Pete Ashton’s Blog

Quite a few changes over the last week, although some of them are gradual ones I’ve only noticed because I’ve been away such as the orphan lambs getting fatter. Compared to the other lambs in the field they’re waddling little tubbies since all they do it sit around and eat while the others have to run with the grownups.

One shock for the lambs has been the introduction of bovines. Millie’s calf has been let into their paddock along with Millie’s calf’s little friend. This dwarf cow came from Fred’s herd and wasn’t fed properly as a baby, stunting its growth. Fred brought it here to feed up and M won’t let him take it back because the two calves are now inseparable. The visual result is quite odd. The calves are about the same age but one is half the size looking like a scale model of the other.

Now, Millie’s calf used to be in this paddock with her mum while the lambs have been here for a while with no other animals around (other than chickens and the odd pheasant). Suddenly there’s a big brown thing and a not so big brown thing wandering around like they own the place and the lambs aren’t to keen on this, running away whenever the calves come near, which they do quite often, having never seen sheep before.

The paddock now opens into the cow-shed meaning the sheep could go in there to sleep, but they don’t because that’s where the calves go. Instead they’re finally using the rusty iron arc shelter (which I think was built for pigs back in the days when there were pigs here) because the cows can’t fit in it.

I was in the paddock today digging up some last remnants of ragwort from the drainage ditch and moving some baby trees which were (dare I say, mistakenly?) planted there. The cows and sheep like little more than to eat the leaves off trees, especially little foot high trees, so they had to come out. It was a relatively tricky operation as everything else I’ve dug up so far has been thrown away whereas these had to survive, and this was not helped by the lambs coming right up to me and trying to nibble the leaves. George (as I’ve named the smallest lamb) showed absolutely no fear of the swinging spade and would not be gently pushed away - completely, incredibly tame.

The most notable change has been the colour of the farm. In essence, everything has grown. The grass in the fields is longer (in the paddock the lambs appear to swim through a lake of green) and is turning a slight shade of brown in places as the seeds get ready to take flight - it’ll be harvested as soon as we’ve had three straight days with no rain. Meanwhile the farmyard paddock, which was bare chalk when I got here in April, is now almost totally green and gives a real definition to the chalk road that winds through the yard. This is the colour of mid-summer - the greenery is at its peak and it getting ready for the long journey into autumn. Big, lush and alive.

I’ve made a personal decision that I’m going to stick to my allotted hours - the WWOOFguidelines say I should work 6 hours a day. Quite often I do about seven or eight hours, working from 9.00am to 6.00pm with a few breaks. Today I just took an hour for lunch plus a cuppa tea in the afternoon and had done my six hours by 4.30, meaning I could have a little snooze before dinner and not feel too knackered this evening. Despite keeping my options open I really want to see if I can make a go of staying here, and part of my disillusionment a fortnight ago came from being totally knackered. I’ve done the shock-of-exercise thing and it’s time to recognise my limitations and work with them, plus by being awake with more energy I can probably fit more into those six hours than I was doing in the longer days. Tonight I feel fine (in fact I wish I was more tired as I’ve run out of fags…) but it’s only Monday and I’ve been on holiday. Thursday will be the crunch day.

Again with the rain worries. When the ferry was docked at Southampton it was sweltering and sunny but as soon as we disembarked a fierce wind hit in as the clouds darkened and the odd little spot of rain came down. And here’s me with two panniers and one carrier bag. I’m not worried about myself getting wet but the papers, books and electronic gadgets might not survive a summer downpour. So I pelted it back to the farm and made it with 45 minutes to spare before the heavens opened.

It was an odd ride as I’d had a wonderful week in London (which I’ll write about in another post) but before leaving I had been going a bit stir crazy. I’m now pretty certain that my immediate future is not on this farm but that whatever happens I’ll be here for the next few weeks while I sort out where to go next, so all manner of emotions were going through my head.

