The Farming Year in the Hills: Summer
June, July, August
The weekends were usually followed by weighing lambs
to go to sales on Mondays, Tuesday evenings, and Wednesdays, so that
gradually the sheep dwindled from a blaring mob to a few peacefully
grazing late lambers. We kept the strongest and best ewes to lamb
again with us, but the ones who were worn out were sold at auction
and frequently went for Halal meat - mutton being a favourite in the
Yorkshire Asian community.
A wide horned Blackface, whose own lamb had died
and whom I had had a struggle to persuade into adopting an orphan,
was distraught when the orphan died also. She accepted a third in
record time, which was a relief after the fights we’d had earlier.
Fortunately number three seemed to thrive, and she went around cheerfully
getting fat again after her ordeals.
Selling at auction was entertaining or boring, depending
on whether you were at your own local auction or somewhere further
afield. The nearest to us was Kirkby Stephen, where there was usually
a good selection of neighbours with whom to converse. Penrith Farmers’
and Kidd’s Auction ran evening sales in the 1990s and you were usually
there from mid afternoon until dusk and later. The parking available
at any of the sales was very tight and many a time I have sold my
lambs early and been unable to leave until much later because of being
blocked in by other vehicles.
Time was passed by entering your lambs and running
them to their pens down the alleys crowded with conversing farmers
in wellies, waterproof leggings and jackets; chatting to neighbours;
maybe going through the passageway by the Black Bull onto the main
street to do some shopping; getting some tea down you in the little
kiosk set up in one of the cattle buildings; keeping your paperwork
in order for the auctioneer; hoping the lambs would not lose too much
weight while standing about before going over the weighbridge into
the ring; and that they would catch the fancy of at least two buyers
and ensure a decent lot of bidding. Many small hill lambs went from
Kirkby Stephen mart to Russia and other exotic locations where their
size was not the main consideration. (ref)
This has its own section: Haytime.
Yearly backache and cramp for shepherds (especially
tall ones) - can involve hiring a neighbour to bring a clipping machine
or hand shears. Always involves setting
up the stall ready for the work to be done, Shepherding
and then catching the ewes in the pens one by one for the shearer. Hill
farms used to combine to clip each other’s flocks. Some dairy farmers, though,
were less than keen on the work:
We would have a flock of happen about forty sheep.
And I would get up about 5 o’clock, when they were lambing - never
got any extra for it - just did it for love of doing job right like
- and I lambed them all, and then when it come to clipping nobody
wanted to know. I’d to go and bring me own sheep in, I was the only
one with a dog! When I left and brought Jan home with me, they had
no farm dog, they haven’t one now! I’d all sheep to bring in myself
into t’yard, and all me own sheep to catch, me wool to lap and everything,
they all found summat else to do when sheep was to clip. Owt to do
with sheep and they didn’t want to know.
Willy remarked that he had a new breed of sheep.
Its fleece was grey - a delightful, soft smoky colour - and he claimed
it had twins each year. Other than that it looked like a rather ordinary
Swaledale. Jennie kept rare breeds, and she saw the said sheep in
Willy’s yard while the men were resting during clipping. She admired
its colour and asked what it was.
"It’s a foreign ’un,
a Black de Char," said Chris,
Willy’s son. "We just have the one
at the moment but she’s got twins,
a tup and a gimmer, so we could be breeding
more shortly." "It looks
good," said Jennie, seduced by the French
name - something similar to Bleu du Maine
or Rouge de l’Ouest? "What’s
the wool like?" The
men looked sideways at one another. "Come
and feel it," said Chris,
leading her down the dark and greasy shed
to the heap of newly rolled fleeces. "Lovely
shade," said Jennie enthusiastically as
she approached, envisaging sweaters, perhaps
even a fine jacket, of that delicious
pearly grey. When she put her hand into
it - she found the fleece was full of
ash. The old ewe and her twins had been
in a field where
a hedge had been recently laid and the
brashings burnt: they’d been
sleeping in the nice dry ashes of the bonfire.
The men of course were nearly dying of
laughter at having got one over on the "lady
with the rabbits on stilts". (
ref)
Clipping is followed by rolling up and sorting different
coloured fleeces for the Wool Board, marking
the newly naked-looking sheep with suitable colour to distinguish them
from the neighbours’, then turning them back into the field. Where,
before long, they need:
A sheep’s worst enemy
is another sheep - worms, and worse, lurk.
Hence Shepherding (see above) in order to
treat present
or future infestation. Involves: dosing "gun",
connected by plastic tubing to backpack
of custard-yellow worming mixture; minor
swearing.
Some entertaining protection against sheep
liver fluke can be gained by keeping
ducks.
Chiropody for sheep - to prevent or cure athlete’s
foot between the cleats, foot rot and other nasties. Another cause of
"Shepherding", and an extremely frequent cause of backache
for shepherds. Those who have been trimming feet can usually be identified
by their Terramycin-purple or copper-sulphate-blue freckled faces and
hands.
Not be confused with showing off. Primitive breeds
of sheep now have their own classes at agricultural shows alongside
the more commercial flocks. Basically agricultural shows are intended
to make sure the sheherd doesn’t get bored with the bit of time off
during the break between clipping and turning out the tups in the autumn
for the work to begin again....
"I forget, now, what Black Hen and her cousins
consumed from my flower garden; I know it was a lot. They certainly
cost me a lot of money. On the value of the alpines that she ate,
Black Hen ought to have been producing half a dozen eggs a day.
"And eggs are all very well, but what do you
do with them in spring and summer when all your hens are laying? Does
anyone sell waterglass anymore?
I ran out of egg boxes and trays. I made sponge cakes; I whisked useful
sized groups of eggs into plastic tubs and bags and froze them; I
even sold a few, but passing trade was small - and friends and relatives
thought our eggs should be free. Looking at what the hens were eating,
I knew they shouldn’t." (ref)
"This man Jefferson, he come around to
truss the hay so we could sell it. Now then he had a horse and cart
and he set to work. He’d one of them hay knives, gey sharp, he’d cut
a dess [block] o’ hay out. He didn’t actually gan into t’ sides where
it wasn’t solid, he just cut the solid stuff, and he could cut it
out to perfection.
"And then, he had two long pokers like
that, and they went and sunk down into it, they each had a crook on,
and he’d lift it [the hay] up and pop it into his trussing machine,
which was just made of wood like a kist [chest]. Then he’d press it
with a shaft like on t’ blacksmith’s bellows, he used to pull that
down, to get it as much pressure as he could on, and fix it, and he’d
put string round it. Then hay and straw dealers, they came with hoss
and cart and took it away."
