All change in the shippon...

Ever since I started working with Jane up at the farm, I have been milking the same two goats: Anna and Ava. So a couple of weeks ago, when I was told they'd be going soon, I didn't really think much of it and assumed I had misheard. But last weekend, I arrived to find a little van and trailer parked where I normally do and a flurry of activity in the yard.

I was able to milk the two of them as usual but, after milking, the trailer was got ready and the goats loaded into it for their long trip up to Arran, where they'll have a new home.

I have got quite attached to the two of them, Anna (above), who stands still while she has something in her bucket to eat, and turns to sniff my ear while I am milking her; Ava (below), who has long teats that make it easy for me to milk, but who had a habit of kicking if she thought she could get away with it.  

In recent weeks Ava got a bit of 'spring fever' and, instead of wandering back into her pen after milking, would dart outside and trot around the yard. It's hard to run after a goat when you're carrying a bucket full of milk, as I found out.

Next week there'll be some new tenants in the pens, as the goatlings will move into the shippon, leaving a pen free for all the new kids. It's an interesting game of solitaire, and one that keeps me busy.

Ready for lambing...

Sunday we divided the Dorset flock into those due to lamb, those not due until May, and those to run with the ram in order to get them in-lamb for September.

The beauty of Dorsets is they come into season all year round and it is possible to have lambs two or three times a year.  

The other good thing is I get to experience lambing three times in one year, at a lesiurely pace, than having to cram it all in over two or three weeks.

Livestock and deadstock...

Sunday mornings are important to me, a chance for me to learn, to put into practice what I have read in the week, to try out techniques and to get closer to the animals I want to, eventually, manage and breed. This Sunday was a sombre affair, however, as one of the milkers, Zia, had failed to birth the third of triplets. This resulted in septacaemia and, ultimately, she died. Her orphaned kids stand in the pen looking a bit lost, as if every time the gate opens it will be their mum. In the pen next door, Sybil, the one who always held milk back when I tried to milk her, also lost two kids. Perhaps an infection affected them both.

On a happier note, Elka had triplets (above) and all was well and one of the goatlings in the other shed had twins. So that's eleven new goats in the space of a week, with two more to kid. Then it will be the turn of the Dorpers and a few more Dorsets.

I was full of a cold so clipping the feet of the Dorpers took ages and I don't think I was her best buddy for taking so long. I'll have to buck my ideas up next week!

In a quiet few minutes at work, I had a bit of inspiration, and came up with this:

She leaves her golden bed
Of straw to stand
Obediant, expectant,
Over a silver pail.
Silence, save for munching,
A snicker, a belly rumble.

I lean my head
Into her side,
The rumen gurgles
Like the promise
Of a distant storm
But outside, all is silent.

The praties are dug and the frost is all over...

One side of the potato-pit was white with frost -
How wonderful that was, how wonderful!

Sunday mornings these days are spent trying to perfect the art of milking. It's a nice thing to try and learn and I do feel I am getting somewhere. Most of the milk now goes in the bucket, rather than up my sleeve, on the floor or across my trousers, and the goats seem happier that I am getting faster. I find my biggest problems are with the goats with the smaller teats, getting the grip just right is difficult if I am not to spray milk into my hand. But, as they say, practice makes you better.

This Sunday, following a week of snowy and icy weather, as well as milking the goats we attended to the feet of the rams. It took three of us to turn them over and hold them, they wriggle and squirm worse than the ewes, and Dorset sheep aren't small. The Dorpers were fairly placid, although one started a fit of coughing when we righted him and I was concerned he might keel over at one stage, but he calmed down and then just got in the way.

The farm itself is in the middle of fields, as farms usually are, and on these crisp frosty mornings the views are stunningly beautiful. As the sun rises it glows, orange, low in the morning sky, making the ice on the grass twinkle and sparkle, like a sprinkling of glitter over everything. As I was carrying hay into one of the barns for the calves, I looked over the fence into the big field. The grass was white, the trees in the distance covered with hoar frost, and on the left, a red poll cow stood, a beautiful dark red, unmoving, a stark contrast to the rest of the icy scene. It would have made a lovely photo...

So near but yet so far...

The gap between the dream and reality was never so apparent as last weekend when we went, for the second time, to the Smallholder and Garden Festival in Builth Wells.

