Sharpshooter

An ATV might cover the ground a lot faster that you will on your feet but when the devil is in the detail, you are better off on Shanks’s pony

If you really want to get to know your shoot, you have to walk the ground. Not every day, but at least once a season. Admittedly, driving around in a motor vehicle is the norm; in an age of lone working, it is the only feasible way to do your rounds while carrying heavy bags of feed and other materials. I don’t know what today’s gamekeepers and farmers would do without their ATVS and pickups.

But nothing takes the place of Shanks’s pony when it comes to getting up close and personal with the land. This must be due, in part, to the slower speed, the lack of noise and the heightened sense of awareness. You can see, hear, feel and smell more when you are on foot. It is the only way to get a real grasp of what is going on with the land.

I relearned this lesson the hard way recently. I decided, near the end of the day, to make a snap visit to one of my stewardship meadows. Some errant sheep had been leaping over the fence to get in and I wanted to make a last-minute check. I jumped on the quad. Just a 10-minute job before supper, I reckoned. It was a sultry evening. I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and had some slipper-like shoes on my feet, secure in the knowledge that I wouldn’t be walking anywhere.

Big mistake. At the far end of the Long Meadow, about a mile from home, the quad broke down. The automatic gears would not shift. This has never happened to me before but I knew that there is a special tool that can be used to effect a mechanical shift in such an eventuality. So I opened the tool compartment – only to find it empty.

I then remembered that I had used an item recently but had neglected to put the tool bag back. I am an idiot.

I started the trudge home in my ridiculous indoor footwear. The sky darkened ominously. A gusty wind got up. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed. Rain fell in biblical quantities. Pushing through the sodden, knee-deep grass in the deluge was like trying to walk through a commercial car wash. My feet slopped about in shoes that might have been made of wet cardboard for all the support they gave. I stumbled on into the tempest, head down.

Suddenly, through rain-bleary eyes, I glimpsed a tiny patch of colour at my feet. I stopped, wiped the water from my face and then knelt as if in prayer.

This meadow is in a stewardship scheme and there are three key species of wildflower that I am particularly required to produce. We knew that two of the three were already present, albeit in low numbers. But nobody had been able to find any sign of the third species. Yet here it was, right in front of my nose. A tiny flower, but a beacon of hope in the downpour.

I continued my march through the storm in a better frame of mind. Morale improved still further when I came upon two more specimens. What a pity I didn’t have any sticks to mark their positions.

But at least I know they are out there. And there must be more. Before the grass gets too much longer, I shall pick a dry day and walk that meadow properly. It’s the only way to get to know your land.

In fact, I have made a new resolution: from now on, I am going to walk round the entire farm at least once a month. It’s too easy to miss things from a vehicle. I need the exercise, apart from anything else. We’ll see how long this lasts.

“I started the trudge home in my ridiculous indoor footwear as the sky darkened”