Tag Archives: Cows

A Stampede Of Cows

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As well as this gardener walking about in his shirt-sleeves and whistling, there are various other markers that spring has finally arrived:

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from the scent of wild garlic by the riverbank;

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to early purple orchids,

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Camassia quamash flowering on the meadow,

DSM_1937the rock border overflowing with forget-me-nots

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and butterflies emerging – albeit a cabbage white

But the big landmark spring event for me is the turning out of Margaret’s cows from their winter quarters to grass.

DSM_1830It is a sight I try not to miss; from their deafening impatient lowing and then their excitement and exuberance at being set free.

DSM_1625Having spent months in the sheds, they are a little hesitant at first; the calves especially so – having spent their whole lives indoors, they are blinded by the light.  (Those sheep really ought to get out of the way).

DSM_1647But suddenly, faced with all that space, these huge, matronly beasts (weighing in excess of 1000lbs)

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DSM_1742with gay abandon.

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Last year, I had perched on a rickety stile and felt a little vulnerable as they thundered past me – just a couple of feet away.

DSM_1700So this year, I’d positioned myself behind a hawthorn hedge

DSM_1679which, as the cows got nearer, seemed increasingly flimsy and worryingly inadequate.

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Thankfully, the thudding of bovine hooves drowned out my whimpering as they barreled on toward me – with no sign of slowing.  Gulp.

DSM_1688An open gate was just to my right

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but

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it was only

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at the very last moment that they swerved away from me … and I could breath again.

According to the Office for National Statistics, cows kill more people in the UK than almost any other animal – accounting for about 5 deaths a year*.  Mostly the victims are dog-walkers who pick up their dogs (or hold onto the leash) when cattle become agitated. Please don’t do either; your dog can outrun a cow better than you.  And if it can’t, I would politely suggest that you don’t take it into a field of cows in the first place.

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One calf, with a whole new world to explore, sought out only the pleasures of the manure pile; Margaret and I spent twenty minutes or so cajoling him into re-joining the herd.

DSM_1857And so, all’s well with the world.  Job done and the cows back out to pasture – in the fields above the Priory greenhouses.  It is fine to have them back – just so long as they don’t come into the gardens again, goddamnit. (See ‘Cows in the Asparagus’).

If your local farmer ever offers to show you her galloping heifers, go for it.  You won’t be disappointed; just make sure you stand somewhere nice and safe.

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*  The animal which kills the most people in the UK is the horse, accounting for 10 deaths per year, 2nd cows, 3rd dogs – 4 per year, 4th bees and wasps – 3 per year.

Lambs And Calves. Again.

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I was going to be so strong.  Honest, I was.  I was going to resist, you see.  Resist posting yet more photos of cutesy calves and lovely lambs.  After all I’ve posted lots of photos of both before.  But when Margaret (the neighbouring farmer) told me that she was expecting (so to speak), it gnawed at my mind and made my shutter finger itch.  And when I heard that the new arrivals were plopping out left, right and centre, I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing my camera and rushing up to the farm.  Here’s what I saw.  Resolve be damned.

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I’m a sucker for a calf adept at licking its own nostril.

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Really adept and with such gusto.

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There’s  a whole clutch of young calves; about half of the thirty pregnant cows have given birth.

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Normally, Margaret only has about twenty in calf but she obviously thinks she has spare time on her hands.  Thankfully, unlike last year, there have been no …

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… still births, no deaths, no difficult, protracted deliveries.  Indeed she hasn’t even had to lend a hand – yet.

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The newest arrival was born to Buttercup (we’ll call her) less than twelve hours ago; a sturdy, if still groggy, bull calf.

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Despite Buttercup’s distrustful, watchful gaze, Margaret had to disinfect the calf’s umbilical scar.   Buttercup had already mooed angrily when the farmyard cat had sauntered a little too close – so Margaret warily asked that I stay close-by in case protective mooing became angry barging.  Though, I’m unclear how my screaming and impotent, panicky flapping would have helped.

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That disinfectant stings and the calf was up on his feet and away but Buttercup didn’t seem so very concerned after all …

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… and Buttercup Jr. was soon back where he belonged …

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… wreathed in Mum’s warm breath.  (Incidentally, I was constantly licked and nibbled by one particular cow whilst taking these shots.  Imagine that: constantly licked and nibbled).*

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Next door, in pens smelling of warm, sweet hay, Margaret’s Christmas lambs are arriving (the main lambing season won’t start for another few weeks).  Margaret had planned the first births for the day after Boxing Day.  But the ewes hadn’t read the plan – they started on Christmas morning.

