The Anton Coaker Western Morning News Column

[jade35]

He and Michael Ashton (in the letter pages of WMN) are putting across the devastation and heartache that TB problems cause to farmers caught up with TB restrictions etc and I must admit, as one happier hiding behind a pseudonym, I am very grateful that they and others are willing to do this. I cannot find Mr Ashton's recent letter about the results of the farms latest TB test, but have found this letter by Chris Rundle about the cull.


http://www.thisisdevon.co.uk/WMN-Le...tory-19723176-detail/story.html#axzz2dUwrpBl2

 

[JP1]

You find me a dusty weary soul tonight, as the ‘dog days’ of August spill into what is officially, apparently, autumn. This spell of settled weather has allowed us to really set to on the last of the main crop of baling. I’ve been spending long days in the pale golden light chasing grass around, followed by my attendant Buzzard friends, who eagerly wait for small furry meals to scurry between the swathes.
As ever, I’m now down to my annual war of attrition with the 1-2 acres fields clung on the sides of the valleys. Granite boulders peek through the grass, awaiting to rub the newness of the mower and the turner. Turning them isn’t so bad, with the tufts of uncut grass giving away igneous problems. The difficult bit is the mowing. You daren’t thrash on, always trying to recall where the problems lie in wait. The cut off in viability seems to be fields with more than one boulder per round bale.
I always leave these fraught intense sessions mowing until the end of the season, to get the majority of the fodder saved before risking the gear and my sanity. Some years I’ll shy away from the worst of it, and turn some cows in to graze them off, but with TB issues, we’re needing all the saved fodder we can get our mitts on, so I’m pressing on.
The resultant crops have been proving lovely fragrant stuff, far better than I’d anticipated. The ‘weeds’ in these tiny fields vary from place to place. There isn’t much ryegrass to be seen, and yarrow, knapweed, and ribgrass abound. But taken as a whole, it bales easily and makes forage the cows adore. Admittedly, you’ve got to concentrate, watching for those stems punching little holes through the wrap. And after the light shear in earlier outings with the baler, the crop is pretty abundant. We went back to spreading a bit of lime last year, after a long gap, and it’s showing. There will be several hundred more round bales wrapped by the time you get this.
I even packed up a few little bales, to poke into some lofts. After the electric bleeps and bloops of the round baler, it’s almost relaxing to pull the little old baler out of its house and wind it up again. After missing the first 3 –I’d miss-strung it after I cleaned it out and oiled it up last year- it didn’t break another, running like a Swiss watch. I suspect it’s about the same age as me –it’s a bit less rusty, if we’re being honest, and certainly seems to work better. I bought it off a chap who sternly warned it had never slept out, and I was to look after it. I have tried Maister!
And only packing 100-200 at a time, it’s easier to find some assistants to help pick up little bales before tea. The kids have enjoyed helping Daddy with the harvest before they go back to school, which can’t be a bad thing. And they don’t need to know I’m hoovering up 10 times as much with the round baler between times. Bless em.
The mild evenings have been a pleasure, meandering down from another session at the wrapper – Alison and I sometimes wrap and stack a few in the dusk- browsing at the monster crop of blackberries around the yard helps drive off memories of the clouds of dust we’ve been working in.
I meant to hook off those brimbles backalong, but didn’t get to them… good job now. Aah, that bucolic idyll again.
We’ll think about the economics of it all, and the realities of TB restrictions, later. Let’s get this harvest in first.

 

[JP1]

Before the wee’uns went back to their respective studies, we thought we’d take em out for an afternoon. So after I’d spent a quality morning scraping up around a feeder site and spreading the poop on some mown ground, we rounded them up and set off. There was talk of a movie, although mostly the talk was a row, because getting all 3 to agree which movie they want to see is increasingly difficult. We have previously successfully split the group, watching differing flicks, to regroup for some eats afterward, but timings wouldn’t permit that trick this time.
Meanwhile, there was also a couple of bits of shopping to do, which needed to be done in proper big shops –stuff for skool and the like-, so it was off to town we set. I’d never been to the particular shopping location before, my idea of quality retail time being a gallop through the local farm supply warehouse, carefully not slowing to spend more than absolutely required. I suppose, if we’re being strictly accurate, I do believe I took a very engaging young lady out to a rockin’ night club on the site one night some decades past, but we’d best gloss over that.
I’d driven past this complex since- you might know the one I mean, behind the bombed out church- thinking ‘Goodness! What a hideous creation’. But this time, in the interests of family unity, I was prevailed upon to enter the dread portals. We parked the 4x4 in the attached multi-storey, tyres squealing something dreadful on the concrete, and hunkering down to get it under the low ceilings, and entered a world hitherto unknown to the boy and I. The girls had been there before, and for reasons I don’t fully grasp, were happy to have another go.
Well, it certainly is educational, I’ll give you that. Elbowing our way through throngs crowding the stairwells, with the noise steadily building as we got further into the innards of the structure, we descended into a vision of hell. The whole structure is concrete and steel, with hardly a stick of wood or bolt of fabric, so the acoustics are painfully harsh and unpleasant. Hard noise assails simple peasants ears more attuned to the gentle lowing of weaned calves, or the soft purring of the bandsaws in the sawmill. Luckily, there wasn’t any of that bland muzac oozing from hidden speakers…that would’ve got me confessing to the original sin in a matter of minutes, and frothing at the mouth soon after. Within, there lie rows of chain stores over 2-3 levels, serving the interests of milling crowds, who seemed to be happily browsing along shelves un-coerced. No demons held them at the counters with fiery whips, which is about the only way you’d keep me there for very long.
The boy and I graciously allowed the girls to dive into one of these outlets, so we could obtain a beverage, and sit beside the concourse to study the crowds at our leisure. Quite fascinating. Assuming many of the punters arrived by car, and that some of them started from garages and carports attached to their houses, I’d guess that several of the folk before us would only know what the weather was doing by looking out of the window. The Canadians called em ‘Mall people’ as I recall. We did discover, once bored, that there is a natty nylon brush running at ankle height on the sides of the escalators, which is dead handy for buffing up the toes on your size 11 tackety boots, although going up one and down the other repeatedly to do both sides, and both boots, got some disapproving looks from a couple of blokes in peaked caps.
Providently, the girls weren’t long, and we were able to escape without further incidence….but I raise my hat to anyone able to stomach steady employment in such a place. Goodness, what forbearance.
The subsequent movie was fairly forgettable, although unusually, I did stay awake throughout. We then repaired to an eatery for a nosh up, which was much more interesting, and I was able to do some more socio-analysis for you. You see, as we ate, drank and chatted, bickered over shared dishes, and discussed the film, I occasionally glanced aside, to notice what our fellow diners were up to. Mostly, it seems, they were playing with their electronic devices. Alison suggested they were probably all texting their chums…possibly the very people they were sat beside. Snooping closer though, I was able to ascertain that some of them were actually playing computer games on their smart phones –or whatever these things are called. So that is what one does nowadays, when one dines out with friends. Clearly, I am a dinosaur.

