Fifteen Minutes of Fame?

Mike has had to take time out of his busy schedule being a gamekeeper to play one on TV. There's a new reality show destined for the US market called Ladies of London (I think that's the working title). The cast includes the incumbent Countess of this estate who will be having a shooting lesson with her friends under Mike's instruction as part of the show. It is one of the duties of a gamekeeper to assist his family and any guests with shooting requirements, and this certainly counts. Much to Mike's horror.

He's had to put on his full set of wool tweeds for the filming, and the temperature today is over 30C. An introverted man by nature, and still conscious of his scars from the accident, he's just walked out of the house looking like a man on his way to his own hanging. It will be good for his personal healing process to face this challenge, but Mike's still hoping that these scenes end up on the cutting room floor.

I want to be as supportive as possible and Mike is a simple man, so instead of talking to him about his feelings, when he returns from his ordeal he will find a warm gooseberry crumble waiting for him. Lady S has let me have her gooseberry harvest as she's not fond of the fruit herself. It's Mike's favourite (I told you, simple tastes). While he was sweating in his wool suit, I walked to the fruit cage in the walled garden and picked a kilo of gooseberries and made him  an "I'm sorry you have to do this, but it'll be OK" crumble.

Mike came home looking both tired and baffled. He's not used to seeing breast implants or enhanced lips. He asked me why they do that to themselves. Where do I start to give him an explanation? To Mike who has been through many painful re-constructive surgeries, he sees plastic surgery as a form of self-harming.

It's safe to say he hasn't caught the acting bug.

I could have stood and watched the filming, and taken a few photos for the blog but I haven't got the 'bug' either. Besides, I had to de-flea the dogs, help a friend trailer her horse, and the leg of venison we're having for dinner wasn't going to cook itself. And I've seen fake boobs already thanks. You'll just have to watch the programme if you want pictures.

The young Countess-to-be was happy, so therefore Mike's happy. And the BBC provided so many cartridges that there's enough leftover for 3 days' practice at the shooting club. Mike came home after four hours' filming and peeled off his tweeds, and ran straight out to check and feed his birds. Real gamekeepers have to deal with real livestock.

I don't know how to break this to him, but filming of a new adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd starts in September on this estate. On the up side, I don't remember a gamekeeper in that book.  I'll tell him to be thankful it's not Lady Chatterley's Lover. September's apple season - I can always make him another crumble.

The Hard Decisions

I know I often say "Where's there's livestock there's dead stock", and that's true. What I forget to mention is overstock. There are always inherent limits on the amount of livestock one can keep. Sometimes you have a good year and produce enough females to replenish your breeding stock, and have extras to sell. Sometimes you suffer a bad year and the weather means you lose your entire hay crop, and you can't manage to feed surplus stock through the winter. Gaining or losing grazing affects stocking rates. The price of a finished lamb will push profits up or down, and influence your decision to breed more or less for next year.

You get the picture.

This year's hay crop on the ground, with days of sunshine forecast to dry it out before baling!

The horses, Kitty and Alan, count as livestock, but they don't have any earning potential. Both are purely a luxury item we have in place of big vacations. Mike and I used to get more time to ride together, but his workload has become crushing. He has exactly zero days off a week. After losing our hay crop last year, we are in arrears - at least in the fodder and bedding departments. This year's hay crop has just been cut and looks to be a safe bet "in the barn", but the possibility of another hard winter combined with an expanding sheep flock, and Mike's time constraints, led me to make a difficult decision.

I have sold Alan.

The first person to see him bought him, and it softened the blow that his new owner is a local lady. Alan's only down the road at a neighbouring (very fancy!) yard. I tacked him up for the last time on Sunday for his new owner, who hacked him straight out of the yard and 5 miles home. That traitorous lout never even looked back! As soon as the happy couple were out of sight, I sat down in the field and cried my heart out. It felt like breaking up with my first boyfriend. Worse than that.

My tears have finally dried, and with a few days' perspective I know it was the right choice. Alan clicked with his new owner immediately, and she's planning on taking him to shows and competing him. Alan is a do-er, and a social butterfly. He will enjoy a more active life.

Kitty is still here, and always will be. She's stoic about Alan's absence and, once the hay is baled, she can visit her horse friends in the neighbouring field so she won't be lonely. With only one horse to ride, I'm already getting out more. I've ridden more this week than I have the whole of the past month. Kitty and I will both benefit from the increased exercise. My bank balance will benefit from halving our horse stock.