I’ve managed to strike a good balance between having a loose plan for the future while still remaining free, “living in the moment” and not worrying about the details, but it’s still a little daunting to actually set things in motion myself. The target is to end up in the Birmingham area with a temp and/or part time job developing my computing skills in October. The next three months have to lead to that on a budget of £400 (including getting somewhere to live in Brum) so it’s going to be tight. If I move around a lot money will vanish on trains and busses.

As far as M’s concerned I’m here until September, but after the loneliness kicked in a fortnight ago I’ve been looking to move on. Now, if I move onto somewhere they might not want me to stay there for three months, so I’ll have to move on again. The question is, was the period I went through here recently a signal that it’s time to move on or part of the process of adjusting?

Having had a week recharging my social batteries and getting some much needed perspective on my situation I feel I set up for the next few weeks. And as I came through the gates tonight and noticed how certain things had changed (the ducklings are now ducks!) while others were reassuringly the same (it had only been a week), M greeted me with a big smile. I felt the worries of the journey melt away.

It’s funny, when I started writing this post I was certain that tomorrow I’d be contacting other farms with the intention of moving to them later in July, but now I’m pretty certain I’m staying here. All very confusing, but this journal writing does help sort out the thoughts, especially when there’s no fellow human to bounce them off. Whatever, I’ll see how I feel next weekend before making a decision.

Thanks to everyone I stayed with or met up with over the last week in London. It was quite humbling to be fed, watered and housed so generously. Not much more I can say, other than thanks and I had a great time.

Expect more about my London trip in the next Farmblog batch!

Had a lovely week in London but no time to write about it all now. However, one thing anyone who’s in the area must go to is the Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller sound installation at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. They’ve recorded a 40 piece choir with each singer having their own mike. These are then played back through 40 speakers at head height arranged in a circle. You can either sit in the middle and have the ultimate surround sound experience or wander around getting right up to each ’singer’. It’s very intense and somewhat emotional - an older guy actually started crying while I was there. Go check it out. Now.

The Farmblog has been updated! Go read!

Photos to follow, um, later. Hopefully next week. I’m in London for the next week and then back on the Island from next Sunday. If anyone who has my mobile number and is in London wants to meet for a quick drink, do get in touch!

It’s not often you’ll find me linking to a geocities fan site, but denislawsonobsession makes me smile, mainly because Dennis Lawson (who, of couse, played Wedge in all three Star Wars films) is the father of Jamie, a good friend of mine, and I’ve never known someone who’s dad has a fan site devoted (literally, devoted!) to them. Happy to say Lalla, who runs it, seems fairly sane. At least as sane as the rest of us. Anyway, those who know him, check out these photos of Jamie as a kid in Celebrity Knitting magazine! I mean, I know someone who was in Celebrity Knitting! How cool is that!

I’ve had a couple of very complimentary pieces of feedback to this farmblog , which is very nice since it’s what I spend a good hour or so each night working on, one of which suggested turning it into a book of the Oranges Over Tuscan Lemons variety. Okay, it was my dad what said it and like any good son I immediately dismissed it as a stupid idea conceived through paternal-tinted spectacles. And then like any fatherly advice it hung about gradually convincing me of it’s viability. And so last weekend I got three books on creative writing from the library, all of which were completely inappropriate but even the useless can act as a framing device.

Fact is, I’ve got here in this journal the foundation of a story, or at least a chapter or two, which could be turned into something bigger. Now, I don’t think I’m ready to write a book, at least not yet, but my background is in zines. I miss doing zines. The web is great and all but there’s something about making your own wee zine from conception to having a pile of them hand assembled before you. It’s an object, set in toner and there for life.

So I’m going to take this blog, chop out the crap, fill in the gaps, make it flow and try and tie some themes together. Farmzine #1, coming your way, ooh, about Xmas I guess. Who knows, it might actually be interesting!

