Naughty Nurses
The very first television soap I remember was called Emergency Ward 10. Nurses in crisply starched frocks crackled through the wobbly cardboard set on their way to an assignation with a dishy doctor or to soothe the sweaty brow of someone who’d fallen off the tram. I think that’s why, years later, I became obsessed with its more contemporary win Casualty, although Charlie’s habit of staring at a corner of the ceiling whenever he spoke irritated the hell out of me.
But I stopped all that when I realised I had all the medical trauma I needed in real time, and real life, right here on the farm. And this week has been a stellar production. One terminally broody hen sitting on no eggs and sporting a temperature that ought to turn her into roast chicken; an uncatchable cat who looks as though she’s been in a knife fight with Steven Seagal; a nanny goat with a pronounced limp which came about because she reacted badly to her annual vaccination; a ewe at risk of fly strike; a boxer dog who, for no perceivable reason threw up all her breakfast and is now moping about looking miserable; a border terrier with an abscess, and a wife with early morning frozen shoulder.
Sarah is, as you may know by now, keen in giving injections, so I expect all this to be cured by her wielding her needle. I don’t know how we’re going to deal with her shoulder, but I wouldn’t put it past her to grip a leather strap between her teeth and plunge a needle into her own arm. What I wish though is that she would dress the part. I quite like her in baggy, soiled jeans (she doesn’t know it but her builders bum is quite the most attractive thing I’ve seen in a long time), ankle length wellies, a stained T shirt and un-matching socks. But if she slipped into a nice piece of linen, some nylons, a starched pinny with an upside down watch, and her hair bunned up under a little cap then I might recapture some of my lost youth.
Still, I can dream.
By Sheep Identification, The DIY Vet And A Chicken Escape
I have enough trouble recognising humans I’ve known for a long while – there’s a medical name for extremes of this, but Sarah puts it down to my increasingly childlike personality and basic stupidity. Sometimes I don’t recognise her on purpose, as a form of counter measure. Recognising sheep however is on a whole different scale, especially when they have names. I can just about recognise them by type, when they have wool on – the small multi-coloured ones are the Shetlands and they jump a lot; the small square ones are the Shetland/South Down crosses; the blocky ones with wool like a bath mat are South Downs; the big fat ones are Romneys; and I think there’s one with a black face who’s a Suffolk. Not sure about the others. Trouble is they all have names. Sarah knows them all – by name and face. I don’t. And when they were sheared – as a couple of weeks ago – they all look even more alike. So when one was clearly in distress – kneeling down, wouldn’t eat – I knew I was in for trouble. ‘Who is it?’ demanded Sarah. ‘I’m not sure’ I said feebly. ‘Milly? Andy? They’re all hard to tell apart with no wool on.’ ‘We haven’t got a sheep called Andy. Oh hell, I suppose I’ll have to go and look myself.’ Well, she had to anyway because Sarah’s the family vet, with a huge box full of instruments, drugs, needles and heaven knows what else. All she needs is a stethoscope and a white coat and she’d fool anyone in a hospital.
It turned out that even Sarah wasn’t sure which one it was – although it was either Milly or Molly (but not Mandy and not Peter because he’s a boy and that’s obvious, even with no balls). So ha bloody ha! And Milly/Molly had definite foot trouble. So Sarah – who is smaller than a sheep – upended the fat 10 stone animal and deftly got to work on the injured foot while I had to sit on her (the sheep, not Sarah. I never get to do that). I winced and groaned in pain as she dug away at overgrown nail and cleaned out the infection, and she shouted at me for being a wimp. A quick spray of something blue and a massive jab of antibiotics and that was it. But I’m thinking of calling the real vet anyway because I’m worried the sheep (who turned out to be Molly) might need counselling after all the trauma.
Almost immediately, one of the new chickens escaped. It was dusk. We were looking forward to an early night (we always look forward to an early night – 9pm is late for us). The chicks are now about 8 weeks old so they look just like very small chickens and they squeak. Having let them out of their nursery coop, they mingled happily with the grown-ups during the day but one of them was unsure exactly where to go now that night was falling (in the caravan you idiot, with the others). So while the rest of the flock all put themselves to bed we tried to guide the lost chick into the caravan. She was having none of this – preferring to have hysterics and shoot right out of the pen into the pig run.
Now, it’s hard enough catching a full sized chicken when it’s penned in. Catching a pint sized chick, in the dusk, in the brambles and bracken along the hedge, is positively Sisyphean. Twice we almost gave her up to the night and the foxes, and then we’d hear a squeak somewhere further along. Sarah did catch her while I hung about being useless with a net. She was lodged in the middle of our largest log pile over which we had both clambered several times, so it was a miracle we didn’t find scrambled chicken. Back into the caravan she went, and off to bed we went. And she doesn’t even have a name! She’d better be a brilliant layer.