The first time, in 2009, all was new, exciting, overwhelming even. It was an opportunity to see animals and ask questions of their owners in a way we hadn’t been able to do before. It allowed us to decide that Anglo Nubian goats were our goat of choice and that a cow needed too much space. We spoke to people who bowled us over with their enthusiasm and positivity while, at the same time, leaving us with no illusions that a smallholder lifestyle is a soft option.

This visit we went with open eyes and decided to concentrate on less but more intently. This also proved difficult as there was again so much to see but we did spend plenty of time around the goats and Anglo Nubians came out top again, although Toggenburgs come a close second. I spoke to a very nice lady from Devon who gave me lots of advice and then brought everything home by asking: How much land do you have?

So the dream and the reality are still very far apart. While the slowly recovering economy is starting to reduce the negative equity we found ourselves in two years ago, it’s a long drawn-out process and one that will probably never give us a good return for our money. At the moment I think we’d be lucky to get the deposit back. Anything on top of that is a bonus.

So what are the next steps? Well, firstly a trip to Poland in July which will be concentrated around Szczecin. This will allow us to explore the area further and decide if it really is where we want to be. It will also enable us to visit a few estate agents and talk to some people about the price and availability of property with land. After that we can decide if we have the money to carry on.

It's a dirty job, but...

When I was 17 and Channel 4 was just months old, I watched The Animals Film. It showed, in graphic detail, factory farming and what went on in a vivisectionist’s laboratory. I decided there and then that no animal needed to live in such conditions and I gave up eating meat (and six months later, fish) as a personal protest. I said at the time that when factory farming stopped, or when I killed and ate my own meat, then I would eat it again. That hasn’t changed over the years, neither has my support of animal welfare (although not animal rights). Over the weekend, though, I think the day got that little bit closer.

We had three hens. The biggest used to bully the other two to the stage where they have almost no feathers on their backsides. One of them was also laying shell-less eggs. So, with my dad’s help, we built a ‘sin bin’ and I started to isolate them to find out who was laying soft eggs. It turned out to be the bully, so she was put in the sin bin for two days to try and cure the feather pecking. However, when she was put back in the run she viciously attacked the other two and plucked feathers from anywhere within reach. So we took the decision to cull her.

Not an easy decision but the hens aren’t there to look pretty, they’re there to lay eggs. As Agnieszka said, we’re not a charity. In addition, if I want to farm a smallholding, then there will be times I need to cull birds or animals and if I can’t do it, then I might as well forget that kind of life. It isn’t something I would do for the hell of it, just when it’s necessary. So I took advice about the correct procedure and late on Friday night when it was dark and everything was still and quiet, I lifted her out of the sin bin and wrung her neck. She was plucked, dressed and in the fridge an hour later.

To say I haven’t wrestled with my conscience over the weekend would be an untruth. It bothers me that I did something I thought I never would. I lost sleep over it, felt guilty, tried to justify what I did and at the end of it all came to the conclusion that it was the best thing. We don’t have room for a ‘free-loader’. She had a good year with us, was well looked after, but in the end she stopped producing what she was bought for.

Dung. It's the future, I smelled it...

Over the weekend we went to Builth Wells for the Smallholder and Garden Festival, held at the Royal Welsh Showground. It was a chance to meet people who already farm on a small, or larger, scale, to see breeds and, hopefully, to get some information that would inform our choices for the future.

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.

From the show, then. Some photos:

An Angora goat, softest fleece I've ever touched.

Some Anglo-Nubian kids...

An ancient cow of Wales with calf...

A modern farrier, making a horseshoe the traditional way...

Parading some Welsh mountain sheep in the ring...

Preparing to show...

A sheep hairdrier, I kid ye not...

How to shear a sheep in under two minutes by a bloke from the British Wool Marketing Board...

Some quail, these ones are Cinnamon Quail...

The pig shed buzzed and hummed, mainly from the smell of the pigs, which is a bit of an acquired taste. These are English Whites being shown in the ring. Essentially it is an opportunity for the pigs to do a bit of running around and for their owners to chase them with a bit of board and a flimsy walking stick...

An Oxford Sandy and Black, or possibly a Gloucester Old Spot...

My mum's favourite (on a butty) is the Saddleback...

While the rain stopped for a bit we popped outside to look at a working threshing machine...

And a stretch tractor...

And finally, for everyone we know in Ramsbottom... a ram's bottom.