The whole day today was spent in the middle field collecting rocks and stones. With an overcast sky and a breeze working conditions were quite pleasant and since I’ve been dwelling on stuff a bit too much of late I took the mp3/cd walkman out. The Butthole Surfers and a significant chunk of PJ Harvey’s oevre had me dancing and singing around the field in a most unselfconscious manner, but when you’re just being watched by sheep and the odd cow, hey! One Butthole lyric made me smile - “If you wanna touch the sky you must be prepared to die” - which, along with some other significant things I’ve read and heard recently has reminded me that I really want to do something fucking crazy if only I could get the guts together.

It’s interesting - while I’ve been listening to music I’ve owned for a number of years it’s only now, in this context, that I’ve found myself really listening to lyrics. I’ve never been that bothered with the words of a song, being more interested in how they’re sung, taking the voice as another instrument. Quite a revelation all this “songs meaning things” stuff.

The methodology for collecting stones is to start a pile and then spiral around it, building the pile into a pyramid that can be seen from a distance. After a few hours seven or so small monuments were evenly spread around the field. Aesthetically they looked like Andy Goldsworthy sculptures but there was also a potential spiritual angle, as if they were dividing the field into quadrants of energy. Even though I was doing a quite mechanistic job it was nice to think I was creating something on such a large scale. Still all gone now, which is shame, but there you go. To the tune-age of Frank Sinatra they were dismantled into a wheelbarrow and lugged down the hill, through the farmyard and dumped in a muddy shed to make a solid floor.

[Interlude: Just had a weird assed synchronicity thingy. I'd been looking through the WWOOF booklet of host farms with the idea of trying somewhere a little bigger with more of a community going on and one of the two places in Midlands I'd highlighted was Redfield, a "community of 15 people sharing a 50 roomed house set in 17 acres". I was just tidying up my paperwork and came across a letter written to me in April by Felicity, my mother's friend from University who started WWOOFing a few years back, giving up all her possessions and moving around various communities. It was hearing of her experiences that put this idea in my head. I though it'd be interesting to re-read it. And wadaya know, right at the top of the letter is "Redfield". She lives at that very community. Is this a sign? No 23's that I can spot, but even so!]

Despite a relatively good day today and I’m still thinking of leaving when I come back after my week in London. Not sure what exactly I’ll do, partly because I just don’t know but also because I need to talk it through with various people. The big problem with this life is I’m blatantly dependent on other people’s goodwill. I like to think my karma is reasonably in credit but it’s rather awkward asking for help when I’ve put myself in this situation voluntarily. Interestingly this wasn’t really an issue when I was going through the process of packing up my London life because, I think, I really was in the shit and it was obvious I needed help. Right now, having put myself in this situation, I feel obliged to be fairly self sufficient and proactively asking to be housed and fed just feels wrong. In fact, even writing this here in the knowledge that friends and family will read it seems like pushing it too much. Looks like I’ll never be a decent sponger, at least not consciously.

Nearly threw in the towel today. Let’s just say I’m starting to wonder if this is actually going anywhere. Aside from being constantly exhausted, uncomfortable and, yes, a little bit lonely, I don’t seem to be moving on in any way. I don’t think I’ve learned much the last few weeks and I seem to be dwelling on little, often negative, things and getting easily wound up by stuff. I could list it all here but I think I won’t because while I’m happy to moan to myself about stuff, to do so in a public forum would not be on, as I hope you’ll understand.

The more pertinent point is why am I getting fed up? Is it the circumstances I’m in that are making me this way, or is it just me? Do I need the novelty of a new situation to distract me from the grim reality of life? Would this happen wherever I was and whatever I was doing?

I was playing around with an “escape plan” fantasy (as I did for the last few months at the bookshop) and had this idea of renting a very small flat or bedsit in Southampton or Birmingham (familiarity is safer, you see, while London is just too expensive) and getting a part time job to earn enough to get by on, hook up to the net and crack on with learning programming. A great idea that could lead to an interesting future, and I know I can survive on not much money these days. But, two or three months down the line, would I be at square one again?