 

[JP1]

I did promise recently that we’d have a little grown up chat about the economic viability of raising beef cattle on the hill -with or without TB. Unfortunately, it’s not much of a jolly topic, and I’m really loath to look too hard at it, so I’ve deferred again. You go ahead and give it some thought if you must, I’ll catch up later.

Meanwhile, I’ve been reading up on some more science stuff instead. And much more interesting it is, helping put things in perspective.

See, if you think you’ve had a below par week, and that the rain gods sprinkled their celestial mirth on your box of earthly fireworks, or your metaphoric winning lottery ticket has got mangled beyond recognition in the washing machine, spare a thought for the humble Rotifer.

This tiny wiggly creature – generally about half a millimetre long full grown- lives in a variety of habitats, usually aquatic. They generally make their living at the grubbier end of the food chain, eating bits of dead bacteria and the like - or ‘recycling organic matter’ as an optimistic Rotifer would phrase it at dinner parties. These are the guys you want in your fish tank to clarify the water …by grazing on goldfish poop. It’s possibly not a job you or I would aspire to, but luckily for us we don’t have to, because these Rotifers do it for us.

For good measure, being very small means that in turn, just about everything else can and does eat them. All those things you see seething around a puddle of murky pond water are in fact busily feasting on the poor Rotifer, which is only trying to get by and clean the place up. Poor little mites.

And it gets worse. Some of these noble little chaps have had to evolve a survival strategy you and I wouldn’t fancy. See, if their pond dries up, they have the ability to dry out – to desiccate if you will-, and blow away in the breeze. When they fetch up somewhere a bit damper, they simply rehydrate and start wiggling their way about their business once more. The longest known period of such dormancy is 9 years, but who’s to say it couldn’t be decades? It doesn’t sound like much fun, although I suppose it would get you out of no end of bother.

I don’t think it works on larger aquatic animals- sea lions, basking sharks, trawler men and such- but do say if you know better.

But the really grim bit of being a Rotifer, as far as I can see, is that some of the myriad species can reproduce asexually. While most of them procreate in a fairly familiar manner – well, not that familiar if I’m frank, although the details are probably best spared at the breakfast table- some simply reproduce through ‘pathogenesis’.

This is to say the female produces young without the benefit of any male input. It is a strategy which brings its own risks, the lack of genetic variation being an issue- effectively, this self-cloning prevents further evolution. Pathogenesis is usually found in the ‘lower orders’, although some reptiles, fish, and even birds are known to do it. It doesn’t always go smoothly, and resultant offspring aren’t always able to reproduce in turn. But the Rotifer seems to be quite at ease with the idea. Some female lines seem to have been managing OK for….. wait for this…. several million years. Imagine…no whoopee for countless thousands of generations, and no male Rotifers to be found.

Not that being a male Rotifer is much to sing about where they do occur. They often only have one testicle, and generally no digestive system at all. They only have one task, and once they’ve carried it out, they perish. Not so much as a cup of cocoa and a biscuit afterward, unlucky beggars.

All in all, however many good karma points the experience might rack up, I don’t think I’m wanting to be reincarnated as a Rotifer. And it certainly puts my mundane farming problems in a fresh light!

 

[JP1]

There are two sides to my coin this week.

On the one hand, my rustic chums and I are busily rushing about the hills, engaged in the seasonal activities to which we must attend. There are late cuts of grass being snatched, lorry loads of straw being packed away. Ewes are being pulled together for the weaning and selling of lambs, then MOTing and prepping ewes for the breeding season. Rams have to be assessed, bought, sold, and built up for their herculean efforts in coming weeks. Various sheep sales have to be juggled, and dipping will very soon be upon us.

Suckler cows with calves at foot are being thought about, with cooler weather and less grass growth meaning they too will need weaning, or the calves will be dragging condition off the cows. Autumn calvers will be ‘springing’, about to bring forth new life with all its attendant requirements. Young cattle at grass need shunting to winter lodgings, or testing ready for market.

Looking down off the moors, into the valleys, we see lowland cousins’ s combines still rolling in odd corners, with the late drilled crops hardly overdue for harvest yet, and stubble fields scratched up for next years crops. Dairy farmers attending stock tasks not dissimilar to our own, with cows to be housed, late grass cuts grabbed, and the maize to be harvested.

Everything is geared to tidying up after the very kind summer, and preparing for the unknown coming winter.

The livestock markets give us a chance to do some business, and catch up and compare how the year has treated us. Bumping into old pals, leaning against the rail as we wait our turn in the ring, allows us to renew friendships. And as my life’s calendar pages flutter past, I watch successive generations of my extended community step into the boots of men I’ve grown up working alongside. It was with a contemplative eye that I watched one lass penning ewes at todays market. It occurred that I remember her well as no more than a bump, as her mum unloaded steaming store bullocks in the same mart. – For the ‘maids’ amongst these families are often expected to muck in much the same as the lads-.

Some young’uns are off to college, others having gone straight to work. One couple reported their boy was about to jump on a plane bound down under, to try his hand at shearing merinos. Some are on the up, some seem to rub along much as they ever did.