Kitty eats her evening meal in peace now

Still, I miss my big, fat Alan - even if he doesn't miss me.

We finished hatching chicks last Tuesday, for the first batch of poults (half-grown birds) to be delivered on the Thursday. Initially the poults are placed in protective pens while they learn to where to roost and to feed, and how to avoid being fodder for hungry predators. The night before delivery, our dogs work through the pens and make sure there are no unwanted guests in the pen; particularly deer, which get trapped and then beat their way out. This is the start of our dogs' fitness programme. Shooting season is only a few months away.

This is also the time to assess the dogs for next season: how did they do in the field last year, what training problems are they having, any health problems, that sort of thing. Most working dogs love their jobs, and will work in spite of pain or an injury. It's up to us to protect these dogs from themselves with rest or medication, and monitor any changes in behaviour that can indicate improvement or deterioration.

Some dogs lose the will or ability to work. Often it's age related. Last year, Jazz our 8 year old black and white springer, started to show signs of confusion: losing her way even over ground she knows well, preferring to stay with me instead of working away to find lost birds. Her heart wasn't in the hunt. I had her checked over by the vets, and there is no obvious health issue.

We have made another hard decision: to retire Jazz, sooner than expected.

I'm happy for Jazz to live indoors as a pet with us, but we have friends who would like another retired spaniel to love. Do you remember Hazel? The family who adopted her love her so much that they've asked if they can have Jazz too. Mike's agreed. So, yet more tears from me.

Never mind forage, I'm going to be spending all my money on boxes of tissues.

Jazz is affectionate and personable, so I know she'll benefit from living as a pet in a spaniel-friendly family. She deserves the best retirement we can provide.

The last 'sold' puppy was taken home yesterday, too. In total, the five puppies went to three gamekeepers, one land agent, and one gardener. With all her litter mates settled in their new homes, Fraggle and I can begin her puppy training programme. We're starting simple: mastering toilet training and the 'sit' command. Fraggle's retrieving instincts are coming to the surface even at this age, and she loves carrying the turkey feathers that she finds in the garden, and - less helpfully - retrieving teabags from the compost pile. And her favourite toy?

A prolapse harness for a ewe.

Well, at least she's easy to entertain.

Fraggle will be living in the house for at least the next six months with Dakota, who's very tolerant of youthful exuberance, and Pip who most definitely is not. Pip will spend the next six months sulking in my bed, looking betrayed and put-upon until the pup gets a little older.

I know there will be more hard decisions to make in the future. Every year brings its own challenges and opportunities. The trick seems to be recognising them. For the moment, the sun has come out, and we are taking advantage of that rare opportunity. I treated the sheep for their assortment of summer pests this afternoon, planted more salad leaves in the garden, and enjoyed long morning walks with the dogs. My first chili peppers are ready to harvest. We have some new buff Orpington chicks running alongside foster mothers in the yard, including two chicks hatched and being mothered in partnership by the blind chicken and turkey hen -

Celebrating the overturning of DOMA through poultry

There's also a delivery of meat chickens on the way, and our ram lambs are ready to go camping.

Red dots - all aboard the bus to Ice Camp!

So, I guess my heart feels empty but my freezer will be full. That's farming for you.

Mi vacaciones Espana en fotos

I haven't posted about my riding holiday to Spain because, let's be frank, can you think of anything worse than sitting down at a friend's house flipping through photos while they regale you with stories about sun and fun? Me neither. Also, I was so enjoying the peace of riding through medieval villages and Mediterranean landscapes that I didn't think to take many pictures. My camera was usually buried in my saddlebag beneath lunch supplies and spare horse shoes anyway.

Lucky you, is all I can say. You get the short synopsis instead.

What I will tell you is I would do it again in a New York minute. But instead of three days, I would opt for the whole week's ride. Three days is just enough time for your muscles to stretch and your arse to go numb in the saddle. The pain was weirdly addictive.

Anyway, Barcelona was fine. Nice city, fantastic architecture - even though most old buildings now house fast food outlets. I had a view of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia cathedral through a Starbucks window. Kind of sad. I've lost my love of cities and found myself looking for pigeons, just to see some wildlife.

After a day in Barcelona we were picked up and driven to Can Jou - a village-sized, 40-horse farm owned by the same family for centuries. Our driver spoke almost no English so, armed with my refresher phrase book, I was excited for a chance to practice my Spanish. I needed more practice. The driver asked what I do in England. I'm pretty sure I responded that my wife and I farm pheasants in church.  