I dunno.

It’ll be very interesting to be in London next week, seeing people and places I used to be very familair with in a new light, and seeing how I reflect off them. Interestingly I’ve tentatively aranged to see nine people in six days after intending to plan to see four. I wonder what that means…

Shall we talk about the weather? I know, nothing more tedious, but they are an important element of my life here these elements.

At some point last night (5.00am?) there was a huge thunderstorm and while I didn’t get up to look I could hear the rain lashing down on the caravan and the lightning flashing through the window. I was hoping the rain would cool everything down a bit but it didn’t - all it did was add a heavy dose of humidity moving the farm temporarily into rainforest conditions with a warm mist everywhere

After a sweaty and quite uncomfortable morning the sky cleared and the sun started beating down like nothing had happened. It was the same as the last few days and I feared heat stroke. I’ve never knowingly had heat stroke but I know when a heat is so strong that it wears you down. Thankfully I’ve had the intelligence to wear a cap all the time I’ve been here (so much so it’s become second nature (and is starting to smell a bit)) but the back of my neck is still radiating heat like a four-bar electric fire.

And then, as I was wrapping up for the day, it all changed again. The wind picked up from the west for the first time in ages, belting down the hill and rattling the open windows of the caravan, as the sun was obscured by a few very large clouds. It was a very odd sky - in the north-west, where the sun was setting, it looked like a storm was brewing, but everywhere else was the stunning clear blue I’ve come to associate with this island.

And then, change again! The wind suddenly dropped to nothing and the clouds thinned producing yet another stunning sunset. As I look out now (10.30pm) the sky is a totally clear dark, dark blue, the stars are starting to come out and we’re back to where we were 24 hours ago.

There’s a very slight breeze blowing across the farm this evening which , while not strong enough to do anything about the almost debilitating heat, does affect the ambience in a rather odd way because it’s coming from the west. The last time there was wind from this direction it brought with it a torrential horizontal downpour of rain, but no hope or fear of that this time. The effect is more subtle. The long grass in the hay field is blowing in the wrong direction while for the first time that I’ve noticed the church bells of Godshill are audible. It also means there’s no wind coming into my caravan, which is a bit of an arse as it could do with being cooled down a bit, but you can’t win them all.

It hardly deserves mention but I’m English so you’ll bear with me. It’s been very hot this last few days. Clear blue skies and a beating sun. I didn’t think much of it until it was so hot on Wednesday that I cut the arms off a t-shirt to let some air in. That evening I was lying on the sofa-esque furnishings of the caravan and I noticed a pain coming from my shoulders. I’ve got sunburn. Now, I never burn. Maybe it’s due to growing up in the Singapore as a kid in the 70s or maybe I’ve just got tough skin, but I always go a nice dark brown without all that tedious burning and peeling. I’ve never owned sun block and I never make a conscious decision to stay in the shade. But the sun was so strong that it burnt me. It’s hot here.

The caravan, while it builds up quite a temperature during the day, does still get quite cold at night and I’m still sleeping in a t-shirt under two blankets and a sleeping bag. As soon as the sun sets I have to get change into my jeans and put a jumper on, which is quite a relief in some ways. But if this caravan looses heat so easily in this weather, what the hell is it going to be like in the winter? Thank god I’m definitely leaving here in September.

On that note, I was looking at my diary and noticed I’ve planned the rest of the stay here without realising it. When I get back from London there’s a good five week stretch until the Caption comix convention in Oxford which I’m inclined to extend into a bit of a holiday, cash allowing. Then there’s the final seven week stretch to September 29th where my diary says “finish farms - get a job”. A little after that I’m due to become an Uncle, which I just quite tellingly typo’d as “unclue”. I’m actually quite inclined to move back to Birmingham for a few months. I can’t put my finger quite on it, but it’s calling to me. Maybe a three month reprise would be useful to settle some ghosts and help segue me back into society. Hmm.

