Pete Ashton’s Blog

One thing I wasn’t expecting to be involved with on an organic farm was bamboo, and to be fair it’s not really part of the farm. We’re establishing a row of bamboo to hide the more practical parts of the farmyard from the house and getting them to stay upright in the wind has been something of a chore this last week. Today we went to collect more bamboo, my first time doing this. I approached the bamboo forest looking for a section that would be easy to dig up and set to work. As I dug down the clump refused to move, so I dug further down. Eventually I had dug almost all the way around and completely underneath and still it wasn’t budging, hanging in mid air like a surrealist painting. Eventually, with the help of a saw, I got it detached. The clump was massive and refused to split due to the tight root bundle, so with the help of a wheelbarrow we got it back to the soft-top car. I sat in the back surrounded by bags of plants and this huge stretch of bamboo hanging over the back of the car, holding it down. Back at the farm I dug a big hole, made it bigger, then bigger still, and planted the thing. Only then did I realise what a huge clump I’d dug up compared with the others there.

This morning was a bit rough. I was woken at dawn by Millie’s calf crying out. As I said yesterday, they’ve been separated so Millie can recover and the calf ain’t too happy about this. 5.00am and the bleeder starts - about 10 moos a minute by my reckoning - and doesn’t stop, at all, ever. Later he manages, some how, to break into Millie’s paddock and peace breaks out and I should get a decent nights sleep tonight. But I’m dreading tomorrow night…

Before dinner M knocked on the caravan asking for help. One of the lambs had not come in from the field. I haven’t written about them much, but there are four lambs with their mothers out in the field. Every evening they come through the paddock and into the shed for the night but tonight one of our lambs was missing. So off we went around the field to try and find her. She was asleep behind the hill and when M woke her up she happily trotted to the shed. I say happily, but she’s the smallest of the four lambs and one of twins. Her sister is bigger and probably gets to the udder first, leaving the small lamb with an impatient mother to feed from. She’s survived this far being the runt and all four lambs are always bouncing around the field, but falling asleep in the rain is not a good portent, especially after Blackie dying soon after falling asleep in the rain. Still…

Millie the cow has had her calf taken away from her. The calf is ready to go it alone and Millie needs a break having had two babies in a row, so the calf has been put in a pen with the other calves while Millie is on her own in the cow-paddock by my caravan. M warned me that they will probably make a racket tonight and the calf has already started crying for it’s mum

In other infant news, the chicks are well behaved and the cats still aren’t pregnant. And Sandy the dog is mental.

Last night it rained a lot which was, or course, a really good thing. The fields look a lot greener and the ducks have their pond back and loads of mud to mess around in.

The first job of the day was to sort out Lala and her lamb which she’d rejected and was refusing to feed. M had shut them both up in a small pen and cut away the wool from Lala’s teats in the hope that Lala would let the lamb might be able to get a sneaky suck and then everything would be okay. Obviously, if Lala had completely rejected the lamb it could be bottle fed but it makes sense to use a fully grown female sheep rather than a costly powdered milk preparation.

Lala was bleating like a good moaner and the lamb was curled up in the corner looking intimidated. You forget how big sheep are, especially with a full coat of wool, until you see them next to newborn lambs. We made a bigger pen for them by cornering off part of the sheep-shed and moved the two of them into their new home. Lala still wasn’t having any of this new lamb so M essentially shoved the lamb onto Lala’s teats while holding Lala against the wall. It looked rather like M had fainted on the sheep and the operation took a good minutes or two. Eventually Lala was letting the lamb feed with no complaints so hopefully… well, we’ll see.

After that adventure I set to work cutting back the other side of the hedge. This wasn’t such a big job as last week as most of the topping work had been done, and I got half the hedge done by lunch.

Over lunch the black lamb, Blackie as I quite originally named him, died. See the previous entry for more on that.

The afternoon was spent digging up ragwort and thistles from the hay field. You dig up a largish ragwort plant, bash it against the shovel thus covering your trousers in mud, and throw it in the wheelbarrow. Then repeat 1000 times until a cup of tea is needed. And then the rain started again, heavier than ever, or so it seemed. As the rain lashed down my waterproofs I continued working, actually enjoying it more. It was like getting caught in the rain without a coat (or if you’re one of those strange people, an umbrella, though I’ve never liked them myself) and you pass that point where it’s not worth worrying about getting wet any more. Suddenly being wet is great and you’re stomping in puddles deliberately and grinning like a kid. While I wasn’t deliberately getting wet, I certainly wasn’t worried about the rain. It was fun.

As I was enjoying the mud and rain it occurred to me that I would never be able to capture completely what it was like to be out there and I should really be doing some kind of audio diary. Maybe I’ve been listening to too much Radio 4 the last fortnight, but the idea of doing a radio show/documentary from the farm took hold. With some kind of small recording device (minidisc or digital dictaphone) and a clip-on mike I could record my thoughts as I go about the farm and then edit them into a show once a week. Obviously this would need a fair bit of kit plus the ability to get the damn thing online weekly, but it’s not out of the question. Something to think about and maybe do next year - Radio WWOOF.