Farm Fashion
Yesterday I realised I have become one of the farmer wives whose sense of style so shocked me when I first moved to the country. Back then, fresh from London, I wouldn’t have left the house without dressing up. Don’t get me wrong, I was never slavishly fashionable, nor perhaps even stylish, but I did take the trouble to assemble an outfit that I looked halfway decent in. And it went without saying that I would be wearing makeup and that my hair would be neat and tidy. On visits to our local store I’d be aghast to see that most women were dressed in the same clothes they’d mucked the horses out in: wellies, poo spattered jodhpurs, holey old jumper, un-brushed hair tied back with baling twine, and no make-up – just glowing from the fresh air. Now I compare myself to those same women and find myself lacking. My standards are so low that I am envious of those ladies who manage to colour co-ordinate their baling twine hair-bands with their wellies. If they only have one sort of animal poo or dog dribble on their trousers then they are verging on being iconic in the fashion stakes.
To illustrate this – every day I visit the post office to despatch customer orders from my shop. Every day I have some light hearted banter with the post office staff who know me as a regular. The other day I did my post office visit enroute for a trip to London. In readiness I was better dressed than usual – no dog hair over my clothes, in a dress, girlie shoes, a bit of lippy and contact lenses instead of specs. I walked into the post office and was greeted as a stranger. Indeed such was the transformation that the postal worker took the trouble to explain how Recorded Delivery works despite the fact that she’s been selling me this service, daily, for about three years. A glass-half-full person would consider it marvellous that I scrub up well enough to become someone altogether more glamorous, but being a glass-half-empty kinda girl it’s clear – the honest truth is that I look like a tramp most of the time. And I possibly smell like one.
I have previously justified the ‘no-care’ look as the only one fitting for a hard working farm girl but we’ve had several junior farmers visit us recently who have disproved this theory. When families come to camp here on the farm their kids come and feed the animals each day and they do so with great enthusiasm – and style. Last week I was accompanied on my rounds by a four year old who fed the chickens wearing a white tutu, stripy leggings and pink wellies – she looked great. There was a very fashion conscious six year old who walked up from the campsite each day ready for farm duties in a sundress, accessorised with a handbag, gladiator sandals and sun umbrella – and having been warned about the risk of nettle stings she still braved the pig paddock with bare legs – all in the name of fashion.
While the animals (and I include Christopher in this category) might not mind if I’m elegantly dressed I would like to avoid sinking further into my rag-bag wardrobe. I don’t want my appearance to start scaring small children, or for village youths to dub me ‘the Hobo of Hobbs Lane’. When I got my legs waxed last week even my beauty therapist laughed at my ‘farmer tan’ (just forearms and face) and I’m not going to tell you about my hands (but if you can tell a woman’s age by her hands then I’m about 112). All this is enough to drive me to drink – except I wouldn’t want people to think my ruddy cheeks are from the booze and not the fresh air.
So while I might not be seen feeding the pigs while wearing a tutu any time soon my new rules of sartorial engagement are:
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Christopher’s cast-off clothes are not flattering on you – he stopped wearing them for a reason – so should you
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You cannot count animal poo on your jumper as accessorising
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Wearing your jeans halfway down your hips (because they don’t fit) does not make you a cool young person, it just gives you builder’s bum
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Wellies are not proper shoes and should not be worn in the high street or on a night out
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Smelling like a goat is not attractive (except to another goat)
By Cocks and Hens
It’s all been cocks and hens recently. As you know three hens went broody and hatched five chicks. From the beginning of the process it’s been an impressive exercise in shared motherhood. During the ‘sitting’ phase each of the hens left the nest once a day to eat and drink and while one was absent the remaining hens would roll her uncovered eggs underneath them to join their own clutch. For 21 days it was a game of pass the parcel – for a while I was worried that all we would end up with was scrambled eggs. Now that they’ve hatched we can only guess whose chick is whose and it doesn’t seem to matter to them one bit. They take it in turns at mealtimes encouraging the chicks to feed. When one hen sits in the sun for a snooze the chicks all sit underneath her and if another hen raises the alarm they all rush to hide under her wings or hop onto her back. They seem to share the jobs instinctively.