You’ll remember the ducklings that hatched to their surrogate chicken mother a month ago (to the day, actually). When I was building their home I was expecting three of them but we ended up with seven. Now they’re half the size of an adult duck having them all crammed in such a small space was getting them rather distressed, so M decided to put them in the monster-chicken-run for a bit before casting them into the anarchy that is the duck enclosure.

So this morning, before letting them out, we carried their existing home into the big run, gave them a much bigger water bowl, and boy do they seem to like it. At first they couldn’t figure out that they could leave their old home through the open door but they soon worked it out and were loving all the space! There is a slight problem though.

It’s now dusk, the sun and set and it’s getting dark. The ‘mother’ hen has gone back into the home to sleep but it looks like the ducklings didn’t notice her going in and now they can’t work out how to get there. Now, this isn’t a problem as the new run is fox proof (at least I really hope it is!) but they need to get some rest and get out of the cold. I suspect tomorrow we’ll have a repeat of what happened to the lambs when they were first put in the field and couldn’t cope with the change. A similar things happened to Millie’s calf when it was taken away from her.

They don’t like change these animals, and I have a lot of sympathy with them. Modern management theory seems to hold as a holy truth that change is essential and adjusting to change is a necessary duty of every employee even though it seems wrong. It could be said that, even though it’s necessary to move the ducklings around like this, it’s only the fault of us humans for not planning their housing better (a bigger home built in the duck enclosure would make sense) and the onus is not on them to adjust without complaint.

I realise I’m making comparisons between juvenile farm animals and the underpaid workers of the world which some might take offence to but hey, it’s only an analogy guys! I used to be one of you before I became a serf…

Since I’m able to get to a computer regularly now I’ve decided to re-open the Trebus Tribute page to comments. Which is going to be, um, interesting…

Thanks to LMG for this one. Say you want to send a TrackBack ping. (Huh? You what? Read this and see if it helps) but you’re not using Movable Type. Youy can now use the WIZBANG STANDALONE TRACKBACK FORM. Why should you want to do this?

Say for some reason you write something of note prompted by a post on my blog. Fill out the details on the form and send it to the TrackBack URL for my post (you can find this by clicking on “TrackBack” below). Them as if by magic, a link to your post is listed on my site. Neat, huh? Trust me, it is neat. And simple. You just need to get used to the idea.

(The WizBang form looks to be a simple implementation of the Standalone TrackBack module from Movable Type so we can expect many more of these in the future. A good idea would be to have a included with MT which I can make available to people to ping me, as it were.)

Amusingly I can’t ping Darren at LMG about this link as he’s still using Blogger ;)

And so, to Rookley for the Art On The Green art and craft fair plus mail art exhibition. At first glance a village event like many other - lots of stalls mainly manned by persons into retirement age, bunting around the place and a couple of big white tends, one of which selling tea.

I had secretly been hoping for a subversive mini-festival of underground art, my appetite having been whetted by the prospect of an international mail-art project centring on this little village, but in now way was I disappointed. Yes, it was at first glance quaint and seemingly out of time, like a scene from The Archers or a John Major speech, but it was also monumentally impressive and alive.

The main focus of the stalls was local artists, many of whom seemed to be people who had retired to the island to paint watercolours. The range was truly democratic, from enthusiastic amateurs whose work sometimes verged on the naive, to some quiet masterpieces. I was particularly taken by one Harold Sheath. Working with a strictly reduced palette and an almost minimalist brush stroke his studies of moored boats and coastlines are cold a a crisp morning but with a subtle warmth. I liked his work so much I bought one, which says a lot as don’t buy anything these days.

Still, it was only a fiver, framed. Most of the work on sale was under £50 with most of that being in the £15-25 mark making supporting the local art scene a very viable option. The event reminded me of the small press and zine tables at comic conventions where quality is variable but everything is driven by passion and the chance of finding something unique is high.