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This is the fourth or fifth year that I’ve visited the farm during lambing but it’s not a sight I ever tire of.

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This is the youngest – about five hours old.

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And here is the smallest lamb that Margaret has ever seen.  I’ll let her tell you about it:

“I’ve been doing this job for the last 23 years, so I’m still really a novice – well, it feels that way sometimes!  The mini lamb is a ewe lamb which probably means she is here for life!  I think she will always be too small to go to the ram – so she will just be a pet!  Still, what is the point of it all if you can’t occasionally be a bit sentimental.  I am not alone in this.  If you dig deep, you will find a lot of farmers are the same.”

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The little she-lamb is far smaller than its twin (all of Margaret’s ewes have had twins so far).

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The mother wasn’t keen on the cut of my jib.

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But was perfectly happy for Margaret to pick up the tiny one and pass her to a friend.  (Hi Rita).

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So no -  lambing (and calving) is not a sight I shall ever tire of.  And it would seem Margaret won’t either.

So I suspect I’ll be posting more photos of lambs and calves.  Again.

* I now intend to hang about the cow sheds regularly.

Cows In The Asparagus

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As I parked my car this morning, I could make out a black and white figure, lurking beneath the hornbeams; below the greenhouse.  And up to no good.

But what on Earth …. ?

Ah.  I see.  Great!  Wonderful!  Super!  Margaret’s cows had broken into the gardens.  As they had long-planned.  And schemed.

A frantic phone call to Margaret, “Help, Help, Help!”  and a solo, doomed effort to keep the bovine bandits corralled in the top corner of the garden …

… armed with nothing but a stick and choice language.

Didn’t work, of course.  They galloped past me, chortling, and out across the east lawn like a sweep of wildebeest; with me in hot, futile pursuit; waving my stick.  Wish I’d filmed it.

Pink-dressing-gown-clad help arrived from the house, having seen a cow trot past the kitchen window.  Together we headed them off from the kidney beds, screamed when they approached the veg beds and hurled abuse as they veered off toward the long borders.   We ordered them out through the gate and onto the drive.  Only to be stared back at; silently, curiously … ignored.  By luck alone, we managed, eventually, to coerce them back up towards the greenhouse.

At which point, Margaret arrived; yodeling and chirruping her unique cow call.  And, as always, it worked.  Like obedient Labrador’s, off they trotted – back out through the knocked down stretch of post and rail fence and back into her field.  Without so much as an apologetic, backward glance.

Not so very much damage done.  My cool, early morning demeanour was gone, lots of hoofprints across the lawns and …

… a few parting gifts.

Oh, and they were very partial to my asparagus patch; just helped themselves and tucked in with gusto.

I’m so pleased to have been of service.

Slowly, slowly …

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… as we head into June, May is arriving.  What should have been a show-stopping leap centre-stage, has been a slow, very late and frankly embarrassing shuffle in from the wings.

Not much is flowering at the Priory therefore though there is plenty of new, green growth.  Here in the rock border, ferns (which survived the-years-of-neglect and being strimmed!) are stretching up and out among a drift of the forget-me-nots I introduced a couple of years ago.

The bank of rhododendrons behind the kidney beds (also still just foliage) are starting to flower – so a that’s a jab in the arm.  And, for the first time in weeks, I’m on top of the mowing.  Who knew that a sentence like that could give me so much pleasure?

But the long borders are still a damp squib; the allium leaves have rotted away like the tulips.  And all that cold weather has burnt the emerging persicaria in the foreground.

The Acer palmatum dissectum in the kitchen bed looks fine though and once again I’ve planted the bed up with Lobelia ‘Crystal Palace.’  Bedding plants?  I know, I know – but I’m a bit of a convert to lobelia.  I like lobelia – there I’ve said it.  Anyway, I’ve also added a few shuttlecock ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) – though I wonder whether they won’t dwarf the tree and box.  Probably.  If so, I’ll move them; but for the moment I like the little lime-green fountains.

Birds are pressing on with birdy business despite the wet, cold pseudo-spring.  Most of the nest boxes are in use …

… and the moorhens bring their young to feed on the scraps beneath the bird feeders.