All this is as it should be, and aside from the social banter amongst us, the activities outlined are how we feed the nation.


On the other hand however, things are absolutely not as they should be. You see, the economics are unfeasibly poor, and it’s only by EU payments that most of us stay afloat. I’m not at all proud to admit this, but that is the raw truth.

Coupled to this is the bureaucracy heaped upon us –and most of the rules are matters of ‘cross compliance’, so if we so much as fill out some form incorrectly, or miss some tedious little detail, we stand to lose the payments, and hence, our livelihoods.

This isn’t the same as making farming decisions, where using the wrong bull or growing the wrong crop might lower the financial return. Or when a harvest decision based on an inaccurate weather forecast might prove wrong, and cause some pain.

For reasons far too tedious to repeat here, I’m down with TB, and unable to realistically sell cattle. I’m doing what I can, but am still heading into winter with about 60 mouths too many.

My poor little wife, instead of tending the fowls round the yard, clutching a wicker basket full of eggs, is buried in mounds of paperwork. The TB business involves wheel barrow loads of forms and licenses, the sheep being handled require duplicate electronic chips in their ears and triplicate forms filled in. Heaven forbid you farm in an ‘NVZ’. This is a cursed land of fable, where you need to calculate how much plops your cows will do, while grazing in a field of grass.

The relentless list of rules and regulations showered on us from on high would make your toes curl in your shoes. We need, and I promise you this is the case, a special ‘exemption permit from a waste handling license’ to cut, store and handle up to but not exceeding several hundreds of tonnes of….wait for this… ‘hazel walking sticks cut from the hedge’. Failure to obtain the correct exemption, and a visit from an over keen inspector, will ultimately lead to my departure from the land.

This is not as it should be, and despite empty promises, it is getting worse.

 

[JP1]

Having so much time on my hands, with an excess of TB restricted cattle, stockman Joe off to pastures new, and generally being one of those idle loafing types, I’ve decided to renew one of the farm buildings.
This rambling construction started as a pole barn 25 years ago, growing lean-tos as the years passed. The posts which went in the ground were treated Douglas poles- out of Tavi Woodlands, back when the treatment was worth something. The rafters were a load of very greasy European larch poles, out of a garden at Holne, while the purlins were homegrown, ripped down with a chainsaw, and pulled out of the woods with a coloured dobbin called Paddy, who’d learnt his trade lugging a coal cart in Ireland. –Curiously the Missus has just bought a fresh oss, also called Paddy. I don’t think I’ll be allowed to take him in the woods dragging out sticks though.
The groundwork for the original polebarn was a by-product of a grant aided silage pit, which didn’t cost anything after madcap Derek-the-Digger-man cut and filled at twice the rate the Ministry anticipated. In fact, as I recall, the spare in the budget paid for a whack of concrete. Most of the tin was purchased from a swarthy lad out the back of his transit ‘They’m seconds mister, but they’z pretty good’. And to be fair, as long as a firm hand was kept on his counting, we had a perfectly sensible deal.
Between the tin and poles, I had to find about £800 plus some toil, although this took some doing as I had absolutely no money- I was 25 before I saw a bank statement which didn’t have OD at the end. I always assumed it meant ‘overdosed’.
A couple of years later, having evolved into a slicker operation, we put up the big lean-to. We hired in a woodmizer to convert some blagged round timber, got in more tantalised poles, and a group of pals who turned up one blustery rainy day to hang some frames up. A German pal, Sascha, was an apprentice carpenter and in charge for the day. The first thing he required was a big mallet, with which to cut some mortises into the original poles. How big? I asked, pointing to a log of beech. ‘Ziss big’ he indicated, chalking an outline of a mallet on the end of the fresh green log…. which I fashioned immediately with a chainsaw. The resultant dripping wet tool was, of course, so heavy it took 2 hands to swing. This didn’t leave Sash any means of holding a chisel, so it had to be somewhat reduced. Still, 6 of us put in a hard sodden day and got the frames up in one hit, shared a few beers, and nailed the mallet to a rafter –where it’s remained.
But now, with several poles rotting off, and the wiggly worms making their way into any spruce which slipped into the build, it has had to go. I’ve been sticking a couple of props in the last few winters, in case a snow load collapses the ambitious lean-to. It should be admitted that the advent of the telehandler has tested to creaking timbers further.
So I’ve collected up some more very tight grown larch- cut on my own mill right opposite-, a load of gurt big galvanised posts, and another team of chums. The overall footprint is a touch bigger, and we’re going up in the air a few feet- I did once swing a non-breathing newborn lamb in the old lean-to, to drive the gloop out of its airways and get it to take a breath. But when it reached the top of the arc, its head hit the rafter with a wet smack. It did survive, although I don’t recommend this exact method.
We’re going for a pretty solid build, topped with heavy gauge old fashioned corrugated. My rationale for this over yer fibre cement is that I don’t know anyone who’s fallen through a tin roof –as long as you remember where the light sheets are- whereas we all know someone who’s gone through those big-6 sheets. You might very well suggest I don’t quite trust my sums, and need tins forgiving nature when things don’t line up, but you’re a scurrilous old rascal, and I’m sticking to my story.
With wide bays for cattle either side of a central raised feed passage, at the back of which we can stack straw, it should make for an easy working comfortable shed. We’ll see. Obviously, Sasha’s mallet will be incorporated somewhere up in the new roof.

 

[JP1]

Not having been off to such an event for a few years, sawyer Barrie and I packed up the 3 ringed sawmill circus and headed off to a Woodfair at the weekend. The premise was that we were to give a demonstration of mobile milling. The reality? Barrie cuts a few logs while I give it my best barrow boy patter, and sweet talk passing punters out their folding stuff for interesting fresh sawn boards.