Can I point out that I took four years of high school Spanish, and was only 2 credits shy of a Spanish minor at university? 

Anyhoo.

There were four other women on the ride, and you could not have hand-picked nicer people with whom to spend a holiday. We all got to know each other over dinner and wine in a thatched barn, with mating pigeons carrying on over our heads. The owner, who also served the dinner, informed us that 'a man with a gun would come and shoot the pigeons in the morning' (HA! I know that much Spanish anyway). 

I got my opportunity to ride a PRE full Andalusian horse. This is Rey, my equine companion for the holiday.

A gentlemen, and fit enough to carry me and some fully laden saddlebags for hours over rough terrain. 

We crossed a few roads like this one, but quickly found ourselves in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

I started in the traditional 'stick up one's ass' riding position, but the horse soon put me right; he needed longer reins for his balance, and I needed slightly shorter stirrups for mine. This was trekking, not dressage.

Both we and the horses stopped midday to rest and feed. After years of enduring British summers, the hot Spanish sun felt like a miracle.

The horses closed their eyes while we ate sausage and cheese and discussed our horses' good and bad points, like we were at a teacher/student conference.

The dogs who opted to come with us, ignored our gossip in favour of a power nap.

It was about 6 hours out the first day. We returned to the farm, to check over our horses and hose the sweat off their backs and bellies, and to feed them a huge high-energy supper. These are athletes, not like my lethargic pair of grass nippers at home.

We had our own comfortable stable block, with beds and showers

And we found more time for talking. Elin and I talked about the culture and politics in her native Sweden. It sounds like a fantastic place to live. I've put it at the top of my 'Places to Visit' list, based solely on our conversations.

There are no photos of our next days' riding. Halfway out on our ride, a tremendous downpour had us riding for cover, and killed at least two cameras in our leather saddlebags. The rain was so hard it hurt the thin-skinned horses who napped and trotted sideways to take the brunt of the storm with their back ends. We were all cold and wet - none of us had wet weather gear - but decided that it only made the ride more of an adventure. The ride back, whenever we trotted, all you could hear was 'Slurp-squelch' 'Slurp-squelch' as our feet shifted in our water-filled boots. 

After hot showers we met in the barn for dinner again. It seemed that the man with the gun only hit one pigeon that morning - Mrs Pigeon. Her surviving male companion wasted no time grieving. He was already cooing and dancing, trying to entice a new lady friend, oblivious to the diners below him.

A final day in Barcelona visiting Park Guell, a final jug of Sangria, and we were on the plane back to England. 

The next day I ordered the new brochure from the company that specialises in riding holidays. There's one in the Carmargue region of France that looks like fun. Anyone want to join me?

Podgelets All Grown Up

The Podgelets have grown up so fast. They will be ten weeks old this Friday. All the boys have gone to their new homes, with quite a few tears from me at each parting.

Both the girls are still here. The little black girl has been named Duma by her owner, which apparently means Cheetah in Swahili. Her new owner will take her home when he returns from Africa in a fortnight's time. So, I've pencilled 'More Tears' in the diary for that day.

Fraggle is already showing her smart but naughty streak. She loves attention and with four brothers and sisters competing for it, she felt she needed to gain some advantage. So, she learned to climb the kennel wire and be the first to greet you, a good foot higher than her siblings -

The scary thing is, she can climb down, too. 

I'm wondering now if I shouldn't change her name. Does anyone know the Swahili word for 'monkey'?

Is it a Chirkey then?

My hen turkeys couldn't wait for Trevor to arrive so they made do with sitting on some chicken eggs. I left them to have a go. After helping with this morning's pheasant hatch (3,900 chicks), I came home to find one more chick had hatched - a Buff Orpington chick - and turkey hen was the new mom.

They seem to understand each other's peeps and chirruping noises. The chick is robust enough, and mom seems careful not to tread on it. If the chick is well-mothered and survives, chalk another one up for interspecies bonding.

I have a second turkey hen sat on four eggs -

Well, technically, she's sat on a blind chicken that's sat on four eggs but the 'Mom Sandwich' (pat pending) is keeping the eggs warm and the hens happy, so again I'll let it play out. Nature always knows better than me.

