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| No 74 (Lady) and her ewe lamb |
On the 17th
March I finally set off from Cheltenham to start my WWOOFing year
by going down to Cornwall. The weather was dry and overcast but, as I reached
Launceston, the sun came out and shone brilliantly on the
primrose-speckled hedgebanks as I drove along. In places there were
clumps of 'feral' daffodils, originally planted by those long ago
Tamar Valley nurserymen who refused to lose all their hard work and
heritage when the War Office said they had to grow food instead, and
transferred their bulbs to the hedgebanks where they have flourished,
bred and spread ever since.
I arrived to find that
the old milking parlour in the yard was now just a shell, and all the
accumulated detritus of years had been cleared away. Two men were
busy knocking out the back wall which had been in imminent danger of
collapse and, over the next three weeks I was to witness this phoenix
rising from the ashes as Nick, Pat and Harry carefully rebuilt two of
the walls, knocked out the concrete block infills between the
original granite pillars, and restored the building to a semblance of
its original self. Next time I go the new slate roof will be in
place, resting on massive green oak beams that will span the four
granite pillars at the front, there will be an oak-framed window in
the back wall, looking down across the fields to the wood, and a
'squint' looking up the track past the house. Nick used to be a dairy
farmer but he says he's better now – he just has beef cattle
instead! Restoration of farm buildings started as a necessity on his
own farm but, as his skill grew, he became sought-after by other
people in the area to renovate their barns, etc.
Jo was away quite a lot
of the first week, staying at her daughter's house about three miles
away, as Mary had had a complicated operation and was unable to do
much for herself and certainly couldn't get the children to school
over near Tavistock, so it was easier for Jo to base herself there
and for James and I to go over in the evenings for a meal. James was
also due to be away for a few days so I, unexpectedly, did a farm sit
for them. Luckily, most of the sheep were in paddocks near the farm
and it was relatively easy to take out silage and sheep nuts to them
once a day. The good weather that greeted my arrival did not last and
I was soon reduced to wearing my waterproofs whenever I went outside,
plus it turned much colder for a few days. Some of the sheep were
right at the bottom of the farm, down a track through the woods and
across a small stream, and I had to check them once a day, although
they had plenty of hay in their hayrack so I didn't need to replenish
that at all. However, my Achilles tendon started to play up after a
couple of days so I commandeered the quad bike (I did have
permission) and rode that down to the woods. It made life a great
deal easier and was good fun – I even got into second gear at one
point! I realised that it is probably the nearest I shall ever get to
riding a motorbike, so made the most of it.
A week after I arrived
at the farm, Jeni came down from Somerset to spend nearly a week
helping, too. It was fantastic having her company and finally being
able to show her the lovely oak woods and the Shepherd's Hut and the
holiday barn conversion and all the other things that I have been
talking about for so long. She has now been to nearly all of my
'regular' WWOOF hosts so can visualise more clearly what I am up to.
We went and stayed in the holiday bungalow a little way along the
lane from the farm so that we could have our own space, although we
ate most meals with Jo and James.
One of the 'jobs' that
I'd been saving until Jeni's arrival was the bonfire. I had tried
(and failed) to have this bonfire back in the autumn and again in
January, but the wet weather had made it impossible, so now was our
moment (between rain showers!). There were three heaps of twigs and
small branches that had been added to since the autumn and now there
was some old cane furniture from the old milking parlour, plus one of
the apple trees in the orchard had blown down in the storms, so we
got to cut all the brashy bits off that, too. In true family
tradition we kept that bonfire burning for three days, despite the
rainy weather, and had a wonderful time – my hair still smelled of
smoke after shampooing it twice!
The other main job was
to get the barn ready for lambing and to bring the pregnant ewes
inside. To this end, Jeni and I power-hosed all the sheep hurdles,
feed troughs and hayracks, plus we scoured the farm for all the
serviceable buckets and scrubbed them out, too. Once all the sheep
hurdles were in place, James manoeuvred the large round bales of hay
and straw, with the tractor, to form shelter barriers outside of
these, and then we bedded up the whole area with fresh straw. The
next day, Friday, we brought the pregnant ewes in from the field and
split them into two groups in the barn – those that were going to
have singles, and those that were going to have twins (or, in two
cases, triplets) so that James could feed them different quantities
of sheep pellets.
On Saturday we decided
to revisit the Lost Gardens of Heligan that we had last been to in
2001, but this was not to be, as my little car, always so reliable,
got about ten minutes away from the farm and then boiled over. The
Peugeot has a slightly alarming beeper that goes off if there is
something amiss and a red flashing sign saying 'STOP!', so I pulled
over, rang my rescue service and waited for a knight in shining
armour to turn up! Whilst we waited at the side of the road, instead
of playing 'I Spy......something beginning with 'C'.....car!', I
found a crochet hook and some wool in the depths of my boot and
proceeded to give Jeni a lesson in the art (craft?) of crochet square
making! The time went by quite quickly and, after about an hour, a
cheerful chap in a white transit van turned up, found the leak (the
hose at the bottom of the radiator), re-filled the system with water
and escorted us back to the garage just down the road from the farm –
not exactly a knight, but he'd do! You should always be careful what
you wish for, as Jeni and I had wanted to go to the pub, called The
Springer Spaniel, for Mother's Day lunch but they were fully booked
but, as we had to walk right past it on the way back to the farm to
get Jeni's little car, we decided to call in and see if we could have
Saturday lunch instead! It was delicious and well- worth it – no
wonder they'd been fully booked, but it did mean that we had to
curtail our outing, so we went north to Boscastle instead, with me at
the wheel and The Navigator back in charge of the route!
However, I wasn't able
to mope for long as things were revving up in the lambing shed. On
Tuesday I helped James gather all the lambing equipment together on a
table next to the pens – iodine for putting on the navels, bottles
and stomach tubes for any weak lambs, syringes, needles, gloves and
all the paraphernalia required in a busy maternity unit! On Thursday
evening the first lamb put in an appearance (a few days earlier than
dates would have indicated) and we were away! By the time I left, on
the following Thursday, eleven ewes had already lambed of an expected
twenty seven – Henry, the new stock ram, had obviously taken his
new job very seriously! I'm sure you are all wondering about No 74
(aka 'Lady', the miracle sheep) and I am pleased to report that on
the day before I was leaving she produced a pretty little ewe lamb –
mother and baby are doing well!
Another of the jobs
that I did was to trim and tidy the willow 'folly' down by the pond.
It is gradually getting quite well established, despite being savaged
by the hedge trimmer on one side last year, and all the new growth
needed to be woven into the structure, or cut off, to keep the dome
shape. Finding myself with quite a lot of long, supple willow wands,
I decided to construct something in my spare time, rather than throw
them on the bonfire heap – so I made a willow sheep (what else!)
for Jo and James to place outside their Shepherd Hut, in the field
above the pond. It was lovely working down by the pond, especially on
the Tuesday afternoon when it was warm and sunny, the only sounds
being the gentle trickle of water from the pond overflow and the
birdsong from the woods below me. I'm not much good at willow weaving
and felt a bit frustrated that the vision in my head would not
translate into reality in my hands but, it felt fantastic to be out
in the open air, creating something and feeling, if not fully happy,
at least content.
On Thursday, 10th
April, I repacked my (repaired) little car and drove towards Bristol
and a farm sitting job.
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| The Willow Sheep |
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