Interesting wound time - wearing gardening gloves in the rain is the same as working underwater and so when you take them off the skin on your hands is all rubbery. If you’ve already got teeny little cuts on your fingers, the skin around the wound flakes off, and then spreads. It’s not painful at all, but it looks pretty gross.

The black lamb just died. He took some food from the bottle this morning but not much, and then refused the bottle before lunch. His body got cold, he didn’t move and in the last 15 minutes he died.

He lasted for a fortnight, which was a fortnight longer than he would have done out in the field, and there was a lot wrong with him. But he was a good kid.

Showing the balance of how these things work out, one of the sheep, Lala, gave birth yesterday and after refusing to feed her baby finally accepted it this morning. Win some, lose some. Life, as it were, goes on.

Walking back from dinner I popped my head in on the lambs.. Blackie is asleep at the front of the shelter, flat out and shivering as the rain dampens his side. I woke him up and moved him back into the shelter. He looked bedraggled and very old, for a lamb. He might make it through the night but there’s not long to go for him.

Update: M’s taken him back inside. He’s currently standing in a blue plastic box looking a bit better. If he tries to get out she’ll put him in a dustbin. He’s not taking his bottle of milk very well and after feeding coughs like an old man. Maybe the warmth for a few days will help.

Now I’ve been here a fortnight and gotten used to the whole notion of whatever-it-is-I’m-doing-with-my-life, and have finally gotten this cold under control (touch wood) I’ve been thinking about what to do next. I think I’m going to be here on the Island for another two months at least - while I havn’t talked to M about this explicitly she’s said how she’ll be able to build on her Yoga and Tai Chi classes now she’s got help on the farm - and then I’d like to experience a different farm. There’s an interesting looking one near Banbury which, while being an organic farm (albeit a small one), is run by a theoretical physicist looking to open a conference centre in a barn on site. Different to what’s going on here and potentially leading to something interesting.

By October I’ll be out of cash and in need of a job. Maybe I’m wrong to do so, but I’m thinking of the easy option and getting a job at Waterstone’s in the run up to Xmas should be no problem. London is a possibility but the cost of living would be too much to save anything, so I’m erring towards either Birmingham or Southampton, both of which have branches where I’ve either worked or know people in.

Then, come January, back to the world of WWOOFing, though this time definitely somewhere with accommodation inside the farmhouse. No caravans in winter for me! Assuming I can save about £500 over Xmas this will take me to Easter and a year of this-kind-of-thing. After that, time and experience will tell.

All this stuff is supposed to be leading somewhere or to something, that something being the rest of my life. Now I’m here I don’t think I’m going to be WWOOFing or similar for the rest of my life. This is not a means in itself but a means to something else. The main impetus for going to a farm was that there would be no distractions and no wants or needs, giving me a chance for the first time in my adult life to just stop and take stock, while also getting my health back on track. It is also a chance to see what life outside the ratrace is like. My interests in comics and the net have involved me with non-profit communities and I think this is where my future lies. How, I’m not sure.

I’m pretty sure I want to get involved in computers and web culture as this has been an important part of my life over the last three years or so, and as such am keen to learn programming skills, so I’ll be looking to invest in a cheap-but-light laptop so I can put this isolation to some use (writing this journal is going to get far to insular in time I’m sure! That said, I’ve finally made serious inroads into Underworld for the first time since I bought it four years ago) so if anyone has any good leads in this area (or wants to sell an old one), please let me know.

I think the things I’m learning on the farm will be useful away from it but in an abstract sense. I’m currently daunted by the task of clearing ragwort from the field by hand next week, but I was daunted by the hedge, and before that the lamb shelter. It’s interesting that on the farm the whole job is in front of you and you can see the results of your labours. In ‘normal’ life things aren’t so clear so it’s easy to perceive jobs as being bigger or smaller than they actually are. The point here is that the size of the job doesn’t actually matter - you just get on with it until it’s done, and it never takes as long as you thought it would. Two weeks and that seems blindingly obvious to me now. What else will become second nature over the next year?

After my rather daunting first go on a peddle bike last weekend it was with some trepidation that I went off today with the intention of possibly reaching the bottom of the island. In the end it was okay. Yes, I walked up a few hills but it’s not like I was racing anyone or in a hurry to get anywhere.

Five miles down to Chale wasn’t too bad, though I did stop a couple of times after a particularly gentle incline, and I found myself overlooking Chale Bay. Ah, the sea, the sea. Just what I came here for. Buoyed up by making it this far without dying I checked out the map for contour lines. The area around Blackgang was pretty daunting, heading up to 170ft, but it was only short, and then, joy of joys, downhill all the way to Niton, so I puched tghe bike up the hill, found the bridleway, and pelted hell for leather down the hill.