This time, the event was up on Cranborne Chase, in Hampshire. We’d attended a previous bash, at a site called the ‘Larmer Tree’ –and no, I don’t know what that means- but this year it had moved to the grounds of a big house down the road. This was Breamore House, a 17th century brick built pile – on an ‘E’ shaped footprint, in honour of good Queen Bess. The owners had kindly –rashly even- allowed us grubby wood urchins to pitch up in the parkland right next to the house, and a finer spot would be hard to imagine. Surrounded by woodland, and meadows running down to the river Avon meandering its way down from Salisbury, it was idyllic.

For those with an interest in such things, the reddish soil was fine and squidgy underfoot, with miles of chalk up over the downs behind. Rainfall isn’t high, and up on the chalk, water is ever a problem for stock. Dewponds and 200’ deep wells were the norm. Now most of the chalk is ploughed, that’s less of an issue, although generally I’d say a lot of it could do with a bit more stock again, to get some muck back on the ground. Curiously, some wells up over the hill is known to be on the line of a Roman road now gone, suggesting the legions dug wells as they went. Or at least had slaves do so.

We travelled up at stupid O’clock on Saturday morning, although Barrie had towed the mill up the night before. As the misty dawn lifted, we set up beside another mobile milling team. They were a personable bunch of local lads, with a more venerable outfit- a huge circular rackbench, driven by a steam engine. The gurgling and huffing noises of the steamer were a nice counterpoint to the wicked growling of the inserted tooth 60” diameter circular. By contracts, we boringly make sawdust to the sound of a diesel engine.

The punters were thick on the ground and, I have to say, almost universally of an engaging and curious nature. It was a pleasure to stand at the safety tape, and explain what we were doing to the throngs. And if they fancied they could ‘make a nice house sign/coffee table out of that £5 offcut of red cedar’, then we were all going home happy weren’t we?

The Saturday night, our team made for the mobile pizza oven, whose owners had obligingly agreed to keep the fire lit to feed hungry exhibitors. As we waited for nosh, a flask of spiritual refreshment appeared, then a couple of gallons of cider, and I didn’t seem to be able to get up again. As darkness fell and the stars came out very satisfactorily, someone kindly set up a brazier at my tootsies. A chorus of owls serenaded us as we passed some very convivial time.

Crikey, but it’s a hard life.


Sunday morning found some of us –OK, me- a little slow to stir, but the punters didn’t rock up until 10, so we could emerge at our leisure. I’d kipped under a hide rug in the truck cab, and comparisons with Barrie indicate we’re both beginning to creak and groan after nights bivouacked out of doors. Still, we soon managed to don our beaming welcoming faces, and had a second day as good as the first.

There was a bit of an equine feeling going on, with that nice old fellow pulling a few logs about behind a very personable grey dobbin, a pair of smart upstanding Suffolk Punches tugging cartloads of paying punters round in step, and the delightful Natasha leading her pair of very fine neddies through the park for their breakfast – Natasha lives in the big house you see. Lovely gel I thought.

We finally wearily packed up for home, Barrie heading for a mobile job into the new week, me back to the building site. There was a certain amount of difficulty when it transpired that I needed the wifes car Monday evening to run an errand, with ‘B’ still out in my landrover. Silly stories persist about the ‘joint chair’ of the parish council then turning up to chair a meeting driving her husbands loader tractor, but I know you’d never believe such nonsense, so we’ll say no more about it.

 

[jade35]

@JP1 Would it be possible to obtain (by legal or illegal means ) this month's article (October) that Anton has penned about his friend Egbert. Putting Egbert and Eminem in the same sentence pure genius.

 

[JP1]

@JP1 Would it be possible to obtain (by legal or illegal means ) this month's article (October) that Anton has penned about his friend Egbert. Putting Egbert and Eminem in the same sentence pure genius.

Ask and ye shall receive @jade35

I hear Egbert has been in the wars, and was in a fair old state by the end of August. It all started with a row with a 2 year old bullock. See, Egbert pushed in behind yon beast in the race, fer to ‘keep him up’, so’s the vet could interfere with this hairy creature (the bullock, not Egbert). It might’ve been more sense to find the bit of scaffold bar, that slides in behind the bullocks backside, but our rustic hero/zero was getting careless and tired, come the end of a long day shuttling some hundreds of cattle down the chute to have TB jabs, and merely put his hip against the steers rump and pushed. This would’ve been OK, but for the fact that the steer had a couple of chums in front of him, and when the foreign vet uttered some unintelligible Mediterranean cusses, all 3 beasts took affront, and one step backwards. This meant about 2 tonnes of extensively grazed beef came to rest on the trailing hoof of the hindmost bullock. As it happens, under this hoof was Egberts size 11 tackety boot. Ordinarily, the toe cap would’ve taken the strain, but somehow, we’re told, the occupying foot was jammed backwards, and a pinky got squished something fearful. I understand the language emitted was also pretty fearful, and the ‘pinky’ soon turned into a ‘purplish bluey’. Missus Egbert will have nothing to do with his scaly talons, so Egbert has resorted to his standard medicinal painkiller. We’re not sure what it is, but it comes in a corked bottle with Gaelic writing on the label, and seems to originate on some misty Hebridean Island.

As if this wasn’t enough for the poor old beggar, the same week saw a 20 tonne load of straw delivered in. The big square bales proved to be somewhat fragile, and no less than 4 of them burst about the place while being stowed away at the back of the cattle buildings. With rain threatening, Egbert was rummaging in the exploded carcase of one of them, trying to cut a cord which prevented it from being shoved aside. Forgetting he’d sharpened his pocketknife the evening before, he somehow managed in his hurry to remove a substantial slice off the end of his thumb. Again, the sleepy backwater around Egberts abode was enlivened with language not strictly fit for public consumption.

Later in this already hectic session, Egbert and his keen team rashly decided they’d have time to sneak a field of silage between times. So out with the baler, and off they went. Keeping up with trends, one of the resultant round bales took offence to some rough handling, and leapt off the wrapper –narrowly missing Missus Egbert. It should be pointed out that this sainted woman was already in a bit of a rum mood, having had a serious fallout with an errant wool sheep who appeared from the woodwork the night before, just as her Lord and Master was ‘popping out’. (‘See if you can grab it before it disappears again Maid, I’ll be back later’). The wrapping crew decided the bale had better be put aside for the time being, and dumped it in the corner of the platt.