The chicks may look ungainly but, being very shy, they don’t half leg it when they catch a glimpse of me – those huge feet disappear in a blurred whirl as they scoot off to the ponds.

Inconveniently, a blackbird has made a nest in the woodstore by the house.  I crept in and, using my most powerful lens, took a couple of snaps.  I’ll leave her be now, put up a sign to warn others and delay topping up the wood-pile.

On my drive to the Old Forge last week, May was more in evidence …

… with the lanes lined with cow parsley and …

… a great slab of rapeseed as a backdrop to the garden, while …

… a neighbouring paddock had a rather nice buttercup field-of-the-cloth-of-gold going on.

The grass in Margaret’s fields has grown long too.  But all the rain has forced her to defer the Great Stampede as it is known (but only by me).  I didn’t realise, until I met Margaret, that cows (at least in this part of the world) spend about six months of the year indoors.  She normally lets them out in early May but the ground has been too wet and the cows’ hooves would churn up all that lush pasture all too quickly.

Last week it was finally dry enough; watch out – here they come!  You can imagine how very excited they get at the prospect of fresh grass after months of silage.  Galloping …

… towards and past an anxious photographer (quaking on a wooden stile) and …

… careering out into the field above the Priory greenhouse.

For a couple of weeks a bull will keep the cows and calves company.   He probably thinks his luck is in – but unbeknownst to him, all the cows are already in calf.  Poor lad; disappointment looms.

Still, the cows are happy and so am I.  With the cows out in the fields at long last, it feels like May has finally arrived.

Albeit, almost in June.

"Stood a Lowly Cattle Shed"

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Once a week I drive up onto the ridge above the Priory to visit Margaret.
In her large, warm kitchen we have a natter, exchanging gossip about the Priory and the village, and a cup of tea.  Afterwards, I might have a nosey about the farmyard.  Go and see her chickens and guinea fowl or, at this time of year, go into her cattle shed and visit her cows.

Margaret's farm through the trees and up on the hill above the Priory.

A heifer which she bought a few months ago at market, recently gave birth.  Or at least she tried to; the calf, which tragically was still-born, got stuck.  Poor  Margaret had to tie a rope about the corpse and pull it out – all by herself.  I was a little annoyed at her for not phoning me to come and help.  I could have jumped on the quad bike and been up at the farm in minutes.  Though truthfully I was a little relieved as well.  As much as I always wanted to be James Herriott, the thought of pulling a dead calf from it’s Mum did turn me a little green about the gills.

The replacement calf

Margaret rushed over to a dairy farmer friend and bought a baby calf off him to replace the still-born.  Smearing the new arrival with the cow’s placenta (sorry, you’re not eating, I hope) she managed to fool the mother into believing this replacement was actually her own baby.

Hoorah – don’t you love a happy outcome?  This is the new arrival with her new mum.

There are several other baby calves in the sheds at the moment including this one, which we’ve decided has as much teddy bear blood in it as cow.

And this white one which was born a day before this photo was taken.

Here she is again a few days later.

The cattle shed, freshly cleaned out and heaped high with fresh straw, is a warm, sweet smelling place to be.

Though the thought of Margaret physically forking in the amount of hay and silage that she does every day is humbling.

Trojan (not his real name).

Opposite the cows and calves are the big boys.  As well as raising beef cattle, Margaret leases out bulls to other farmers.  They go out into surrounding farms to do what bulls do best; make babies.

Mr Grumpy with Proud Crosby behind (their real names).

Sadly, one of Margaret’s favourites, Elgin, recently had to be sold off as beef.  Though she had had him for several years and was very fond of him, he had developed a kink in his bullhood.  Unable to hit his target and consequently unable to do his duty he, very sadly, had to go.  Let that be a lesson to you, boys.

Mr Grumpy

The bulls are massive.  Truly massive, with heads the size of armchairs.  When I first met them, Margaret hurriedly warned me not to stroked their enormous heads through the bars.  Not because they’re aggressive but because if they suddenly raise or shake their heads they can easily snap an arm against the railings.

Mr Grumpy

All the cattle will remain in the sheds now until the ground is firm and the grass starts growing again.  It’s a huge amount of work for Margaret as they obviously need to be fed, watered and cleaned out.  That many cows, bulls and calves produce a vast amount of manure.  But, hey!  A vast amount of manure is a good thing.  There are an awful lot of Priory roses.