Shared Motherhood
Could humans adopt this system? Hmm, well I guess the egg laying part is an advantage we don’t have. Much as a pregnant mum-to-be might like to say to her best friends – I feel like a night out on the vino can you grow the baby safely for a few hours – the biology simply doesn’t add up. Also, while chicks pretty much look the same, small children are more obviously identifiable as belonging to someone even if their parents sometimes wish they weren’t (I’m recalling the mother next to me in the supermarket queue who looked fleetingly tempted to pretend her mid-meltdown two-year old wasn’t hers and do a runner!). Most mums would confess too, that while other peoples’ kids are nice in small doses, taking them on as unconditionally as their own is a rather different matter. So I don’t think we’ll be replicating this system any time soon – but in the world of chickens it appears to be one-size-fits-all when it comes to raising chicks. I should add a note here about the only hen in the coop that didn’t participate in the hatch – as she is performing a quite different role at the moment and deserves a medal for stamina. You see, during normal service the cockerel…ahem…shares-the-love around his hens but with three of them busy raising chicks he knows they aren’t up for any action. This means Little Titch is getting more than her fair share of attention – so much so I have needed to buy her a chicken saddle – yes you read that correctly. Chicken-love is brutal and Little Titch was starting to look cross-eyed and battered. The saddle provides some much needed protection and you will agree that she looks kinda stylish too? My earlier theory about humans adopting this system really falls down here – offering oneself as a substitute lover to keep the husbands of friends occupied might prove testing to even the closest of female friendships. (No offense to any of my lovely friends and their wonderful husbands – I think I’d better shut up now before I dig myself in any deeper….!)
Little Titch Saddled Up!
I wonder why it is that we call the rite of passage that marks the end of female singledom – a hen party? Why not a ‘mares’ mingle’ or ‘sows’ soiree’ or ‘does’ do’? There’s obviously something about the hen that we women admire although I can’t say I’ve ever seen a hen on a night out three sheets to the wind on Bacardi Breezers. The campsite played host to a hen party last weekend. Viewed from afar their style of celebration seemed to be the sort that only a group of intelligent, sophisticated women know how to do. Yes, that’s right – giggly-booze-fuelled-high-jinx. One of the highlights of their weekend seemed to be taking the row boat out on one of our ponds (while legless of course) and singing songs. On clearing up the campsite after they departed we were interested to piece together some of their party games. Cock-fighting seemed to have figured as part of the evening. The empty box suggested this was an inflatable game and explains the riotous laughter we heard wafting back from the campsite the evening before.
Back in the chicken coop we’ve had some cock-fighting too. Every morning Vera the (cross-dressing) cockerel exits his caravan and heads straight to the perimeter fence where Geoff the (bantam) cockerel is ready and waiting on the other side. They square up to each other and do a lot of showing off – a rough translation of the conversation is:
Vera: “shove off shorty or I’ll smack you one”
Geoff: “yeah right you flashy git, I might be small but I kick-ass’
Once the show is over (and to be honest none of the hens pay them any attention anyway – so their efforts are wasted) they ignore each other for the rest of the day. Yesterday however, Vera decided to stretch his wings and landed in Geoff’s territory. It should be noted here that Vera is a Sussex Buff and is at least four times the size of Geoff the Australorp Bantam. In terms of a cock fight this is on a par with Mike Tyson taking me on. In brief, Vera approached Geoff ready for a fight. Geoff didn’t say a word or pull a fancy move, he just puffed himself up and looked splendid and Vera immediately ran for cover! What a pansy! One nil to Geoff.
Vera
Geoff
The Chicken Definitely Came First
Ours did anyway. But on Sunday, what would have been a large and tasty omelette turned into five fluffy yellow cheeping chicks peeking out from under their Mum’s feathery skirts. Say ‘aaahhhhh!’. It will now be ten weeks before they’re edible again.
Our chickens are separated into three runs – each of which is ruled by a cockerel. The Caravan Chickens (head man – Vera); the Shed Chickens (head man Red); and The Retirement Home for Elderly Bantams (head man Geoff). Geoff does his best but his ladies don’t lay. So it’s all down to Vera and Red. Both currently have broody hens – Vera has three, and Red has one, with, between them, five chicks and four uncracked so far. What to do with nine more chickens?
Naturally I’ve been busy building things to keep them all in, and away from jealous hens and angry fathers, while Sarah has been busy on the internet looking up things like ‘how ill can your chicks get?’ and ‘will new mother hens kill each other’s offspring’ and jolly things like that.
Apart from that we’ve had no rain for eight weeks. Lovely for the campers, appalling for the landscape which is as cracked as the Gobi. There will again be a hay shortage this year – fine if you’ve got some hay but not if you have to buy it. Interestingly our wild flower meadows are much more verdant than the other, conventional fields. Could it be that ancient unimproved herb rich meadows are more drought resistant? Now that would be good. Hay at a tenner a bale, and meadows that survive without water. Result! Plus our bees are now probably the laziest in Europe. ‘Look guys, breakfast’s just outside the door. No need to fly, just hop down here.’
Our Two Day Old Chicks
This is the story of a rural life, lived by Sarah and Christopher on their 40 acre Wealden farm, near Rye, which they share with assorted animals, wild flowers, trees, an eclectic array of locals and the odd visitor who thinks it's an idyll. Sometimes it is.