Both bale and wife were looking a bit the worse for wear when Egbert returned to the stack with the last load of bales. One he knew could be fixed with liberal and equal doses of wine and chocolates, the other needed a bit of thought and some TLC. Someone brightly suggested Egbert roll out and re-bale it while the team finished wrapping the last batch. B*gger that he said, I can fix this. Grabbing a half used roll of wrap, he tipped the fast disintegrating bale on its end and simply ran round it like a dervish, occasionally rolling it around a few degrees. This somewhat slow and laborious method of wrapping bales isn’t particularly recommended, especially if you’re tired, grumpy, and not wearing gloves, as observers might’ve found Egbert that dusty evening. But he was determined –when he gets an idea in his head, however stupid, he’s as wilful as a toddler, and rarely stops to think. Before he knew it, he managed to skin another 2 digits with friction burns, and ripped the dressing from the decapitated thumb with much attendant ketchup. It would be fair to say that this round of language could’ve had the OED compilers riffling through pages with quizzical expressions. The paint on the loader tractor wrinkled up, and the dog hid under a thorn bush with his paws over his ears.

Last I heard, Egbert had retreated muttering to his study, clutching a box of dressings, a tube of soothing ointment, and further substantial quantities of anaesthetic, and was refusing to come out until there was an R in the month again.

 

[JP1]

@jade35

Anton also put a footnote:

(Egbert is an anonymous grumpy wild eyed hill farmer of my acquaint, who periodically appears in NFU mag. He's fearless in admission of his wrongs -or more likely quite unaware they're wrong. We don't know where you'd find him just now, but if you leave a drink for him with me, I'll see to it he gets it))

 

[jade35]

@JP1

Anton also put a footnote:
but if you leave a drink for him with me, I'll see to it he gets it))

Just like Father Christmas

Thanks @JP1 I have often wondered how many friends, relatives and gossiped about acquaintances were amalgamated into Egbert.


Ps What isn't mentioned is the heading for the article

~Egbert's one 'wrapper' whose language would make Eminim blush~
Top points for whoever thought that one up

 

[llamedos]

I love reading these, thanks @JP1 for posting them and at Anton for his musings to paper.

Brilliant.

 

[JP1]

My daylight hours are filled with construction jobs, pushing to get the new cattle building ready. And in between times, there are a mess of stock jobs backing up, as the weather drops steadily away toward winter. While my pal Toby measures and cuts roof timbers, the jointed rafters measuring in at over 32’, sitting on massive 12” x 5” beams, I’m beavering away at infrastructure. The groundwork for the raised feed passage is mostly done, and we’ll soon begin carting in the 100 tonnes of fill needed to bring the level up. And yes, it is 100 tonnes… 700mm x 4.8m x 18m, you do the maths. Happily, I’m a man with a lot of stone. Then to form the ramp, and pour the reinforced slab on top, endeavouring to make sure it falls slightly away from centre. And all this so I can stand above my bovines of a winters morning, admiring their beauty.
All the heavy graft has ignited a warming bout of tennis elbow, and badly pulled a muscle in my neck. Hmm, and to think if I’d studied harder as a youth, I could be sitting at a desk in a nice warm office now.
Right, what’s happening elsewhere?
The very day the news was filled with the sale of the Post Office, a letter arrived with our weary and far travelled postie, from his regional ‘big boss’. It announced that, due to the ever decreasing volume of letters being posted, he was going to have to jiggle around collection times and the like. We’d hardly notice the difference he assured us. In a very clear loud voice, he calmed our fears. These slight changes might –only might- have to be implemented to make the whole business more efficient.
And sure enough, buried in the latter part of the letter, just where your minds eye might’ve glazed over, resting happy in the secure knowledge that this age old institution is safe and well, were some weasel words. Apparently, he might need to ‘temporarily adjust delivery arrangements’. Hmm. Given that we are so far out at the end of a very long single track, and critically, unprofitable road, I think I can smell a rodent in these platitudes. And therein lies my objection to the selling off of public services. Either we have equal access to such things, or we don’t. I concede that my address isn’t an easy drop. As the winter storms blow in, I half expect poor postie to arrive with extra jerry cans of fuel lashed to his roof, beside a couple of spare wheels kitted with snow chains. But will his boss, to placate an army of new shareholders, decide that perhaps it would be pertinent if, temporarily, I only got the post every other day?
We shall see.
The letter also reminded me that not only is the ‘Post Office’ logo a trademark, but so is the colour red. Eh? Run that past me again? Does that mean that, should the shareholders be feeling the pinch, they might try to extract retribution and royalties from anyone who has ever painted anything red.
I think I’m going to go back to homing pigeons, or possibly handing rolled up parchments to passing coaches, sealed with a dollop of wax stamped by the old Ducal ring.

There are also a couple of snippets from the week’s news I thought we should share.
Firstly, an ad in the farming press caught my eye, marketing a substantial acreage of grade 1 Cambridgeshire arable ground –near Ely, and some of the very best land in the country, capable of growing just about anything. Well, until the sea level sneaks up a few inches that is. And guess what? Why, it was also fashionably covered with solar panels. My oath George, who thinks that’s a good idea?
And then, after last weeks budget difficulties in the States, when thousands of civil servants had to take a day or two off for want of pay, things are getting back to normal. At last, I hear, the US Parks Department have ‘re-opened The Grand Canyon’.
I want you to think about that as we both get back to work.
Later old friend.

 

[JP1]

Because she loves me so much, my beloved has been chained to her desk*, grappling with some more Ministry paperwork. You can tell she enjoys this pastime, seeing as it fills her days week after week. This time, she’s been double checking something called our ‘soil protection review’, making sure it’s right up to speed and inspection proof.

*I’m joshing about the restraints, but am quite prepared to discuss the matter.

For those of you unacquainted, this document lists all of the ways we aren’t going to damage or degrade our soil. Never mind that my tribe have more or less managed to prevent the old place from washing out to sea for a century and a half, the nature of the information required suggests we are barely fit to lean on the field gate, let alone take management decisions about farming matters.

