Supple as a young goat on a windy hill...

I have recently had a small operation to remove a ganglion from my right wrist and have been at home for the past couple of weeks recuperating. This has mainly consisted of reading all those books I bought from charity shops and never got around to. Some have been delight but others, why did I spend 50p on them? At least now the pile to be recycled is bigger and there's some room on the shelves for more...

Although I have been restricted in my movements somewhat, I was determined not to miss out on the basic goat keeping course we have been booked on since before Christmas. This was a week and a half after the op and I was able to drive down to Reaseheath with little pain. The day itself was great, even Agnieszka liked it, particularly when we got taken to a real goat farm where they breed various animals for their meat.

If I have one complaint about Reaseheath it's their habit of putting people into classes when they know nothing about the subject. Last time it was Mr 'I-like-to-keep-things-informal' Walton and his poor knowledge of poultry; this time it was Alan the sheep and dairy farmer. This was only an introduction, so I can forgive the lack of experience here, but for more indepth courses he would have been hopeless. He did, however, have lots of experience with cattle and sheep and came alive when he found he could transfer what he knew. You could see on the farm visit that he was relaxed around the animals, far more than in the class.

Anyway, Alan told us some excellent things, not all in the way he should. Goats, he said, had 'distinct similarities', some of which you can see in the photos. When asked about milk, he replied. 'lactation is a calendar year in terms of its lactation'. When talking about the buck, the PowerPoint slide just said 'urinating', referring to the unsavoury habit of male goats urinating on their front legs. Alan looked at that and said simply: 'There'll be lots of weeing' and then went on to explain how the smell of the buck is what attracts the doe. Now, call me old-fashioned, but if I was a girl and a large, hairy goat, reeking of its own piss, came up to me, the last thing I would be doing is turning around and thinking of England. Surely it's the smell of the doe that attracts the buck, not the other way around? I wait with interest for any response...

All in all we had a good day, learnt quite a lot and I was surprised at Agnieszka, who went there ambivalent about any animal, except maybe rats and Jack Russell terriers, but came away smiling broadly and asking me when we could get some goats. Soon, I hope.  

Oh, Chris, where art thou?

There isn’t a much better image of spring than one of a field full of lambs gambolling and leaping in the bright sunshine between the showers. Their fleece is pristine and white, a real contrast to the grey and dirty white of their mothers, the green of the pasture and the blue of the sky.
To satisfy my increasing interest in all things ovine, we attended one of the lambing weekends at Reaseheath college. These are partly for their students to get some real hands-on experience and partly to raise money for the college. As well as lambs, they had pigs, rats and rabbits, along with some college-made cheese and a few plants, but it was the sheep and lambs that were the draw.
We arrived at 10am and, although not the first, were glad to be able to wander round and look at sheep in the relative peace. Almost the first thing we saw as we came into the shed was a sheep with its water bag showing but, deciding it would be a while before anything happened, we wandered off. Returning half an hour later, we found two lambs and a chuffed-looking ewe in a pen. After that we didn’t stray very far.
Our first birth was a breech, i.e. arse first. This we had to watch on the overhead monitor, the crush of people in front blocking our view, as the student, and then the shepherd, attempted to turn the lamb around and deliver it safely. Warnings were given, by the man on the mike, that sometimes this doesn’t always end in a live birth and we should be prepared for a disaster. His explanation of a prolapse was equally as informative, calling on any women present to understand his ‘weak muscle’ theory and, we can only imagine, get mums to explain to kids what he was on about.
Another wander, a return to the main shed and a better spot, so that for the second birth we were more fortunate. Again, there was a problem, this time presentation was head and one front leg. First try was a student and, quite worryingly, again they couldn’t get things right and it was up to the shepherd to step in (accompanied by more imminent warnings of death) and correct things before the lamb was born. Seeing it there, damp and white, on the straw, new life, brought a tear to my eye.
After twenty minutes of licking the first born, the ewe wandered over to the wall, lay down and moments later a second lamb appeared. Simple as that. We weren’t able to see it happen, but the speed and ease was amazing. By this time it was early afternoon as no more births appeared imminent we took our leave. An interesting day, but one where I hoped there were more people to talk to who would explain things in more detail. The students there didn’t seem interested and the shepherd was taciturn, so as a finding-out session it wasn’t so good but as a general day out it got top marks.

