Over the Farmer's Gate (2 page)

The reason? There, curled up with him in the same warm hollow, were three black cats. They were so close together that you couldn’t tell where the cats finished and the dog started. An hour later there was a standoff between a collection of dogs and a collection of cats around the milk dish. Confrontation by day, cuddles at night, bit like being married.

I HAVEN’T seen the keeper for about a month; he’s been busy with the lambing at the farm where he works full-time. But that’s all finished now and he’s done his spring sowing so his zest and enthusiasm are focused back on to his part-time job as a gamekeeper.

We have a meeting planned today, Saturday morning. Every year I allow him to grow two acres of game cover on my land and today we meet to decide if I will allow the arrangement to continue, and for how much.

He’s fairly confident on the continuation issue but the cost is a bit more sensitive. I often think that members of shooting syndicates expect the shoot to run on a shoestring.

Shooting is very expensive anyway but I had a theory when I played rugby that whatever it cost to go on some trip or other would actually cost you double that, because your wife would spend the same amount on herself and, in reality, there wasn’t much you could say about it. I am sure that the same applies to shooting.

‘How much rent will you want this year?’

I’m straight to the main issue, I haven’t time to hang about today as my Discovery has a poorly clutch and I’m in my son’s car and he’s off to play rugby at 11 o’clock. ‘I want £1,000 up-front and a 200-bird day’s shooting for me and my friends.’

I get one of his thin smiles. That’s way over the top but people say I have a very convincing style when it comes to winding them up. We eventually agree on £100 more than last year. He doesn’t seem over-pleased but I’m sure the shoot expected to pay more, so why disappoint them?

That done, he moves on.

‘We were foxing last night and I reckon there were over 40 of your hares in that wood.’

I’ve seen hares about, but not that many.

‘Tom Lewis was standing in that corner by the stile and there were 18 went past him.’

Now I know the Tom Lewis in question, and his tendency to exaggerate, so there were probably four or five.

‘You like your hares and I keep an eye on them for you.’

Slowly but surely they’ve become ‘my’ hares – and it’s true, I do like them. It’s just that I suspect that if another tenant complains to the keeper about hare damage they will be Roger Evans’ hares that are causing the trouble.

‘Many foxes about?’ I ask innocently.

‘A few.’

Strange that he knows, or he reckons he knows, exactly how many hares there are about, but he’s not going to tell me how many foxes they shot.

I WAS PUTTING some fertiliser on the winter wheat the other day and I spotted a tiny leveret scuttling along on an adjacent tramline.

When we drill a field we miss drills on a regular basis so that we have somewhere to drive the tractor in subsequent operations without damaging the crop.

Leverets travel down these tramlines; scuttle is the right word because they travel flat to the ground, trying to keep out of sight.

As I watched, a buzzard swooped in and carried the unfortunate leveret away in one easy motion. Left me a bit sad really, but life and death are all around in the springtime. I’ve seen this happen before, but never this close.

Spring has finally burst upon us in just a few days. We suffered a really raw day with a biting east wind and temperatures stuck at three degrees centigrade and the next day it was 18 degrees. In just a few days since then I have seen my first swallow, my first house martin and heard the cuckoo. There is a suggestion within the family that I hear the cuckoo all year round.

Nothing epitomises spring more than the sound of larks on a sunny day. We are well blessed with larks around here and in the last few days of warm weather they have really been making up for lost time.

SOMETIMES I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Given the choice I prefer to laugh - there’s plenty to make you cry as a dairy farmer - so when something is within your own remit, a chuckle is better than tears. I was moving some dry cows in a trailer. They’d just completed lactation and were now going off for a couple of months to our other land. A couple of months to recuperate, replenish body reserves, off concrete on to a nice grassy field, a time, as it were, to use my grandchildren’s jargon, to chill out. Because the lane is a bit narrow where I was dropping them off, I have to park the trailer at right angles to the gateway so that as the cows
come out of the trailer they have to turn 90 degrees into the field. This shouldn’t be any big deal; with me standing in a strategically suitable place and the sight of a grassy field in the other direction, it should be, grandchildren jargon again, a no-brainer. The only slight negative to this carefully planned scenario is that there are already nine in-calf heifers in the field.