In Niton I discovered I’d come out with no money, not having had much use for it of late, but I did have my cash card, so I found one of those modem-powered cash machines that charges you £1.50 for the privilege, bought a paper (I’ve found the Saturday Guardian not only lasts a week but is invaluable for radio listings), and went to the pub for a pint. Whether it was the beer or the rest or the lack of upward inclines, but the ride home was a doddle. I can particularly recommend the stretch between Bierley and Fairfields, though not necessarily between Fairfields and Bierley. And then, after a lovely sunny afternoon, half an hour after I got back in my caravan the heavens opened.

Eleven miles and no problems in the thigh departments at this time of writing. Touch wood, this could lead to something interesting…

Saturday morning, and M’s doing the grandma thing - there are four kids, all under three foot, running about the place rather obsessed with the lambs, as you would expect. Got me thinking about how city farms do this kind of thing, which suddenly gave me the revelation. There are city farms. If I’m not sick of farming by the end of the year this would be a perfect way of combining the farming life with my desire to get back to London at some point. So I’m writing it down for future reference.

Today was the first full day of constant rain I’ve worked through. It wasn’t so bad, being cocooned in my waterproofs and while I do have a bit of a sniffle, that’s nothing new. In fact, I’ll be amazed when I don’t have a runny nose on this farm. Finally finished ‘trimming’ the hedge. The pile of fir tree branches looks like a market the week before Xmas - I think I’ve cut down the equivalent of 15 trees, all from the top of a ladder, sometimes on tip-toes from the top rung reaching at full stretch to slice through a rogue branch.

While it was a damp job today, the job got quicker as I got more comfortable with the saw and less reticent about whether or not to cut a branch off. The hedge looks pretty abused at the moment, as if some giant has taken large bites out of it, but being a fir it’ll soon grow back, which is part of the problem of course.

I finished the hedge with an hour to go and started work on next weeks big job, to clear a field of ragwort. The field is about 7 acres and ragwort is a small-ish weed which has to be dug out, roots and all. It’s poisonous to the sheep and cows who will eventually go into the field. In an hour I cleared a small fraction filling a wheelbarrow. This is going to be a big, long job, but so far not an annoying one. Find, dig, remove, find again. Nice and easy does it.

Black lamb update. While probably not blind, he definitely has something wrong with his eyesight. On the whole he follows the other lambs around but this can be a problem if they suddenly run off leaving him alone. At one stage they had all left the shelter in a rare break in the rain. When I passed again half an hour later, all the white lambs had returned to the shelter, but Blackie was still outside, looking away from the shelter, in the rain. So I went in and led him back to the dry. Then, at the end of the day, I heard a slight bleating as I smoked a cigarette outside the caravan. There, in the pouring rain, was Blackie on the other end of the paddock from the shelter looking the wrong way, his head waving around randomly as if his spine was a broken spring, which it might well be. At least he’s got his voice, I thought, as I again led him to safety. The lambs are always making stupid mistakes - it’s how they learn quickly how to survive - but Blackie is making more than most, and he’s still so small. When he’s lying down in the shelter he looks smaller than a cat. I suspect I’ll be looking out for him for a while yet.

I never thought before I got here that I’d get really into lambs. They really are the coolest things. Yeah, they’re cute and funny, but there’s more to them than that.

I’m particularly taken by the black lamb which isn’t blind after all but definitely “not right” as Fred so bluntly put it. His head is often pointing up, he’s very small and far too unsteady on his legs for a week old lamb. All of the lambs went outside yesterday as the box they were in in the kitchen was leaking wee and every time I went past their shelter, which is often as it’s by my portaloo, I checked in on him.

The first time I did this he’s managed somehow to get his head stuck in the bottom of the fence and was struggling pathetically to get out, so I went in and gently eased his skull free. Last night he was fine, but this afternoon he was seemingly asleep. Actually, he was asleep, but his breathing seemed very shallow, so I popped in to make sure he was okay. On waking him up he was fine. I spotted him trying to clean himself and failing, unable to co-ordinate his head. I don’t think he’s mentally defective, for a sheep anyway, and when he’s got the energy he’s wandering around the paddock sniffing and nibbling things, but he’s very weak and probably physically disabled around the neck area. M’s plan is to probably keep him separate from the other sheep and keep him for his wool, which should be plentiful as he’s got very woolly legs already. So, more of a pet, which is probably for the best. Any other farm he’d be dead by now, poor little runt.

The other four lambs don’t take up as much of my sympathies, but they’re still cool. First you’ve got the moaning twins, both the same size and indistinguishable, these are the ones that bleat constantly, crying out for food, attention, the sheer hell of it. They’re kinda pathetic and to be honest are setting a bad example to the younger lambs. They’re looking more and more like sheep as their fleece puffs out around their necks. They’ve also finally figured out what grass is, so not long before they go in the field.

