The war continues

The are many battles smallholders fight. Some are massive wars of attrition such as the one waged against the ever encroaching Bracken, whoever gives up first loses. So far armed with a petrol strimmer I have managed to carve nearly three acres of reasonable grassland from the strangle hold of the dreaded ferns.

Then there are battles that you cannot win, like the one against the weather so you adapt, adopt and improvise to get the jobs done before the weather wins. Or how about the battle you must win at all costs, keeping the goats out of the garden, constant vigilance is called for and sometimes parts of the garden have to be sacrificed in order to let the goats think they are winning while you regroup and launch a new offensive.

Perhaps the strangest battle is the one over the eggs. It seems all of the inhabitants of Rock HQ want to get their hands, paws, claws and even hooves on the rent from the hens. I turn my back for a second tonight and Faith hurdles the barn door and takes off with two eggs in her mouth. Last night Reba ate 14 eggs collected and put for safe keeping on the kitchen worktop.

But the strangest thief of all is Trevor, caught on camera having eggs for breakfast!

Noah's Ark

Given the weather we have suffered the last three days perhaps we should have built an Ark instead of a stable. Our highly accurate 21st century rain gauge which also doubles as a coffee mug placed on the wall outside Rock HQ has filled to the brim in the last 48 hours. Here you can see some of our motley crew taking shelter.

They don't show this type of weather in the books about smallholding, they are usually full of pictures of smiling folk bucket feeding alpacas. Erecting barbed wire fencing in a monsoon hardly features at all.

No mercy

Today has been a real trial.

One of those days where you realise that smallholding really is a way of life, you cannot decide once you start to just stop. You cant wake up one morning and decide that's it, not doing it anymore. So today, despite the weather, we have been working outside doing heavy dirty jobs, and while we worked it was obvious the fox had struck again.

As Tracey and I cleaned the floor mats for the stable we could see Terry the Turkey on patrol around the perimeter fence. He does this all day everyday making the funny gobble gobble sound and puffing himself up displaying how big he is. Today he looked different, it might sound odd but the colour had gone from his face, he looked scared. In fact he looked so different he looked like one of the females. Tracey found a clump of brown feathers by the greenhouse, not a good sign. I climbed the bank and checked the nest site under the tree. The nest was empty, no eggs and a trail of feathers through the brambles down to the fence of the pigs sty where the flora was all flattened. From the signs the fox came in from the hill, crossed the garden and killed the turkey by the greenhouse and pig sty. It then dragged the twenty pound bird over the vegetable garden, over the lane and across the field opposite. What made matters worse was it then must have come back and killed the only remaining female turkey in the barn and taking that one the same way. We searched around for ages hoping to find the second turkey nesting somewhere, and Terry has been patrolling calling all day but no response.

This means out of the four turkeys we bought last September only the male remains, the rest have fed the foxes. We are beginning to question the free range aspect of the smallholding, or whether keeping poultry is viable. We cannot afford these type of losses. Its the time of year that foxes have cubs so the predation rate does up but we are losing a bird a day at least. Given that we found three fox trails in the snow last November we could have anything up to fifteen cubs that need feeding in the wood and hills around Rock HQ. As we are the first smallholding off the hill we are a prime target, and as the gorse bushes and bracken provide excellent cover they can move around with impunity during daylight hours when we are away.

Our neighbour, The Oracle, told us the other week that he had seen foxes sitting in the hedge watching the sheep giving birth and running out and taking the new born lamb as it lay on the ground. A farmer from over the ridge told us he had lost over twenty lambs to foxes.

It seems the local foxes view us as a specialist takeaway where they can supplement their rabbit diet with turkey, duck, and chicken. We had a round up when we discovered the missing turkeys and found that since Thursday we have lost a Muscovy Duck, two hens and two turkeys.

Now I would shoot the fox if I saw it, but only having one good arm limits my ability to aim properly. Tracey is not keen on me arming myself to the teeth and keeping vigil to shoot the murderous intruder given what happened last time.

I had borrowed a gun and sat waiting for Foxy Loxy on the top of Oak Bank, the killing ground baited with a couple of dead rabbits shot earlier. After a few hours of watching and waiting Foxy Loxy obviously had other dinner plans so I collected the rabbits and I made my way back down the hill to the cottage. I went up to our bedroom and very quietly laid the gun on the bed and started to take my camouflage gear off. I had been in the Army so I am quite used to handling guns, so a loaded gun on the bed didn't cause me any concerns as the safety catch was on.

I struggled out of my hunting gear.

As I did so I heard Foxy outside the cottage. I looked out of the window and could see him sat in the lane looking up at the bedroom window, I swear he was laughing at me. I reached for the gun.

As my hand touched it there was what can only be described as a very loud bang and bits flew off the bedside cupboard. Tracey sat bolt upright, my attempt to go to bed quietly was not working out as planned. Considering I had just shot some of her favorite bedroom furniture she took it very calmly. She didn't tell me off but I'm not allowed to handle loaded guns in the house. I cant anyway at the moment and Tracey has taken on the role of Marksperson. Quite often we stand too in the bedroom and fire a couple of volleys off to frighten off the fox. But as the vermin are now attacking in the day light other options having to be taken up.

The fox traps are on order.

These contraptions let the fox in to get the bait, I have several pheasants in the freezer earmarked as bait, but don't let it out again. I will then, if we catch one, shoot it. The way I feel about the fox at the moment I am likely to shoot it, skin it, mince it up and feed it to the poultry, but I shall probably just shoot it. There will be no mercy shown to the fox on my watch.