One of the preoccupations of this document is where we might have water courses or drains or ditches etc, and ensuring we don’t spread any poop or fertiliser within 10 meters of them, or within 50 meters of any spring or borehole. As I sit here tapping away, there’s been a bit of rain hereabouts, and I don’t think there’s a spot anywhere on the place that’s 10 meters away from running water right now. But then, curiously enough, I’m not about to spread any fertiliser am I?

One enclosure, of several hundred acres, is nothing but springs, mires and watercourses. I’ve never spread anything on it, seeing as it can’t realistically be accessed by machine. I have managed to get a tractor on it- and off again- twice or thrice to rescue stricken Galloway cows, although losing a few kilos of nitrates into a water course is generally the least of my problems at such times. But it still has to be marked out carefully, in case I change my farming practices.

And since you ask, we tend to spread the cow poop accumulated during the winter housing, on the hay fields, in the spring- as opposed to ‘in the river, in mid-winter’ I suppose. This radical new-fangled technique ensures a crop of summer grass in said hay fields, to make ready for the next winter, in a manner I suppose you could call ‘sustainable’. Goodness, whatever will us modern go-ahead farmers think of next!


To put the stupid paper exercise in some kind of perspective, I note it comes from an office of the self-same State which, to take one example, is currently planning to hack an astonishingly large gash through the English countryside, to make a railway allowing travellers to get from Manchester to London before their coffee gets cold. A different department of the same Government also seems to have agreed to a French company, using Chinese money, building a nuclear power plant in Somerset, which will produce great mounds of radioactive waste, dangerous for centuries- and charge us double for the resulting electricity for good measure. The leftovers from this plant will be toxic to generations of our successors –won’t they be pleased with us-, and I suggest, represents a rather bigger error than where I spread my cow poop.

You’ll forgive me if I consider my little wifies time might be better spent.


In fact, my own interest in soil, or ‘dirt’ as our Mid-Western cousins would have it, goes rather further than the wellbeing of the ground within the farm boundaries. You see I had a moment of clarity backalong, during a difficult spell of…well, we’ll call it ‘charitable diplomacy’. During this time, I was exposed to a raft of very basic expressions of greed and desire, which just about balanced our need to live alongside each other.

Reading a spot of history at the same time – including the Icelandic Sagas, where the exact same issues raise their heads-, I realised that almost all of mans woes and conflicts are based on our desires over ‘dirt’. From the very basic inter-tribal transhumance disputes over the best pasture for the grazing flocks and herds, to the settled occupation of the most fertile valley bottoms and best soils on which to grow our grain. You can scale it up, and attach more obscure outputs and labels if you like. It might be the oil which lies under it, or the water running across it, or the sacred building someone’s forebears built upon it. But when you scratch away at just about any dispute, dirt lies at the heart of the matter.

Our need for it is absolute, and the whole of human civilisation rests upon it. Our history is built equally upon its bounty, and our squabbles over it.

I feel and see the dirt under my toes in a rather more fundamental way than our ‘soil protection review’.

 

[JP1]

Right on cue, as the clocks went back, so that storm rolled in. Despite the dire warnings, it didn’t do too much up here, more than knock some of the remaining leaves off, and stir around a few loose twigs. We hadn’t started sheeting the new roof – the sheets being safely stowed in 2 packs lying on the bale trailer. Let’s be grateful for that then, and seeing as both packs weigh about a tonne and three quarters, I guessed they’d sit there whatever Sunday night threw at em. Obviously, if the blast upset your lives, I’m very sorry.

I thought it a bit unfortunate that one of the TV channels chose to run a film called ‘The perfect storm’ on Sunday night. Oops. And whether it’s true or not that Michael Fish was bound and gagged in the Met Office basement remains unclear.

Still, even if the wind didn’t break records, the rain has well and truly soaked the ground now. There’s water seeping out of almost everywhere. The hosepipe ban at Sherberton has been postponed.


I’ve had a couple of days off, having held my poor beak to the grindstone continuously for 10-12 weeks. Some people struggle with the concept of not having any days off for stretches like that, but it’s fine by me. After all, what you don’t get done when you’re living sure ain’t going to get done when you’re dead. And brother, you’ll be a long time dead. I realise that this becomes a paradoxical concept about now. Some of you will see it the other way round, and ask how I could waste so much of my life working? I suppose the answer is that I love my work.

Anyway, I did manage to slip the chain for a few days last week. And jolly relaxing it was too. I whisked my lovely little lady off for a 2 day vacation north of the border. The more churlish amongst you will have already guessed that it wasn’t that simple, and might or might not have involved cattle somewhere. Well, the dates of the annual Belted Galloway beano coinciding nearby were just that…a total coincidence. In fact, we were picking up some chums en route, to give them a lift, and landed at their gaff the first night. I’ve a striking young Riggit bull on loan thereabouts, and news that his first calves were on the ground had us out with torches in the dark to see them. And very smart they are too.

Now he’s proven, we’ll consider taking semen, his provenance being pretty rare. His dam was going strong at 15 when she bore him on a heatherclad mountain, although that pales against a Belt bull in the sale this year. He was out of a 22 year old cow. BCMS phoned the farmer to inform him he’d made a mistake… surely no-one could breed from a 22 year old cow. ‘Come oan and huv a look then yiz’ came the reply. (Although the man is a pretty hard feeder, and the bull was a bit lighter than many forward, I notice he still sold very well).

So, having grabbed a few hours kip, 5 of us set off at a very unreasonable time the next morning. I don’t wish to admit to having sampled too much hospitality overnight, wetting the heads of the new calves and the like, meaning my beloved had to pilot the jalopy herself on our little break. So we’ll say no more about that.

Journeying up the country, we left areas where almost all the maize was cut, venturing into countryside where they’d hardly started. At least they’ve got their corn cut this year. Another striking difference was that we saw several drainage schemes on-going up there, on fairly mediocre farmland, and a number of places where outcrops of stone were being sheared off with heavy plant to improve ground. Can’t imagine that happening much down here.