The next lamb along size-wise is actually the youngest. While she’s got bulk to him she’s still got afterbirth on her fleece. While she’s big, and will be a huge sheep, she’s less than a week old and hasn’t started bleating yet. Physically and mentally she’s growing fast though. Her friend is the third oldest lamb who was born before I got here. She’s the beautiful one who was going to be lent to the church for the Easter service (but it didn’t pan out that way). Small, but perfectly formed with a lovely face and a slight, high pitched and almost attractive bleat (at least, as much as a bleat can be attractive).

Now that all five orphan lambs are outside in the paddock together, going to visit them in quite an adventure. Because they’ve been brought up from birth by humans they’re totally tame and run up to you expecting food. As I don’t have running water in the caravan, I use the tap in the paddock to fill my water bottle and they all crowd around me, nuzzling the bottle and nibbling my clothes. They don’t actually climb on me like a cat or dog would, and they tend to flinch at sudden movements, but there’s a definitely identification.

This is the same for nearly all the animals on the farm, at least those that aren’t birds. Most of them were brought up by M from birth and know here. She told a story of when Milly the cow tried to play with her. Cows play by jumping up on each other, and Milly wanted to do this to M. M thought she was about to die! Every evening the sheep with lambs (not the orphans) knock on their gate asking to be brought in, and M goes up with a bucket to lead them into the shed, and they all follow her, some leading the way. No instruction, no dog, they just wait for her and do what she asks them to do.

I haven’t had much experience of the other animals on the farm, the sheep and cows in the upper field, but I did go for a walk in their field yesterday evening. The sheep kept their distance, not knowing my face or body shape, but the bulls were really keen to say hello. I’ve often had a problem with cows, not really trusting a large mass of muscle with the brains bred out of it, so I got a bit worried when two bulls and a cow came running towards me. I headed for the fence, ready to jump if they went for me, but they just stood there, a few metres away, staring at me. I tried waving my arms, but they just stood there. I slowly moved away, they slowly moved forwards. Eventually I reached a point where the fence turned into a hedge which I couldn’t climb over, so I stopped. They stopped. 20 minutes later they got bored and went away. I know they were just being friendly and wanted to see what this human in the field wanted, and I wasn’t exactly scared, but…

For the record, today was spent working on the hedge. This is going to be a long job. I also did a couple of posters for M’s Tai Chi and Yoga classes on her computer and discussed her plans. I said I’d be willing to help as part of the WWOOFing thang, which I would. If I can eventually get a WWOOFing place doing computer stuff it’d be perfect, especially in the winter and especially if they have net access, so getting some experience of ‘client based working’ is no bad thing.

Thank god Wednesday is my half day. Yesterday I was too tired to write or even read more than a couple of chapters and went to bed before 10pm. This morning I didn’t have to be up and at work as M had her Tai Chi class, but I didn’t even make it to breakfast and found my cereal outside my door. Rising at 11.00 I popped into Godshill to post some letters and met M for lunch.

I was feeling a bit of a failure and didn’t want to moan, but she was already understanding and said I only had to do a couple of hours work today, which fitted her plans as she had some guests over later, had to pop into town, and I really shouldn’t be up a ladder chopping things with no-one else on the farm for obvious safety reasons.

So I just chopped a tree down and finished. Which says it all. “Just chopped a tree down” indeed. Actually, it was half a tree at the end of the hedge. The tree had been left last year due to a nest being found and needed to be brought into line, so I had to climb up the ladder, cut through the foliage to the trunk and chop through it with a 1930’s machete-thing. Then, once the trunk fell (I let the wind do the last stage) I cleared the other branches to bring it level. And then cleared the branches away, which is harder work that it sounds.

Having spent most of the day, other than that two hours, lounging around listening to the radio I’m feeling pretty good right now, but it’s been aches all over the last 24 hours. Mainly in the shoulders and arms, thanks to the hedge work. As with the cycling, I’m using muscles I don’t usually use and they’re moaning about it. In time they’ll get better I’m sure, but it’s taking time.

I think, hope, this midweek has been a turning point as I build up my recovery time. I’ve had 10 days of a steady level of work after which is probably the longest I’ve had in a while. The prospect of it continuing is rather daunting, but it has to. Push forward, relax back, push forward. That’s the pattern methinks. Or I could be talking shite.

Today was spent cutting back the fir trees that form the hedge on the side of the farmhouse. Lopping, sawing and cutting, often 8 feet up a ladder. And then an hour of clearing grouse, which is spiky badness, from an area of the cow field. I am scratchy and itchy and tired, so no great entry tonight.

This morning we went back in history to get some coppice. Coppice comes from coppice trees and these trees together form a coppice. The act of cutting branches of coppice is known as coppicing. This linguistic simplicity goes some way to show how ancient this process is and while doing it I did feel like I was acting out some ancient rite.

Coppice is used mainly for making fences and reinforcing hedges (through the act of ‘laying down’ the hedge). Coppice grows quickly from the base in long, thin branches which are strong and flexible. As long as you leave some part of the tree to grow you can cut off any size of branch - a long thick one for the support of a fence or thin branches to weave between them. Coppice appears to be a universally useful tree. At every stage of it’s growth it can be used for some form of construction in many ways and because it’s so fast growing a small area the size of a tennis court or two can support a coppicing business.