Small is beautiful

Things will never be the same again. That’s what they say. Comparisons have been made to the Great Depression of 1929-30 and the last fuel crisis in the early 1970s; comparing then with now. In some respects, this current sticky patch is the fault of banks and bankers (although let’s not forget all those people who took the credit, knowing full well they would struggle to pay it back) but it has elements of both these previous ‘disasters’ and that makes me nervous.

In a report last week, one of the newspapers said that if a terrorist attack targeted Portsmouth / Southampton, where much of Britain’s imported food arrives, then two days later supermarket shelves would be empty. This makes me so uneasy. I don’t want to be in a position where I struggle to feed my family because Tesco provides, citing consumer demand as a reason, strawberries in January. I want to be able to grow my own food and provide my own energy. A tall order, but one I am trying to work on.

We’re still on the waiting list for an allotment, sharing one with my parents at the moment. This set-up isn’t ideal but means we can grow some of our food and become slightly less reliant on supermarkets. Having to learn new skills is fun, interesting and empowering and I am glad we know how to make soup and bread from scratch, can build things from wood and understand the seasons and what should grow when. We have a lot to learn, but every day a bit more knowledge lodges itself in my grey matter and nudges something useless out of there.

Moving one step further forward, I attended another course at Reaseheath. This time to learn about small-holding and livestock. Reading James Herriot books and listening to the Archers is all very well, but there comes a time when you have to put abstract learning into practice.

The day itself was divided into four segments: sheep, pigs, cows and tractor driving. After quick introductions from our instructor, Mark, and the other nine participants, it was out into the cold to look at sheep. First stop was the barn where the North Country Mules (Blue-faced Leicester x Swaledale) were mooching around in readiness for giving birth to singles, twins and triplets.
Although the photo didn’t come out very well, you can just spot the sheep wearing a crown of straw. The others didn’t dress up, they just stood around, taking a bit of molasses-enriched silage and staring at us as we learnt about lambing and general sheep health. From the draughty barn to the draughtier field to round up some lambs and bring them back up to the farm.
As predicted, the two groups in the field moved into one quite smoothly and then, not liking the look of us, set off at a run across the grass. Between us, and thanks to strategically-placed hurdles, we managed to get them through the first gate, then along the next field where they instinctively headed for the corner furthest from where we wanted them to go. Plenty of running, arm waving and ‘sheepdog’ whistles ensued and eventually they were coaxed to the right gate.
They did this so expertly, through the gate and into the holding pen, that they must’ve done it before. It seemed easy and even our tutor said we did well, some of the full-time students aren’t so competent.

Having them in a pen means they are easier to catch and ‘tip over’, which sounded a lot easier than it actually was. Sheep may look all fluff and spindly legs, but in reality they are heavy, strong, wriggling and not that happy about going over. First you have to catch one, without pulling its fleece. Then, you put one hand under the head, holding onto the front leg, and one hand on a back thigh. Bend the head round to touch the body, throwing the sheep off balance, then step back and pull the sheep towards you. Theoretically it should roll over, sit on its bum with its back resting against your legs and, once there, stay fairly quiet.
What actually happens is they wriggle and writhe, twist and squirm. I got as far as turning the head but when I tried to step back, the sheep followed me. After a couple of goes it got fed up and wrestled its way free so you have to start all over again. Although it isn’t easy, I did manage to do it twice and clip a few toenails. Once they are in position, the sheep sit quietly and seem to be ok with you checking their feet. If I want to keep sheep, which I do, healthy feet are very important and tipping sheep over will have to be second nature!