Stag Party

It's 2nd June and I'm still watching what was supposed to be our 2012 holiday dinners wandering about the place. Our three hen turkeys got a free pass based on personality (I never met the goose we ate for Christmas). Person-ability and the fact that they have consistently laid turkey eggs, which turn out to be delicious and sell for a premium, made them a good addition to our poultry stock.

When spring came they started acting weird (from a non-turkey perspective) - laying down and hissing. If you'd walked close by a turkey hen, she would instantly "decompress", and arch her neck. This was the best poultry party trick ever. When people stopped by I would insist they come and see the turkeys that I'd trained to lie down like a dog. I'd walk close to a turkey hen, put out my hand and give the command "Lie Down Turkey!".

I wish I had photos of the looks on people's faces.

When no one was around, I'd walk up to a turkey and say "The power of Christ compels you!" a la The Exorcist movie, and then giggle like crazy when they flopped down. If I had those myotonic (fainting) goats I would never get any work done at all.

It seemed that this squatting was in preparation for mating, but we were short a stag turkey. Underkeeper Ian went to the poultry auction this morning and purchased one for the princely sum of £5 (plus 75 pence buyer's fee).

Meet Trevor -

Trevor is a large Norfolk Black stag turkey. I don't know his age, or anything about his background. For a fiver, he was worth taking a chance on.

Trevor rode home loose in the back of Ian's Land Rover, with an old camouflage coat for a bed. When I placed him on the lawn next to a hen turkey and he immediately started showing off -

And the hen's response? She just walked off to sit under a hedge. Who knew turkeys could be so fickle? 

I'm sure Trevor will settle in. He's only been here for an hour and he's already introducing himself to the others in the garden. The pups seem impressed with him.

"That's the biggest chicken I've ever seen...."

Most of the Buff Orpington hens are sitting on small clutches of eggs, and one turkey has commandeered a clutch of chicken eggs for herself. I'll leave them all broody for now. I'm expecting my annual delivery of 30 day-old meat chicken chicks when I return from Spain. I plan to divide them between these hens. It saves me rearing them under a light and gives the chicks a healthier, less stressful start on life. 

The rest of the flock is happy simply to enjoy the sunshine and free-range amenities. 

Hardening Off

Every gardener knows the feeling that comes in spring. A few days of good weather early on, and we get to wondering "Can I plant those less hardy flowers and vegetables, or is it too soon?" All gardeners are optimists and we wish so hard that one weekend of hot, sunny, dry weather is a portent, an indicator that it will continue for the next several months uninterrupted (except for the overnight rain showers watering the garden, of course). We've all sacrificed geraniums and cucumber plants because of hope.

Of course we can put our plants out during the day and give them protection at night, or from freak bad weather that's not in keeping with our mental picture of continuous sunshine. Here, we call this gradual exposure to discomfort "hardening off". It toughens the cells of the plant which would otherwise be soft, lush and green from sugars and water. Being soft and sweet leaves plants vulnerable to weather, to aphid attacks, fungal diseases, what have you. A soft plant quickly becomes a dead plant. (Or, if you want to sound really fancy, you can say it's suffering from chronic necrosis.)

French beans, very much alive for now

It's not just plants that have to harden off around here. As long as it's dry, the Podgelets have been going outside in their puppy pen when the thermometer reads 10 degrees plus. The lambs stay out in the rain and cold now, with hedges and full bellies of milk to ward off chilling.

Tails ringed, ear tags in

The horses no longer get rugs put on them; they have to bear the transition into spring with a thin winter coat. Though they can put themselves in draught-free stables, they rarely do and accept the wind and rain on their backs as long as they can keep their heads down and eat the new shoots of spring grass.

Already recovered

Being cold causes warm fleece to grow, or increases appetite. Being wet ups the oil production to waterproof fur. It's all a trade-off: enduring some adversity to gain some strength. I think the same process happens with people, but on a psychological level instead of a physiological one. Heck, if the ability to grow hair was a strengthener against fear or anxiety, I would be an emotional Sampson (though I would resemble a Sasquatch).

Ram lamb's recovery more of a drama, as he had other bits ringed!

I hate inflicting any kind of stress or pain on my animals: docking tails, tagging ears, administering shots or horrible-tasting worming solutions. I try and keep in mind this concept of hardening off when a lamb struggles in my arms or a puppy shakes its head after a mouthful of worm paste. It's going to help you endure I remind them. And myself.

A pair of Podgelets do muscle resistance training with my riding boot