Shear cheek from madam
AS I write this the sun is shining and all is quiet.
That seems to be the way with farming these days – short bursts of frenetic activity followed by periods of apparent calm. I stress the word apparent.
Dairy cows are milked twice a day, sometimes three times, every single day of the year. Come rain or shine, morning after the night before, family parties, family funerals, come what may the cows have to be and are milked.
I know... I did just that for over 40 years. Believe it or not I do miss it.
Milking the cows every day, it is not difficult to recognise individuals and remember previous generations - I can still remember the first cows we bought in the Edna Dawn – Charm, Sally, Rotha and Marcy families and that was in 1968.
The greatest pleasure to me was breeding the next generations and watching them develop.
In spite of the criticisms of our industry becoming factory farming, that ethos of identity with the animals as individuals and the consequent pressure to care is still with us.
Back to the quiet. Mother nature has kindly supplied the rain when we needed it – just in time.
Silage clamps have filled, hay is being made – I am halfway through carting the bales from the field right now.
To add to the pressure, we had booked the contractors for shearing the sheep last Saturday, so that had to be fitted in.
We started at 8am and finished at 7.30pm. Before you ask, yes we did shear Madam!
There lies the next stage in her life story. Who say sheep do not have character? Who says sheep are not clever? Not me.
Madam was in the field, well fenced, with her mates. Lush grass, lots of clover. Perfect.
Friday, the day before shearing, our contractor is cutting grass for hay in the field adjacent to the ewes.
Trotting down the field in front of the tractor and mower - yes , you’ve got it - Madam, with her two lambs.
I turn away in despair, then look back to see Madam is now in the adjacent field on the other side. How she clears the fences I do not know.
“Right, I’ll bring you in for shearing in the morning with the ewe hoggs (last year’s lambs) from that side of the farm,” I say.
At 5am the next morning, as I drove across the stream to bring in the ewe hoggs, there was Madam having a drink.
Most stunned to see me promptly ran off at speed to the hay field.
I was first to the gate so she turned round and trotted, the picture of innocence, over the stream to the farm.
I closed a second gate then went to fetch a group of ewes and lambs in - to find Madam waiting by their field gate!
We did bring her in and she was sheared successfully. Who says sheep don’t have character?
The Uttoxeter sheep fair is coming together. It takes place on Saturday, July 13 and Madam will not be there.
But there will be about 20 different breeds on display, shearing demonstrations, mock auction and an art competition with a sheep theme.
It is only just down the road and it certainly will be different - I mean sheep in Uttoxeter High Street?