The day wore on, somehow these slabs of rubber had to be moved.Thankfully Tom and Beth were on hand to assist moving the heavy duty rubber mats from the barn and up to the stable. They weighed a ton and it was a real team effort to move them the 100 yards uphill to be laid on the floor of the boys new home. The boys showed their appreciation by taking dumps over them.

The tack room was next and we kitted it out with things to hang the reins and stuff, and a saddle rack. Its safe to say now the stable is completed, we are exhausted from the effort but its been worth it. Its just the dairy that wants kitting out now. Despite our tiredness several more little jobs got ticked off, the gate to the garden got a new catch, the onion sets were finally planted, the potatoes were covered with Williams finest pooh and the usual jobs were done.

As I fed the sheep I saw one of the Black Rocks eating something in the goat house, it turned out to be an egg laid by one of the Pekin Ducks. I had been wondering when the Pekins would start to lay, even watched them build a nest in the corner of the duck house, now it was clear why we were not getting any eggs. The Black Rock is now slowly cooking in the rayburn.

The fox isnt the only one partial to chicken at Rock HQ.

Things smallholders say

I think I will get a couple of sheep to help keep the grass down, a phrase I have often heard from would be smallholders.

As you can see demonstrated here they eat everything and only eat grass as a last resort. This is Katy and Daffodil who have got into the vegetable garden and are sampling the raspberries. They have already savoured the delights of the gooseberries, the strawberries, taken chunks out of the leeks and finished off some flowers in pots. Luckily most of our plants are still under glass as we try and construct a more goat proof fence which will hopefully keep these two rascals out.

The green marks identify them from the rest of the flock as keepers rather than eaters. You can also hear the sound of a chicken suddenly going airbourne as a Gordon Setter called Faith surprises it.

The sounds of the country.

Rambling on

I have just spent a happy hour and a half with a brush cutter cutting down the bracken, nettles, thistles and foxgloves that left unchecked would over run the two small fields we have that just about pass as grazing for the sheep and horses. When we first got here what identified it from the rest of the hill was that it had a fence around it, it was, just as the rest of the hill is, a tangle of brambles, gorse, bracken and weeds. We could have sprayed it and cleared it that way but we want to be as organic as possible here so we resorted to cutting it back. Which is why I spend hours of my time with the trusty brush cutter scything through two acres of weeds on what we call Oak Bank on account of it being the field behind the bank with the Oak tree on it.

While the brush cutter does its job as I swing it from side to side I can't help but think about the unanswerable questions in life. Sometimes these are interrupted by bits of nettle as they sting me by falling inside my boots of flying up and hitting me in the face. Tonight's rambling thoughts were varied, from the simple, like why do anti mist goggles always mist up (the pair I was wearing to protect my eyes from the flying debris were so foggy I had to take them off) to the complex like if mirrors need light to reflect what would happen if you were in total darkness in front of a mirror wearing night vision goggles, would you see a reflection?

These cerebral wanderings keep me occupied as I wage war against the weeds. If I am not pondering impossible questions then I am more likely to be contemplating how different my life is now compared to a few years ago when we lived in a modern three bed semi detached.

The longer you spend living the life of a smallholder the greater you realise the differences there are between you and non smallholders. This is most apparent when at work when I look at my co workers, none of them look tired, with the exception of one who is a first time Dad and so gets no sleep, they all look refreshed in the morning after a quiet night at home. None of them go home and start work again, and I know it’s a lifestyle choice but sometimes I do wish I could go to bed and sleep uninterrupted, or wake up naturally, not woken up by some insane dog barking at four am just to let us know that a goat was looking at her funny through the wire mesh of the kennels.

It would be nice to retire of an evening without having to worry about a night time attack on the poultry from the foxes on the hill, instead of sleeping lightly, jumping out of bed at the sound of a twig snapping in the lane and flying to the window holding the torch steady as Tracey gets ready to loose off a volley of shots at the intruding predator.

Co workers will get to work on time, or if they are late it will be due to traffic, or their car won’t start. Our reasons for lateness include these run of the mill excuses but include exciting variants from rounding up dogs who have run off, getting goats out of fences, getting the bucket off the sheep’s head, sheep delivering lambs, finding the missing rabbit, getting the goat out of the house, getting the goat off the car, taking pigs to the abattoir, floods, trees falling down and rock falls.

My co workers arrive at work dressed in clean and tidy apparel. I intend to, sometimes I even make it to the car clean only to be thwarted at the last second by an affectionate encounter with a goat, dog, or horse who want to share their drool, fur, bogeys or dirt with me or my clothes. My shoes usually look like I have been walking around a farmyard, which they been. I took to leaving a clean pair in the car, this worked until one of the dogs liberated the left one and concealed it somewhere on the hill. The next step is to leave a clean pair at work. This I will do as soon as I find the right shoe from my other pair which suffered a similar fate to the pair in the car once they were discovered in the workshop. I have before now set off to work in my farm boots and on one memorable occasion got to work wearing them.

Luckily I work in a supportive team who ignore the fact that they are talking to someone wearing chinos with a big brown muddy mark down the leg, or a shirt with a paw print on the back or boots that have enough dirt on them they could easily be used to grow a salad selection.

Their evening might be taken up with soaps, computer games or a quiet pint down the local and a game of pool. Mine might be spent carrying buckets of horse do through to the garden to put around the base of the 12 fruit bushes we planted last year, gardening or any number of animal related jobs or emergencies. We used to keep a jobs list, adding jobs when we thought of them and ticking them off as we did them, this practice stopped once the list got bigger than three sides of A4. Their conversation is about football, films and television, mine is about the latest addition to the clan at the Rock, our latest visit to the vet, the garden or more recently the building project.

I love living here, it's hard work, always different and I wouldn't swap it for anything.

Happiness is priceless.