The coppice we were in was not in great shape as it hadn’t been maintained but it still had a beautiful aura about it. The thin, tall coppice trees reaching for the sky left a lot of space for bluebells on the ground and a small stream ran through the coppice. My job was to wander around the coppice looking for long, straight branches about 2 inches in diameter, cutting them down and removing the leafy tops. These could have been used for detail work, but we left them behind. Then, having made four bundles of eight foot long branches, we started lugging them across the field to the car which couldn’t make it across the mud. Real medieval stuff, and tough work.

What we’re going to actually do with our coppice is unclear at the moment. There are sections of the fence by the house that M wants to close up and a new section is to be built to hide the shed from the rear windows of the house. After that, the hedge behind me needs to be laid down to stop it thinning out. If it thins out too much the cows will get through and fall on my caravan as it’s about 10 feet up a slope. Apparently this isn’t so urgent, though I might beg to differ.

Map of the Coppice

For the first time in, ooh, 10 years or so I own a bicycle. The last one I owned was a racer which I sold when I got my first motorbike back in Eastleigh. I’d thought about getting a bike in London a few times but never got around to it. Today I bought one. It cost me £45 second hand plus about £40 in extras.

The day started with a lift into Newport, the main town on the island, for a day of wandering around. By 12.00 I’d bought the bike but had to wait three hours for them to fit the mudguards and rack, so I went to the Quay Arts Centre for tea. My main reason for going, other than tea, was to see what kind of Art things were going on on the island and while there was little of interest on the notice board, one thing did jump out - a mail art program run in Rookley, a mile or so north of where I’m staying. Art On The Green have their next exhibition on June 14th and submissions have to be in by the end of May. The theme is ‘threes’. Not sure if I’ll contribute, but if I do there are three lambs in the kitchen at the moment…

The main art exhibition at the centre was a painter who’s name annoyingly isn’t in the events leaflet I picked up. She paints trees and very beautifully with great texture. I was particularly taken by a small room of her source photography, one of which was blown up with a photocopier to approximately life size. As I used to do this kind of thing it was great to see and I took a surreptitious photograph.

Their next interesting show is by Abigail Hunt, running through June, which appears to consist of books and texts cut up, and appeals to me.

You can buy postcards from the Newport Tourist Information Centre for 14p. I felt that worth mentioning.

Picking up the bike I, with great trepidation, started to make my way home. After a shaky start across a park the road out of Newport was pretty steady going. A bit of a shock when I turned onto the bridleway - corners, gravel, help! - but steady going. It all kicked off when I got to the middle of the island and the joys of hills. This was when I realised how little I’d used certain muscles since 1993, and how damn unfit I’ve become in my adult life. Pain shooting through my thighs, lungs on fire, sweating pouring from my head, I struggled the four miles home in 45 minutes.

Still, nothing unexpected. With the digging and lugging on the farm and cycling at the weekends I should be fit in, well, some time or other. The advantage of this knackering bike ride is at least I’ll get to sleep okay tonight. Insomnia would be a bad thing in this caravan cos it’s so bleeding cold in here.

The weather has finally broken. It’s been a cold day for the first time in a week with little sun and the wind has really picked up. The forecast is for a bit of rain but not much, which is not really good for the farm. The plants are dying and the ducks are getting desperate as their pond is dry as a bone. M’s concerned - this doesn’t normally happen until mid summer. As for me, I’ve been wearing my woolly hat constantly for the last 24 hours. I put it on when I went to bed and it stayed there all night - I think the same will happen tonight. I brought enough jumpers with me, but only just, and I’m kicking myself for leaving my gloves and scarf behind. Island + countryside + caravan = quite a bit colder than London, especially when the sun goes down. Remember that one.

Well, M decided she didn’t like my design for the raised beds after all, so we went with the 2×2 square. I felt a pang of angry disappointment which I quickly recognised as something I often feel when an idea I have after getting enthusiastic about is rejected. It’s a problem I often had in bookselling - a combination of being over-sensitive and pig headed. Thankfully I kept it under control, which was not hard to do really - this is her farm and I’m here to learn from her - but it was interesting to note a ‘negative attitude’ coming to the fore so early on. I think it’s important for me to spot things like this which are obviously not context dependent and try understand them. Easier said than done…

More adventures on the orphan lambs front. Last night farmer Fred brought over a newborn but by the morning it was dead, so I was greeted to a small white corpse in a plastic bag before breakfast. M doesn’t ostensibly breed her animals for food and definitely doesn’t slaughter them on the site, so while I rationally know that the animals are all potentially food it’s not part of the plan here. The dead lamb wasn’t a shock but it wasn’t nice either. But, well, it happens.

Later, at dinner, Fred brought another lamb over. This one had been born last night and had gotten its first feed from the mother but had since been abandoned or was not fit enough to keep up with the mother, so he brought it over. This one is huge, for a lamb, and is already walking around.

