Arriving at the Harrogate showground at 7.25am on the Tuesday morning I was surprised to see just how busy it was. We were lucky in that we got a car park close by the showground as, when we were leaving around 5pm, some of the fields to park in were a long way from the entrance. So, after a quick boiled egg / coffee breakfast, we hit the animal sheds.
The GYS is huge. And busy. There were breeds of animal I had never even heard of, in colours / styles I didn’t think were possible. I think photos show more than words.
Steam cleaning the cows before giving them a blowdry to make their hair curl...
Better quality equipment than anything I've seen inside a salon was used with care...
Getting the sheep ready with a final trim...
Taking the pigs for a walk in the show ring (these are Berkshires)...
Ugly sheep. A Texel, bred for quality of carcase rather than personality...
Beef cattle, showing their thighs. I think these were Limousin...
Holstein-Friesians, with their bags full and looking painful...
Some cheese to look at, because you couldn't buy it there...In stark contrast to the warm sun in Harrogate, the day of the Great Eccleston show dawned dark and dreary. We decided to chance it, driving up the M61 past Chorley in torrential rain. By the time we got past Preston it had slowed to a trickle and arriving at the showground it was cloudy but dry, with hints of sunshine poking through the clouds. A lovely site, with views across to Bowland and the smell of country in the air.
Again, photos do more justice than the words.
Saying hello to English white pigs the day after a Saddleback boar made a run for it - to the bar.
Anglo-Nubian goats, becoming our preferred choice for the future...
A load of bull, probably a ton and a half load and not something I wanted to get too near...
Tractor-pulling, the noisy, and seemingly pointless, thing that modern farmers do...
Of course, some Shetland sheep after they cleaned up the awards...
The sheep show, an informative and amusing look at sheep through the ages...
Finally, what to do when there's no television. Eat your sandwiches, watch your cow.
Thanks to Tony and Kath for tickets to Great Yorks and, as ever, to Agnieszka for the lovely photos.
A recent trip to Wool-Fest (
We were there for about four hours and had a good look round. It isn’t cheap, but the quality is excellent and most stallholders were pleasant and helpful (are you reading this narky old bag on the book stall?), although there was an amusing reversal of the ‘woman asking a plumber’ scenario when I asked one of the stallholders about a type of wool / sock. When she replied, she looked only at Agnieszka. It was only when I pointed out that it was me who did the knitting did she talk to me properly.
A wedding dress, made from Wensleydale fleece / wool and worn at a sheep-infused wedding. 
Three weeks after splitting the original colony it was time to inspect the new and, while there were quite a lot of bees, there seemed to be no sign of either a queen or eggs. In fact, the brood box was completely empty, all cells clean and waiting, but nothing laying in them and most of the bees clustered in the super of stores. I assumed the new queen was still out on her mating flight and another week was needed but my hand was pushed when I checked the original hive.
A gap in work meant I could get back to the hive around dinner time. On the first look through I spotted the queen and managed to grab her but she wriggled free and, as I tried to grab her again, flew up and over my hand, between the frames and into the box. Three further trawls through the frames didn’t uncover her again and, with a lot of now narky bees, I closed the hive and went back to work. The third time I went, after work on the same day, things started off as badly, as a couple of searches revealed nothing. On the third run through, however, I spotted the queen on a frame and, quick as a flash, I jabbed the Butler cage over her and then managed to get a bit of newspaper over the end. The sigh of relief was heard throughout the allotments. I closed up the original hive and, hanging the queen cage between two of the super frames of brood, placed her carefully in the new hive and closed everything up. 
A week later when I checked there was no sign of the queen in the new hive but I did see eggs. So it seems, at this point, the split was eventually successful. It remains to be seen if she carries on laying and the brood hatches healthily and the wait between each hive visit is hard to bear. If it all works out then I am very pleased but, if not, then towards the end of summer the two colonies will be united and I will try again next year. It hasn’t gone as smoothly as the books lead you to believe, but having to decide what to do on my own has boosted my confidence that I do know what to do without having to take advice from others. My hope now is that the bees settle down and get on with making us some honey. 
I recently borrowed a bee suit in order to show a nine-year-old how a hive works and, as I still had it, asked Agnieszka if she wanted to use it to get closer with her camera. She jumped at the chance and, while a little bit nervous, got some great shots. At last I can put some close-up shots on the blog that aren’t blurred. Thank you to Pippa for the loan of the bee suit and to Agnieszka for the photos. 
Goats also produce good quality milk, need a lot less room and are smaller than cows so that’s been a recent avenue of exploration. After contacting both the Anglo Nubian and Saanen societies, I was given the name of a goat keeper near Blackpool and, on the hottest day of the year (not difficult), we trundled off to look at his herd. It was a little disappointing, then, to find only four Anglo Nubian goats in residence: two milkers, a year-old female and a crusty old Billy in a back field. We were warned not to touch him, ‘because of the smell’, and told he was ‘past his sell-by date’, although still capable of siring kids. Billy didn't seem too upset at hearing this.