As I pull up they are all lying down at the far end of the field so that shouldn’t be a problem. As I park up, the cows in the trailer, three of them, decide to re-establish some sort of pecking order. This apparently involves a lot of pushing and shoving, probably a bit of a fight, and lots and lots of clatter and an element of trailer bouncing.

If you are an in-calf heifer lying down, chewing your cud, this sort of commotion is irresistible, so you jump smartly to your feet and race up the field to the gate just as fast as you can. Getting the cows out of the trailer is now just a bit more difficult.

There is an unavoidable sequence to events now. I have to open the field gate first whatever I do, and then run smartly to the trailer, let down the tailboard, open the two stock gates within the trailer and get back into my strategic position just as quickly as I can. Alas, smartly and quickly are not smartly and quickly enough and two of the in-calf heifers are out of the field and away into the distance.

People sometimes ask me what it’s like getting old. Well, it’s OK just as long as you don’t try to run anywhere. So I’ve got two heifers about a hundred yards away now and seven heifers and three dry cows in the field and quite a dilemma. But help is at hand. Under the tailboard of the trailer is Mert my border collie.

He just loves moving cattle in the trailer and at loading and unloading, he is always under the ramp. Apparently, this is a good place from which to bite a wayward ankle; mostly it is cattle ankles but it could just as easily be mine. So eager is he to get under the
trailer that there’s a good chance he could get run over one day but that’s his problem.

But now is his big chance to shine and he takes it. ‘Get on by Mert,’ I cry, pointing down the lane at the two disappearing heifers. And he does, he does get on by, he goes into the field and fetches the other 10 cattle as well. The only plus here is that they set off in the same direction as the other two.

The first two heifers are out of sight now but Mert is still my only chance unless I start to make frantic mobile phone calls home for help. Not keen to admit that I can’t unload three cows into a field on my own I try once more: ‘Get on by Mert’.

And once again he does. He’s off down the lane, past the big bunch and out of sight after the other two. Moments later they are all coming back towards me, the two that caused the trouble at some speed, high-stepping it like Welsh cobs at a show. Obviously there’s been a bit of ankle-nipping going on. Into the field and shut the gate, job done.

My relief is huge. The next junction down the lane is a place we call Five Turnings, for fairly obvious reasons. Goodness knows where they would all have ended up if they’d got that far.

The fuss I make of the dog is at a level he’s not experienced before and he’s so grateful that, returning home, he tries to sit on my lap instead of his usual place between the two front seats, and I can’t get the seat belt around the two of us.

But it’s not quite ‘job done’ – there’s another load of four cows to move yet. This time I take a bit more care. I back the trailer a bit nearer to the gate so that I have a bit less of a gap to cover. The cattle already in the field are by the gate but I think I’ve got everything covered. Mert is in his usual place under the trailer. I open the gate and leap to the trailer ramp. On the previous occasion opening the trailer smartly wasn’t quick enough. This time my ‘leap’ is lacking in speed as well, because without a word
from me the dog is into the field and has the 12 cattle out on the road quicker than I can say the F word.

With an air of resignation I let the four cows out of the trailer to join them. At least I have them all in the same place, even if it’s the wrong place. And the dog? He’s away down the lane, still unbidden, and fetches all the cattle back with an air of self-satisfaction.

There’s 16 cattle in this group now and it takes some bottle for a dog to pass them in a narrow lane, stop them, turn them and bring them back. I know that, the dog knows that, and he presents himself for the fuss he’d had at the previous incident with some pride.

He gets his reward and, as I drive back, I look across at him and wonder just who is in charge here. I’m still not sure of the answer. I get back into the yard.

‘Everything OK?’ my son asks.

‘Yes fine.’ I don’t tell anyone I’ve just been on an adventure.

THE CALVES being born here now were fathered by the Belgian Blue bull we bought last year. There is a good demand for this beef-cross calf, so we are hoping the revenue will help to alleviate milk prices, which are on the downward slide.

We try to give all our calves a good start in life. They spend the first 24 hours with their mum and then they are put with all the other fresh-calved cows in our loose-housed shed, where there is plenty of room and nice fresh straw to lie on twice a day.

In theory, they can stay here for several days if they behave themselves and it is luxury living while it lasts. It’s the nearest they will get to post-natal care with BUPA.

Twice a day these cows go down to the parlour to be milked and it can be very difficult parting calves from mums to achieve
this, especially if half the cows in the group think it’s their calf.