The black lamb which arrived on Tuesday is still looking very weak and can’t stand well. We think it might be blind and M’s not sure it’ll survive. The other lambs flinch when you wave a hand in front of them, but Blackie doesn’t and he holds his head in a strange way. I hope he at least makes it outside. The other baby lamb, the beautiful one, is fine though still quite small.

By the end of the day, having made the frames of four raised beds, I was knackered and really felt like I’d done a good week’s work. My body was tired but my mind was good. I like this feeling and I shall sleep well tonight. It was sunny and hot again today but the wind is picking up. Where I was working it was very dry and dusty and I was sawing a lot of wood and everything was blowing around. The wind and the sun and dust really wore me down and while I got a lot done it was done steadily and at a good pace.

The eight beds I’ve made are not going to win any design awards and I doubt certain people would like them in their gardens, but they are made of random planks nailed together and are essentially free. I noticed that the more I made, the better they got (except the last one which was a total bodge using the last of the wood). Again with the learning process - all good.

The weekend is now mine to do with as I will. Rain is forecast and since this is an island it’s likely the strong winds in the Channel will not miss us, so I’m heading off to Newport all going to plan. I want to buy a cheapo bike and pay a visit to the reference library, ostensibly to see if they have free net access but also to see what’s going on on this island beyond the tourist traps. There’s also an arts centre which could be interesting. One of my long term plans is to get some experience in this field to benefit the BugPowder comics thangdango.

A less busy day today, which was a good thing as it was achingly hot - shorts were the order of the day and my tan is coming on strong.

In the morning I finished the raised beds from yesterday. Interestingly my first bed was great as was my fourth. The middle two are a bit dodgy as I tried to get clever and improvise ending up in bodge upon bodge, but I got it figured out.

The next plan is to do more beds at the front of the house on a patch of dirt. The original plan was to do four beds in a square but then, while looking for planks of wood, we came across some roof struts left over from the house-building. It occurred to me these ready made triangles were perfect for beds in themselves. So I started sketching on the dirt with slabs of wood and came up with a more interesting design with three rectangular beds at the back, one in the middle at the front and two triangles on each side flanging back. M’s okayed it and tomorrow they go into place. It’s nice to think I’ve created something from my design that will be here for a few years to come.

No great revelations today other than I’ve been outside nearly constantly in daylight hours, which is a novelty. This was brought home when I had a shower in the house (yes, my first shower since I got here). Being newly built, the bathroom is very nice and plush compared with my mobile home (lots of 70s brown…). So far the weather has been great so being outside is not a problem. When it rains constantly for a week I might change my tune somewhat. We’ll see.

Interesting to note the orchestra of the farm. The lambs in the paddock are constantly bleating at the moment, mainly for food (we’re trying to wean them from milk to grass) but also for attention as we humans are their mums. Now it’s dark they’re quiet but I hear bleating in my sleep. Then you’ve got Sandy the dog barking at anything that passes the gate and occasionally wining for attention. Next to Sandy are the Bengal cats. Often they’re quiet but they also want feeding towards the end of the day and the tom cat actively asks for cuddles, which is sweet. So they’re making a racket. From the kitchen comes the less violent bleating of the baby lambs, and in the distance the occasional deeper bleat of a sheep or low of a cow. At 5.00pm it’s a veritable cacophony.

When the chickens eat the food intended for the lambs because the lambs can’t tell the difference between mud, string, my trousers and food and the chickens are opportunists.

I have a red neck. Doesn’t hurt - I seldom get sunburn - but it’s very red. I also have tough hands, workers hands, building up some nice calouses on my palms thanks to not bringing any gloves with me. Yes, I know I should have learned after blistering my hands so badly in Banbury but it’s not been so bad, mainly because I’ve been doing lifting and fixing rather than repetative digging. Still, gloves are on the way.

I’ve been re-discovering the joys of letter writing. My mother, in a somewhat typical manner, sent me two self addressed stamped postcards to encourage me to write to her, so I bashed one out last night. Then I wrote a letter to Kate. I haven’t written a letter like this for years and it was quite a nice thing which I think I’ll keep up. Just got Kath’s address through from her so will write another letter later.

Today was a half day. M had a Tai Chi class in the morning and I chose not to join as I was feeling a little stiff and fancied getting out of the farm for a bit. I walked into Godshill along the path through the fields, found the post office, and made my way back, pausing for half an hour to sit and look at the rolling hills. It really is beautiful out there.

After lunch, to work, and today I was building raised beds along the side of the house. Their main purpose is to stop Sandy, the young collie, running along the flower beds as she is wont to do. In fact most of the structures around the house are an effort to control Sandy’s exuberance. M wants to train her to be a sheep dog but she’s currently far too hyper due to her age. So we’re putting up fences and gates so that when she’s out of her pen (which is the size of a decent back garden) she won’t keep running off and making a nuisance.