Still, we had a spiffing time in very convivial company, and I managed to keep the boy from bidding on the champion bull – not sold at 11,500 guineas.

Oh, and the boy has asked me to remind you that his Jack Russell bitch has whelped, and he has 5 little hell hounds for sale. When we set sail North, they were sleepy little maggots, fat white things which lay sleeping or feeding in their mothers basket. After a 3 day absence, they’ve suddenly become small terriers, scrambling about barking and growling. They’ll be reaching their peak of cuteness in a month or so, so don’t wait if you need such a thing in your life. I love em dearly, but don’t really need another 5 about the place!

Better go, Anton

 

[JP1]

The boy was home for half term the other week, and we took the chance to track down a tup or two for him. He breeds something very peculiar, but which is equally instantly familiar to many of us. He runs a little flock of black skinned Scotch ewes. The incidence of black lambs amongst a certain stamp of Scotties is perhaps 1/1000, so a fresh black tup lamb is something to be grabbed when he hears about it. He got lucky this autumn, and also got his hands on an outstanding ewe lamb as well, so he’s gone back to skool quite chuffed. Little beggars not going to be home to help dip them either I note. Bother.

Now then. Backalong, I got fed up with the wiiizzeeeep noises from the dying radio in the truck cab, and while he had it in for servicing, I asked Frankie to get his highly skilled fitters to replace said device. They made a lot of jokes about it needing a new coat hanger –for indeed, the aerial was just such a thing- but manifestly failed to renew the radio. So, when I picked ‘er up, I still had no relaxing music to listen to. After a month or two, I dropped the truck in again for some other repair, with the same instruction about the radio… this time, emphatic, and specifying something with very few, but large, buttons. After yet another brief mis-fire, the 3rd visit finally saw a new wireless fitted.

And is it one that can be operated by Mr Banana-digits? Not a chance. It does indeed have a bigger dial, for the volume, which also mutes the sounds if you press it in. Sadly, it’s on such a hair trigger that when the news comes on, or some vintage bit of ‘Rock and How’s yer father’, and I reach across to turn it up, the blasted volume goes back to zero.

Meanwhile the rest of the controls are tiny little nubbins which I can hardly see, never mind operate as I’m crashing about the ranch looking for a missing cow.

There is a huge array of functions and tiny buttons that mean nothing to me. It does have a fetching array of bright red lights, and a constantly changing digital display, which proudly tells me it’s playing in mega-blast techno mode, or makes jiggedy little patterns in time to the music. An especially nice touch is that when the vehicle sidelights are on, the red decorations glow dimmer. But… when I’m sat on a windy moorland crossroads, awaiting a nocturnal rendezvous with lights off –quite legitimately you suspicious old wretch- I can’t sit and listen to the Paul What-his-face blues show without being under lit in bright red, like some kind of demon.

There is a slot for a CD. Well, I guess that’s what it’s for; it might be somewhere to store a poppadum or a sheep movement licence for all I know. I’ve never tried it, since there’s nowhere sensible to put a CD case in a Landrover cab anyway.

I greatly regret that we no longer seem to have access to the standard landrover radios of about 10-12 years ago –think 300TDi vintage. They were great. Simple, idiot/dinosaur proof, and didn’t confuse and annoy the irritable amongst us.

Pretty much the same phenomena has arrived in the green tractor cabs, where the superwhizzo wireless can’t be operated without coming to a halt to look at what you’re twiddling, and going over a bump whilst turning the volume up or down is sure to jolt it straight onto ‘Radio Moscow’. I like to listen to the wireless as I trundle about, but I’m hardly going to stop doing what I’m doing to operate it!

This is, of course, another sign that I’m an out of touch old curmudgeon, who should be put out to grass and forgotten. Progress has progressed you might shout, and I should fade into history. Well here’s the news buster. While I may very well be trundling along in life’s slow-lane, and be long past my sell-by date, I’m still trundling, and solvent. Once more, I notice the smouldering wreckage of several go-ahead twits who were speeding past me just the other day. And while my cheque is still good, don’t I get some say in what it buys?

Somewhere in this rant, I suspect there’s a kernel of profound rationale, but with a huge workload in front of me, I’m blowed if I can tease it out. Help yourself, and let me know what you find.

I’d better crack on. Sheep dipping looms, black’uns and all.

 

[JP1]

It’s not often I find myself singing from the same hymnsheet as Ed Miliband or Archbish Welby, but there’s something fundamentally wrong with a society that allows payday loan vultures to blanket advertise on TV. By their nature, they prey on the vulnerable –payday lenders I mean, not the Church or the Socialists. That’s a different discussion. I see it as a damning sign that these corporate sharks are allowed to push their wares, normalising a damaging mindset. One of the most prominent outfits has been on the charm offensive since coming under criticism, including punting the idea that they’re the right people to go to for a start-up loan for your new business. Holy Moly pal, if you reckon that’s a good idea, you’re in dreamy land. Better stop thinking what you’re thinking this instant, and let someone else take that sort of decision.
And in case you need it explaining….it’s an uncomfortable truth that the desire to become a tycoon, even coupled to go-getting enthusiasm, irrepressible work ethic and ambition, doesn’t actually make you a multi-millionaire. They might be useful traits, but the belief that short-term borrowing at stratospheric interest rates is a good idea is probably a sign your recipe is missing a crucial ingredient.
One worthy grown-up has pointed out that with advertising aimed at kiddies, the loan companies are nurturing a new generation of irresponsible borrowers, who’ll grow up thinking bad money management is OK.
And while we’re at it, those slick adverts for on-line casinos also give me grave concern. Who on earth can condone such marketing? I know of a couple of young chaps who spend mucho time and wedge playing on-line games on such sites. Like all fledgling addicts, they justify what they’re doing, assuring those around them that they’re in control and believing they can make money out of such activities. I tend to bite my tongue unless it’s someone close to me. There is, of course, nothing new under the sun, and they’re failing to see the long and damaging social history of such behaviour. I would’ve thought that the massive advertising budgets of these companies would, on their own, be warning enough.
Naturally, the Nazi in me wants to say ‘leave em to it, it’s their problem’. But on reflection, I’m more cold-hearted than that, recognising that society has to pick up the pieces of grossly irresponsible lifestyle decisions. If I can help steer someone away from the precipice, then perhaps my tax won’t have to be used to make good the fallout. So, selfish churl that I am, I say stay away from payday lenders and gambling. They’re a lot smarter than you are, and want only one thing.