Interestingly, the thing that brought be to Art On The Green was the hardest thing to find, The mail-art exhibition was displayed in the tea tent, pegged up on string along one wall. A quite impressive number of entries - 40-50 I think - literally from all over the world. Some were pretty pedestrian but, as expected, some were wonderfully deranged graphical blurtings. I was slightly disappointed to see themes in mail-art seem not to have moved on in recent years - cut-ups, collage, xerography and polemic still the order of the day, but I guess that old internet bugbear has sapped the new blood, the kids preferring the Photoshop forums of b3ta et al. Still, taking away my personal familiarity with the form it was pretty mad to see such things in a tent in Rookley. In some ways I would have liked this stuff to be plastered all over the green, shouting into the faces of people, but at the same time having it hidden away waiting to be discovered was just as good.

Like any successful event there was an overspill into another venue. The church hall held Steve Gascoigne who stood out somewhat from the throng. Not only was he a photographer, the only one I saw there, but he was a youngish man (in the sense that I’m a youngish man) working digitally and with an artistic statement, his project being to record the beauty of the island in an ongoing series of limited edition photographs. His work is excellent. I cannot recommend it enough. Actually, I came away from the stall despondent. Here was yet another person successfully (artistically at any rate) ploughing a specific furrow while here I am still floundering around looking for a medium… Ah well.

And so that was Rookley’s Art On The Green 2003. A village event not centred around the church or using charity as a justification or some earnest attempt to generate community, but about Art, and through that bringing out everything you might want and expect from a village community. Well done to all involved, and I mean that quite sincerely.

At the Art on the Green fair I was really taken by the photographs of Steve Gascoigne.

Available Light Photography is Steve Gascoigne’s project to portray the Isle of Wight and its natural beauty. He is dedicated to producing vibrant photographs of one of the United Kingdoms most idyllic areas.

Lovely stuff, and good on him for having a project like this. How I wish I could… Sigh…

Great blurting on Any Questions just now. “Serious Dischuffment.” Must use that myself often.

(Currently 2 occurrences of Google as of this posting…)

Word is on the vine - lambs in the area are getting maggots. Fred lost a couple the other night and others have found the wiggly things in their baby sheep. So first thing this morning we again brought the sheep down from the field.

After fixing the gates across the entrance to the farmyard to keep the sheep in one place we marched up the hill to drive them down. By this stage I’d been awake for, ooh, ten minutes, had had no tea or cigarettes so to say marching is a little generous, but up we went. As before, most of the sheep ran to M and followed her to the gate but a few straggled and I had to do the running around with my arms stretched out thing. I think there was a memory of the last time they came down to be sheared still lingering and they didn’t want to go through that again. Interestingly, one of the sheep looked like it had been shat on - a streak of black across its back like a birth mark or splodge of ink. Whatever, I thought to myself.

Soon all the sheep were off the field. But they weren’t in the shed. They were all over the farmyard. The gates had fallen down. I put the gates back up and waited for M to drive them towards me. Sandy, the dog, was enlisted to help. While she’s not a fully trained sheepdog by any stretch of the imagination, she has had a bit of training and the instinct of her breeding and, kept on the lead, was ably darting from side to side yelping the sheep forwards. Meanwhile I was keeping myself hidden from view by the gates waiting for them to come pass. Suddenly a thundering streak of white passed me and they were in. Well, all but three, but those three didn’t have maggot issues so we just left them to graze outside my caravan. With a magic I could scarcely believe after the hassles of last time, Sandy herded them all into a shed and we fenced them in. Then M explained what we were going to do. Or rather, what I was going to do.