Like everything else I’ve built, the raised beds were to be made of random pieces of wood found around the farm - old planks, off cuts from when the house was built, broken posts - cut to size and hammered together to make rectangles. And like everything else I’ve built it was great fun doing so. I like having a jumble of ‘rubbish’ and making something out of it, and while the beds might not look as nice as the one I built in Banbury, they are essentially free and, in some ways, more stable, made as they are of solid slabs of wood. And once they’re stained they’ll look fine. Two done today, another two to do tomorrow.

Fred, the local uber-farmer, came round today. According to M he’s always doing deals amongst the local farms that don’t involve money, trading this animal for that hay, or these plants for that feed, or whatever. While I didn’t really talk to him he looks a real character with huge lambchops for a beard and glasses. I said hello and he asked if I was on holiday. This struck me as strange and almost insulting, though I see where he’s coming from. A ‘young man’ from the city working on a farm for free must be on holiday before returning to his real life. While I’ve only been doing this a few days, I feel like this is my real life. If we’re going to label roles, I’m now a farm worker actively learning the trade at the University of M’s Farm.

Already I feel I’m settling in here. I feel more comfortable wandering around the farm and M seems happier to leave me on my own to get on with stuff. All very positive stuff.

Not in the weather sense - it’s been beautiful today with beating sunshine - more in an arse sense. The diet here is vegetarian and very nice it is too. Soup for lunch, lentil and carrot on the whole, and it definitely sets one up for the afternoon. But my bowels are having a bit of trouble adjusting. Lots of farts of all varieties, so it’s a good job I’m working outside.

Another full day today, so much so it feels like I’ve been here for ages rather than just 48 hours. First job was to finish the shelter for the lambs, only we had to do this with two of the lambs in the shelter already. Last night one of the neighbouring farms’ sheep gave birth to a black lamb and the mother rejected it, so the farmer asked M if she wanted it. As all her sheep are white some black lambs wool would be a good thing, so she’s taken it on. Because the newborns live in a small box in the kitchen the two larger lambs had to make room for this pathetic bundle of black. The poor thing had been alive for about 12 hours and had barely opened its eyes. With some loving care it should be fine.

So the shelter was finished, the tin roof nailed down and the walls re-enforced . The bigger lambs were pretty unsure about the whole ‘being outside’ thing but they’ll get used to it. They’re my friends now - sheep are surprisingly intelligent although if you put on a different coat they get a bit confused.

After lunch we put up a fence to separate the garden from the rest of the farm. This was much harder work than I expected. First of all posts had to be put up which involved digging down a good half metre and hammering the damn thing in. Then the wire fence has to be stretched across and nailed to the posts. Lots of pulling, holding and hammering using muscles I didn’t know I had.

I was introduced to the three Bengal cats in the cat-cage today. They’re pedigree and M is trying to get them to breed. By keeping them caged up she can be sure who the father is. If his kids are anything like him they’ll be great cats. I’d not really seen pedigree cats close up before - Bengal is a perfect description as they walk like tigers and have beautiful coats - and I don’t know if it’s because they’re locked up in this cage (sounds a bit cruel but it’s not really) but the tom is really friendly. Lovely cat.

I think the reason I feel like I’ve been here for ages is because I’m learning so much, way more than I thought I would. Little things like the correct way to put up a corrugated roof or how sheep ‘work’ or the correct way to do a fence. Stuff like that seems pretty simple but it’s not really. Or at least there’s a special way to do it to make sure it works rather than just being bodged. The WWOOF credo is “Your host provides you with bed and board and the opportunity to learn in exchange for your help” and, while M in no way an earnest organic proletyser she seems to take this part of it seriously, constantly asking my how I think stuff should be done and letting me do things from scratch. I designed the shelter and the chicken run. She guided me but I made the decisions. I knew I’d be learning stuff but I think I’m very lucky to be in an environment that encourages this. If I do move on to another farm at some point I’ll definitely be ’skilled’.

I also feel a lot better than yesterday - still a bit sniffly, especially when we were getting a bale of hay for the lambs, but less ‘coldy’. Must be adjusting to this environment.

Drat and blast, I am in snotsville. All day I’ve been sneezing and blowing my nose. Thing is, it hasn’t affected my mind and body too much and I’ve been working fine - just sneezing a lot. Might be hay fever (though I don’t normally get it), might be an allergy to the animals (never had one before), might just be a cold (was coming down with something last week) and it is pretty cold in this caravan at night. Maybe I shouldn’t have shaved my head a couple of weeks back…

Anyway, nasal moaning aside, today was my first proper day of work - today I WWOOFed for the first time. Breakfast at 8.30 and then out to the, um, paddock? Not sure, but it’s a good sized area of land fenced in. In it are the hens with their new chicks, each hen in its own chicken run. The job today was to build a new chicken run and start work on a shelter for the orphan lambs which are currently in the kitchen. Because they’ve been brought up my M on a bottle they’re a bit scared of the big outdoors plus they haven’t got a mother to protect them from foxes, so they need a transitional place, which I built for them.

