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Summer 2010
The calendar means little to a farmer - the weather and natural events generally have far more influence on the timing of what we do. We tend to know which day of the week it is because of going to the livestock market on Wednesday and church on Sunday, but the date is often a mystery. The year tends to be punctuated by the Great Sighs of Relief. The first for us is Lambing is Finished - when we can sleep through the night rather than get up every two hours between us and hours worked per day reduces from 16 or 17 back down to the usual 12 or 14. The second is Shearing is Finished - until that's done the sheep are in great danger of both flystrike and heat exhaustion should the weather turn warm, either of which could quickly kill them. Get them shorn too early, however, and the ewes' milk will dry up before the lambs are ready to be weaned, so a fine line is trodden on that one. The last is yet to come - the Hay Crop Is In - once that happens we know there's feed for the sheep and cattle through the winter, whatever the weather may throw at us.
The swallows have returned to their nests in the old stable - making it out-of-bounds until they leave in September. Butterfly numbers are down, probably due to three cold, wet summers followed by an extremely cold winter. Puzzlingly, though, grasshopper and cricket numbers are hgher than we've seen for several years. A good summer will soon see the numbers increase as we've seen all the varieties common to this area, from Orange Tips to Red Admirals.
The poultry hatched on the farm last year is now laying well. The eggs we sell from the farm gate include dark brown eggs from the Barnevelders, tinted (buff) from Light Sussex and Black Orpingtons and blue from Cream Legbars. Our handsome (and doesn't he know it!) Blue Laced Wyandotte cockerel and his six Buff Laced and Blue Laced wives have produced good strong chicks for us to sell at the Ross-on-Wye rare breeds sale in November.
The countryside is far from peaceful at this time of year - morning birdsong is cacophonous (lovely word)! Blackbirds and Mistle Thrushes are loudest but Robins, Warblers, Skylarks, Wrens, Bramblings, Dunnocks and Blackcaps join the songs, whilst Chiff Chaffs and Titmice add their less musical calls. The young of some of the first brood of some of our native birds have already fledged but only one per nest, as far as we've seen, instead of the usual two or three - another indicator of the cool weather and resulting lack of greenfly and other good sources of protein for the growing youngsters. Last year's Lesser Spotted Woodpecker crop regularly visit the bird feeder at the back of the farmhouse - they remind me of guardsmen in their smart black and white jackets and scarlet trousers. Watching Nuthatches, Tree Creepers and Collared Doves from the kitchen window is a great benefit we get from not keeping a cat. (The other is that we don't have to worry about cat faeces infecting the hay crop with Toxoplasmosis, which causes ewes and cows to abort.)
We're collecting some British Blue X Holstein heifer calves this weekend, to grow them on and sell them early next year to be suckler cows. The Holstein side of things means they should produce lots of milk and the British Blue part means that when crossed with a beef breed such as a Hereford they will produce beef-type calves and happily suckle several other calves as well as their own. The extra calves will come from dairy cows crossed with a beef breed - those cows will produce milk for the dairy industry so their calves will be raised by less productive animals.
Guests seem to enjoy their stay in the Barn no matter what time of year it is. Comments in the Visitors Book so far this year include "great to be here at lambing time" (March), "a very relaxing and peaceful week in a rally lovely building" (April), "we loved waking up in the morning and being able to open the door to sunshine and stunning countryside" (June) - alas, we cannot guarantee the sunshine!
The Story of Doris:
Many of our Barn guests have met Doris, our Beulah Welsh Mountain ewe, and enjoyed hearing her story, so here it is for web browsers: Our neighbour across the valley was leaning on a stock pen at market, waiting for his sheep to be sold, when he felt a nose nudging his hand. He looked down to see a couple of mountain ewes looking up at him. One nudged his hand again and he looked them over to check they were sound in teeth, feet and udder and bought them.
After a few years on his farm they became too old to lamb outdoors again and to be gathered by the sheepdogs but the farmer's wife had become quite fond of them so Alice (then seven years old) asked if she could buy Doris and Speckles (as they'd acquired names) and began saving all her pocket money. She regularly asked our neighbour when she could buy them but he always came up with a good excuse as to why it was inconvenient just then. On Christmas Day that year, though, the trailer rattled up the road and out came Doris and Speckles as presents for Guy and Alice!
They each had a ram lamb that Spring, although Doris subsequently got mastitis and required a lot of care before she recovered. She's now living out her life here at Hareley Farm and has her own job as head of the little flock of weaned ewe lambs each summer, as she's trained to come to call or to the feed bucket and will bring them up the field with her.
Speckles died peacefully in her sleep a couple of years ago, but Doris proved her worth by alerting us to a ewe cast (stuck on its back - always fatal for a sheep) in her field. We rescued the ewe and next day she had twins, so Doris had saved the lives of three sheep.
She has no teeth so we have to put her in a field with fairly long grass, or feed her hay. We've no idea how old she is - probably at least 17 - but she's still fit enough to pick up a good turn of speed when trotting up the field for her evening treat of a handful of sheep mix!
Last updated: 27/07/2010
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