“Just grab him” she said. Huh? Just grab him? Grab one of the sheep? You what? Picture the scene. A shed about 15ft by 20ft filled with 15 sheep and four lambs. as you approach them they move around in a circle creating a vortex of, well, sheepness I guess. And they get up to quite a speed, jumping over each other and changing direction. “Just grab one of the lambs.” Go on, grab him.” I made a few half hearted lunges with no effect but as the lack of morning stimulants kicked in, the spiralling sheep and repeated instruction to grab put me into a zone. I was devoid of ego and fear and quite unaware of what I was about to do so it was with some shock that I walked over to M holding the smallest lamb in the air, holding it out so M could spray the anti-maggot stuff down its back and around the tail. I worked through the lambs, throwing myself onto them, grabbing them around the neck and pinning them to the ground. I was half expecting a hoof in the face but it was relatively easy, though even now I can’t quite remember how it all happened.

But I’m jumping ahead. There was still the sheep to grab. M had pointed him out as being the one with the black mark on his back. This was blood. The maggots had hatched under the skin on his back and burst through. I chased after him and after a couple of attempts finally made the lunge. I dove through the air and landed on the sheep, forcing his head to the ground. As I held this struggling beast down M came up from behind and put his rear legs in the correct position. I did the same at the front and suddenly the sheep was docile. Just being in the sleeping position calmed him down. It was incredible.

As I, quite loosely, held onto his head M got out the maggot killing spray and set to work on the affected area. Little maggots started emerging from the skin wriggling their last and falling dead to the ground. Then more maggots. And more maggots. I couldn’t count them but we must be talking a good hundred. As M brushed them away the sheep flinched and moaned slightly. I stroked his head and murmured calming words and it seemed to help. When it seemed they were all gone I let go and up he went as if nothing had happened. The gate was opened and they all ran back into the field. Job done. Time for breakfast.

Apparently all these maggot issues are not so much to do with being bred to this level but to do with climate. Sheep on the Scottish Highlands do not have major maggot problems, while down here in the south it’s been heavy fly weather for weeks now. Also, in “olden days” the shepherd would be with the sheep 24/7 and would keep an eye out for such things. More importantly, he’d know what to look for before it got too bad. While you can be preventative, as we were being with the lambs, quite often you don’t know there’s a problem until the eggs hatch. And then if you don’t treat it quickly the animal dies. We’re only dealing with 18 sheep here but Fred has 300. Even though he checks on them daily there’s no way he’s going to catch every problem.

A few years back the sheep would be driven through a sheep-dip which, for younger readers, was essentially a long trough filled with stuff-that-kills-maggots. The sheep would be thrown in at one end and forced to swim to the other. These are no longer used because they poisoned the water table and caused long term health problems for farm workers. So now you know.

Anyway, if you’d told me three months ago that I would wake up one morning and spend half an hour leaping like a wild predator onto maggot infested sheep, I’d have laughed you out of town. Actually, if you’d told me yesterday I’d still have sniggered you into the next room.

Blimey.

Just realised that I’m connected to Captain Beefheart on a personal level through just two people. A friend of mine is Mike who works in a London bookshop. He played guitar on PJ Harvey’s first album and has remained in touch, meeting up when she’s in London. John Peel has just said that he hadn’t heard from Beefheart for a while now and the only other person he knows who is in touch with the great man is PJ Harvey. And all this adds up to absolutely nothing at all.

Did I ever tell you I’m descended from Mary Queen of Scots?

Actually, right at this minute, I feel rather damn fine. After dinner I came back to the caravan and sat outside smoking a cigarette with my feet on this table I found in a shed watching the lambs graze and the rabbits hop as the evening sun shone down and it all felt good. Odd to think that a couple of hours previously I was seriously thinking about throwing in the towel.

I finished the chicken house a little after lunch having had to pause in the hammering as M had a Tai Chi class. Somehow I don’t think people travel to the farm for the sound of a mini building site so I did some weeding out front. A couple of things went wrong. First up I had to saw a huge 10ft post to size. All the other posts I’ve sawed had been easy but for some reason the saw kept sticking refusing to let a rhythm start. A mild frustration but a frustration none the less. Then while I was weeding the hoe broke. The business end snapped off and whacked into my shin.

