweating in a parched landscape, Europe has had it worse, and Pakistan has been flooded, it’s more or less passed us by what’s happened in China. And we might do well to notice, because it could upset everyone. China has endured a searing heatwave, across vast...

Phew Hot Bailing Phew….that session was a bit warm. Pretty much the moment I stepped back on the place from a week away, we’d knocked more grass down, and straw was starting to roll in. By the end of last weekend, I was a filthy baked dust choked wreck, but had baled all of the leftover bits...

Baling So, what’s happening in the executive high-flying world of peasant livestock farming? Well, our resident shearer has been able to spare me a day or two in his hectic schedule, so we have managed to get some wool clipped off the cheviot ewes. One more group of them to process, and I’ll be...