OK, what’s going on my rainy hillside?
I’ve had a bit of a surreal week, including gathering the hill ewes off a drizzle seeped veldt, delivering a couple of retired ‘osses to the ‘Sunny valley home for retired equines’-salami anyone?- en route to a rather gentile speaking engagement, dutiful dad duties, and tackling more tasks on the new cattle shed.
On the latter, the roof is on, and I’ve been wrestling the concrete wall panels into place weekends. I also discovered the beggars answer back…and they bite. Skinned knuckles aplenty! We spent a head-scratching day or two getting the moulds ready, and a frantic hour or two casting 9 panels in one go. But by golly, battered hands or no, they make a strong cheap wall.
Cattle work looms, with the next round of TB tests booked for the end of the month, and bovines spread over many miles to fetch together. I’ve just started feeding a few outside, with 39 in the batch already weaned indoors.
There’s still plenty of sheep tasks to tidy up in the next week or two as well, with the curly horned Lothario’s beginning to look over the wall at their gathering lady friends.
Indoors, the boys terrier puppies-the ‘poopies’- are just beginning to clamber out of their box under the kitchen table, looking for things to nibble at. Shoes and furniture are a favourite as are my stockinged feet, especially when I’m not paying attention, deep in thought or on the phone. They are as cute as can be, and some are still some unspoken for. The kids think we’re keeping any leftovers, although I’ve told ‘em it’ll only be to make me a new pair of gloves, so please call soon.
And then, to occupy my empty hours, I’ve been pondering the final edit of my new book. It’s gone to the printer now, typo’s and all, so in about 3 weeks you can buy one of them if you can’t face a Jack Russell pup. Watch this space for news.

 

[jade35]

Pleased to hear that there will be another book printed in time for Christmas

 

[Supergirl]

Enjoyed reading these. Thanks for putting them on.

 

[JP1]

Did you catch the news this week, that a number of Aussie rugger buggers were severely admonished by their coach for, and I quote, ‘inappropriate drinking’ while in Dublin for a match? Did I hear that right? From what I’ve seen, I’d have thought it was a foregone conclusion that they’d be hitting the sauce. Curiously, it wasn’t that there had been complaints about their behaviour, merely that the coach is trying to instil discipline. Strewth mate! And after this inappropriate drinking session, the Aussies still went on to trounce the Irish team.
Meanwhile -and I can see you’re impressed I’ve been listening to sports reports- disgraced American cyclist, Lance Armstretch, is still whinging on about his lifetime ban. He’s now trying to trowel out the blame to anyone and everyone else –and indeed, it begins to sound like the whole sport was tainted at the time- but… Sorry Lance old chap, you were the one on the podium claiming the glory year after year. Now you’ve got to shoulder the blame. You cheated, so you’re out, and your victories are meaningless.
In case you’re worried what’s going on with ‘Humbug McCoaker’, who is generally almost wholly disinterested in sport beyond a vague interest in the ladies beach volley ball, you will note that the sports generally precedes the weather report on the tractor wireless. With several cows still far out on the hill, with calves at foot, I’ve been watching the icy blast coming south and paying close attention. I’m feeding a bit of hay to those at hand now, unable to pretend that it’s still mildly autumnal. I need to get some hay fed to make space for said calves anyway. I would quite immodestly say that the spring calves that have come back so far are looking a treat, and the cows aren’t much the worse for feeding them. A better summer makes such a difference.

Speaking of icy cold weather, I was reading something by one of those climate change sceptic chaps. He was mis-quoting some odd stuff about Greenland, and didn’t think we should worry overly much about a few glaciers melting a bit.
This piqued my interest, and I realised I only half recalled the statistics regarding the polar ice caps, so I thought I’d look them up for you.
Now we assuredly haven’t melted all the ice in these ice sheets yet, either on Greenland, or the behemoth covering Antarctica – and we’re not likely to any time soon. However, it does no harm to be aware of what’s at stake here.
If we had managed to melt the lot, the high tide mark would’ve sneaked up a bit, and I’m sure you would’ve noticed. For a start, anyone wanting to live within 250’ of the current sea level would need to evolve gills really really quickly.
Starting with Greenland then. The lid of accumulated snow cover, which has grown more than it melts each year for thousands upon thousands of years, has compressed into a block of ice 1500 miles north to south, by 680 miles across, averaging over a mile thick. It’s so heavy that it’s depressed the Earth’s crust, for there’s something in the order of 680 000 cubic miles of ice-cubes in this tray.
Yet this pales into insignificance against what is piled up the other end of the globe. The Antarctic ice sheet has, hold tight, something like 5.4 million square miles of footprint, consisting of 6.3 million cubic miles of ice. It’s been building over many millions of years, and currently retains something like 61% of all the fresh water on earth. There are lakes far beneath the ice, including one which is 160 miles long, 1400’ deep, but which lies below 13,000’ of ice. The water in it has been isolated, in the dark, for millions of years, but still contains microbial life.
This ice sheet started piling up when plant life had got atmospheric carbon-dioxide down to approximately 600-700 parts per million, cooling the Earth a few degrees. Now you can believe it’s our activities, or that it’s a coincidence, but in the last 50 years levels have gone back up from 320ppm to 400ppm. If this trend continues, the balance could tip in rather less than another century, at which point we’re going to know all about it. It’s a very complex calculation, but as I said, the rise in sea level would be something in the order of 250’. The numbers are all there to see, whether we want to see them or no.

And yes, there is a new book out for Christmas.
‘The Complete Bullocks’ will be in stockists early in December –check www.anton-coaker.co.uk for details