After their pedicure, the sheep were taken back to their field and left to graze un-harassed while we moved on to pigs. Reaseheath’s pig unit is a commercial operation, with 130 sows plopping out 12 piglets 2.3 times a year. It isn’t a laid-back family business and it shows. Even the instructor said he would be glad when the new unit is built next year as this one is dirty and cramped and only one step away from factory farming. An uncomfortable experience.
We were shown outside pens of four-week-old piglets, then taken into the farrowing unit and given a week-old piglet to hold. Mine was quiet for two seconds until it realised my hands were freezing (they’re kept nice and warm) and then started to squeal loudly. I dropped it back in with its mother (fenced to stop her rolling on top of them but with enough room for her to lie down) and moved along. The smell was incredible and the urine stench made your eyes water. I wasn’t the only one glad to get out into the crisp Cheshire air.

Then it was time to use pig boards to herd a few and two enormous (or are they normal-sized?) white pigs were let out of their pen. Sheep stick together when faced with the unknown, but with pigs it’s everyone for themselves and these two were no different, each making a beeline to a different part of the yard, followed by us with our boards. No amount of clicking, shouting, talking, board-waving or pushing seemed to make them go in any direction they didn’t want to. As you can see from the photo, she’s bigger than me and I’m not very assertive.
The third part of the day was supposed to be with cows but the 250-strong Holstein-Friesian herd is managed by an outside company so wandering around with the cows wasn’t possible. We were, however, shown into the £1.5 million milking parlour and watched as the first cows came in to be milked. Like the sheep they knew were to go: straight to the end and then turn to face outside so the milking hands could reach the udders. Cows get milked in batches of 34; a swift and automatic process with all the herd going through in around two and a half hours.

Finally it was back outside to have a play on a tractor. Two minutes of instruction and away we went although it was unit only, no ploughs or trailers to wreak havoc with. There is, I notice, a longer course on tractor driving so maybe I will sign up. Until then, I have the memories. Agnieszka said that, had it not been for my ears, my grin would have gone all round.
If things will never be the same again then I for one want to be prepared and this course was part of the process towards knowing enough to get by. I hope I know more than I did last week and slowly edge my way into self-sufficiency.

Kury domowe

As I write this, great goose feather flakes of snow are falling on to the car park outside the window. The view to Scout Moor is hidden by driving snow backed by grey cloud and the general feeling in the office is one of great excitement as well as a hope that tomorrow may be a ‘work from home’ day.

Luckily it wasn’t like this on Saturday when we barrelled over to Reaseheath College for a beginner’s course on keeping poultry. Living in the Greater Manchester urban sprawl certainly doesn’t have its advantages when you want to do outdoorsy things, which is why we travelled for an hour to sit in a classroom at Cheshire’s agricultural college to learn how to keep poultry, with a general focus on chickens.

There were twelve of us there, eager to learn. Two women already kept chickens and, as they reminded us throughout the day, knew pretty much all there was to know about the birds. Except where the nose and ears were, as I heard her asking while we were outside. We got to learn a lot over the course of five hours: housing, feeding, breeds. The instructor was an ex-farmer who had been drafted in to take the course and, unfortunately, it showed. His idea of how much food they needed (‘Oh, a kilo a day per bird should be ok’ – it should be 130g) was off, as was his vague notions about housing. Disease weren’t mentioned, except for a brief nod to Newcastle disease. His excuse was he liked classes to be informal, but I think his experience of hens was on a large scale where feeding is done by the bag, not the handful, and hens are left to get on with it, ill or not.

The best bit of the day was when we got to go outside and get down with the birds. While they don’t have a big poultry unit at the college they do have meerkats, a valuable addition to the average agriculture student’s knowledge base. Agnieszka was torn, therefore, between looking at the meerkats, and watching me chase scraggy arsed hens round a muddy plot.

Having never held a chicken before, let alone caught one, it was good experience as now I know I can do both. Whether I can wring its neck, should the time ever come, remains to be seen. What the day did teach us, was that we are capable of keeping them and I am really looking forward to getting our own for the yard, while I know Agnieszka is looking forward to me moving the hen house out of the front room to somewhere more suitable.