Out of the hot noon sun and into the goat shed, a light and airy, albeit cobwebby, building where the three females are housed. We talked about care and feeding and how fussy they were about eating things off the floor. From there we moved on to the small parlour where they were milked. Environmental health are very fussy about hygiene, we were told, although as we were shown the scales, where the milk is weighed and then recorded, I noticed a cobweb running from them to the wall. Next door was the cheese-making room and we went through the basic process of making cheese, cleanliness being paramount.
Then it was outside to meet the milkers. One of the goats, the dark one, is a very good example of how the breed should look as one of the others has lop-sided udders. As if to prove she was still exceptional, the lop-sided one showed us how she could cough and fart at the same time, something that impressed me at least. I even managed not to laugh, despite the temptation. We discussed the amount of milk, between 3 – 6 litres, you would get daily, and how to get rid of it. Would we make cheese and butter? Sell it? One option is to freeze it as goat milk and cheese freezes well, better than cow’s milk, so that would be an option for when the goat is dry. The other thing to consider carefully is the twice-daily routine of milking…
After we left we headed for the beach and, surrounded English fatties and Polish families, we chatted about the commitment of keeping animals. It really is a tie, so if we can’t find people to look after them, we wouldn’t be able to go away and there lies the crux of the problem. One that needs a lot of thought. For now, while we're thinking, I will continue my quest for information about the best options and next on the list is milk sheep.
Whatever I was expecting, it certainly wasn’t the sight of Tony, still in his Sunday best shirt and tie, hand clipping a ewe. After a few minutes of chat it was down to business and I was given the task of trying to ‘roo’ a ewe. Unfortunately the wool hadn’t risen enough for it to come off easily and, despite tugging and pulling, I couldn’t seem to make the fleece come off and had to resort to clippers. With the ewe fairly immobilised by a head restraint, it was quite straightforward to clip the back and down the sides of the belly. Doing the legs was a different matter as they don’t like their legs touched so trying to clip the fleece from a squirming, wriggling sheep made it a slightly more difficult task.
The second ewe we did was one of the older ones and well used to the process. She stood quietly while the fleece was literally pulled off her. When the new wool starts to grow it pushes the old growth off to some extent and that means it can be pulled, or roo-ed, easily. Again, starting on the spine the fleece is peeled off the sheep like you would a banana, except that it’s wool, warm and smells differently. The ewe, I’ve forgotten her name, stood quietly, burping occasionally.
Finally we attempted a ram. This is a whole different ball game, if you’ll pardon the expression. Firstly, they have horns and, secondly, they are much stronger than the ewes and a lot more wilful, so even getting them into the head restraint was a task in itself. I held onto the horns while Kath pulled with the halter but it wasn’t easy. This one had to be clipped and so, again starting at the spine, we clipped the fleece from its back. The ram let its displeasure be known by having a wee a couple of times and dropping a few sheep currants, but neither found a target. He settled down as we did the belly but got understandably skittish when it was time to trim the fleece from around his tea and sugar, add to this my nervousness with a sharp pair of clippers and it’s a wonder there wasn’t blood. I was proud of my ability to shear and only once nicked a sheep but not enough to draw blood – although it was enough to make the ewe a bit nervous.
As a bonus I was given the fleece from the chocolate coloured ewe that I clipped. As soon as my carding brushes arrive I will attempt to turn this into some sort of yarn and knit something from it, the first time I will have done the whole process from clipping to knitting via carding, spinning (not sure how to do this bit yet) and washing. It seems every week I learn something new and I feel good that I can do these things. I look forward to learning more and, maybe one day, passing on some skills to my offspring.
It was more than even I had hoped for and just about everything you could want was represented: hens, ducks, turkeys, guinea fowl, dogs, sheep, pigs, goats, cows, horses, tractors, alpacas, hamsters, rabbits and bees. I haven't been this excited since I crossed the border into Albania. We got to the showground around 9am and we didn't leave until many of the trade stands had packed in and gone at about 6pm. Where the time went to I have no idea. It was fantastic. I got to speak to people about cows, goats, sheep and spinning and for all the questions that got an answer, another dozen sprang into my head.
I was really buoyed up by the positive attitude of the people I spoke to, their hard lives made better by the quality of life they now enjoyed. I was at once elated and depressed. Elated because this is what I want for our future, somewhere to live where my family can enjoy food and drink untainted by chemical additives, where it is produced locally and doesn't sit for days in the back of a trailer, trundling across Europe so that Tesco shoppers can enjoy the fruit (and veg) of the season at unseasonable times. I know it will be hard work but I am not afraid of that, not if it means giving Agnieszka and any children a good standard of living. On the flip side, it made me depressed knowing that, for a few years at least (how many? Three? Five? Twenty?) we will be stuck in that cultural sewer pipe known as Farnworth and that money will restrict what we do here, or in Poland. It was a sobering thought and one that made me think hard over the following few days. Depressed I might be about my current finances and lack of 'easy' opportunities but the resolve has hardened and the determination is there. One day, we will have it. I am sure of it.