Building temporary structures like these outside is fun because you don’t have to worry too much about what they look like. First of all you hunt around the sheds looking for pallets and random pieces of wood that might work together and then, once you’ve got a vague idea about the structure, you hammer it together until you’ve got something that a) the animals can’t escape from and b) the foxes can’t get into.

And, of course, there’s something very satisfying about building things. I could happily build random looking chicken runs for the rest of the summer.

Right now, though, my head is starting to ache from the cold. While then sun is just going down I think I’ll retire to bed with my book. I suspect a good nights sleep with be more than needed.

Well then, here we are! This is me, Pete, on a farm. Yes.

The farm is, well, a farm. To be honest, I’m not sure how best to describe it because I haven’t had a good walk around yet. Tomorrow is the first big day and this evening I’m just settling in.

I’ve got a caravan to myself with quite a bit of room - sofa, double bed, etc - a few yards from the main farm house. It’s got electricity and such but no heating. Out of one window there’s a field with sheep and cows. The farm is in a small valley. It doesn’t do vegetables (yet), just livestock and M, the farmer, also does Yoga and Tai Chi lessons in the farm house which they just finished building. It’s very impressive with a large Yoga room. In the kitchen there’s a little box-pen with three lambs who are being bottle fed.

I feel slightly at a loose end right now. I’m used to having things to do. I will have things to do, lots of things, tomorrow, but right now I’m sitting in a mobile home. Reckon I’ll read my book.

Following on from the Boing Boing link, I figured I’d download Cory’s book and see if I could read it on the PDA while I’m away. And he’s got a Palm OS Reader file there ready for me! News to me, so I go a grab the reader and wonder if there’s anything else out there for free (Palm sell ebooks but they’re the same price as paper novels near as much, so no point. I’ll pay a couple of dollars but not $7.99). Googling around I find Pluckerbooks who are converting public domain texts into this and other formats. Bingo! So, I’ll be reading classics for a bit then!

[Update: The Pluckerbooks books don't work with the Palmreader for some reason, but they do work with Plucker which appears to also be an Avant-go type set-up. Currently downloading...]

Boing Boing points to an article on Salon about Re-Code.com, a service which lets you print out barcodes. Nothing strange about that. BugPowder pointed to a similar a legit service a while ago. What’s controversial is Re-Code are ‘encouraging’ people to enter in barcodes of cheap products, print them out on sticker-paper, and place them over the barcodes of expensive products, thus paying way less. Because a barcode is a barcode, no-one is going to notice, especially not a tired, overworked and underpaid shop assistant (I should know). The point being, 99.9999% of people don’t know how to read barcodes, yet they’re ubiquitous. Wall-Mart are already pissed off.

Of course, this is just making shopping cheaper for people with computers, internet access, decent printers and the means to buy fancy sticky-paper, so not much of a social revolution there. I think the point (other than a good scam) is to address the fear of barcodes that started in the 80s - that we would all, in the future, have a barcode tattooed to our necks that would hold special information about us. This fear came about because ordinary people can’t read them, so you don’t know what’s on your barcode. Re-Code lures people in with the promise of cheaper shopping but then educated them about how barcodes work. By showing how easy it is to subvert the system the fear goes away. Dunno how useful or effective this is, but interesting none the less.

My Trebus Tribute page, set up when old Mr Trebus died last year, is getting more and more popular (see stats) with 73 comments posted so far. This is cool, especially as the vast majority of people are coming to it via search engines rather than linkage, but it has me worried. Already it’s sinking into some kind of anarchy and I won’t be able to keep tabs on it while I’m away. So I’m going to close the comments. Shame, but there you go. Maybe someone else will start a new site for tributes? Who knows…

What it says, really.

Oh, Frazer, what are we to do with you…

British comic artist forced to leave Croatia Residency visa denied due to bad translation

Zagreb (pte, Apr 4, 2003 12:05) - A top British comic artist has been booted out of Croatia after officials translated “freelance” as “unemployed”.

The artist Frazer Irving who earns 50,000 pounds a year and has already had at least one major exhibition of his work in the Croatian capital Zagreb said he was stunned by the news.

(more of this kind of thing…)

Children Books of the Early Soviet Era - some wonderful graphic design and art. There’s currently a mad room in Tate Modern full of Soviet posters which has a similar effect. Lovely.

Saddam has gone. Hooray! Good to see a nation free of its dictator.

It was easy. Well, no shit Sherlock. But it’s also not over yet. I want to look back in 6 months time before I judge this moment. This is where it gets messy.

Surprisingly good linkage and discussion on MeFi at the moment.

Yesterday I took a short walk through Winchester and for some reason started taking close-up photos of walls. This continued until I had 31 of the buggers. They do look nice together and, who knows, might be of some use to someone!

The trial run of the Farmblog is now up. Also, the first photos on the Gallery. Both are from my week in Banbury working on my sister’s garden.