One of the great things about my work here is having to make do with what’s available. It’s a challenge both mentally and physically and can be very rewarding. It can also be really fucking frustrating. With a basic plan and a trip to B&Q I could have finished that chicken house in 2 days with next to zero hassle I’m sure.

When I’m alert and raring to go this celebration of the bodge is great, but when I’m tired and irritable, as I have been for the last week, it’s just the bloody worst thing. I feel like I could be at a very important point where I either adjust to this way of life or I don’t. I’m at the stage where I could in theory carry on living like this forever. But accepting this as normal still requires a change of attitude. Anyway, still early days to muse too much. Later…

And so to the accursed chicken house and run and the fifth day of construction. Now all my efforts were to come together to form the whole and the proof would be in the pudding. Will it work? Well, we’re not going to find out for a bit.

First, time to put the doors on. Only the hinges didn’t come with screws. And the only screws left in the box are an inch long. The doors are about a centimetre thick. They are also hard, tough buggers resistant to screws. The bastards. My thumb still aches, this time on the right hand, the left being the victim of the hammer last week.

Little things that should be easy, like screwing in some hinges somehow takes all morning. Oh yeah. The bolts. They come with screws. But they’re shite. Tiny little flat-head buggers (why, when we have had the cross-headed screw for so many years does the flat-head still exist? Why?) made out of the metallic equivalent to porridge. Half way in the head crumbles. It won’t go in and it won’t come out.

Now, I’m naive and expected to have finished the whole thing in a couple of hours. By lunch time I’d put on four doors and hinged the flap at the back (allowing access to the nests where eggs are to be laid). But now the worst was over, or so it seemed.

Next, the felt. Since the chicken house is made up of about a hundred separate pieces of wood, it’s not particularly waterproof so the whole thing has to be covered in roofing felt. Not a problem and I had this all figured out. Cut the pieces to size and hammer them on in such a way that the rain runs off them without getting to the wood. Easy. The only issue is once this is in place there’s no turning back. To remove the felt is to tear it and I’m not about to waste any. Soon the house was cocooned in three different shades of felt and it was time for the moment of truth - fitting the house to the frame of the chicken run.

The house now weighs a ton and carrying it is impossible, so I slowly dragged it the couple of feet into position. Nice and snug, or so it seemed. Only the overhang at the front (acting as a small porch over the door) didn’t clear the top of the run keeping the door of the house a good few inches back. Since the frame is triangular (being made of spare roof struts) moving the house slightly to the side would solve this. Only now the door wouldn’t open. My patented “opening the door via another door alongside it” to let the birds out was now a bit of a stretch. I could reach but could M?

On top of this the floor of the chicken house was a little too low compared to the frame. I heaved the house back and with most of my strength lifted it up. With the rest of my strength I gently pushed it over and hammered in a couple more stakes to the base to raise it up a few inches. A brief rest later and again with the tipping and hefting about the place.

By now it was getting on 4.00pm. Enough with the tinkering, I thought to myself. Time to finish this. The rest of the working day was spent plugging the gaps between the house and the frame with strips of chicken-wire fencing before I was called over for dinner. The al fresco delights of a summers evening were lost on me as I sat on the patio furniture darkly sipping my soup. This had not gone to plan, and to top it all I was knackered. And I still had to water the trees.

There are two trees at the top of the middle field that were planted last year but are not growing. Because of their position the water drains away and they have to be watered through the summer. There is no water outlet at the top of the hill. The water has to be carried up there. The method currently being seen as best practice is to half fill a beaten-up metal dustbin with four buckets of water, put this in a wheelbarrow and wheel it up the hill. By the time it gets there three buckets of water are left, which is enough for the trees. I’m pretty sceptical about this system as the dustbin tends to rock forwards and backwards in the barrow splashing everywhere. And it’s fucking heavy. This wouldn’t be as much of an issue if they didn’t have to be watered at the end of the day. And of course, what with me being knackered, pissed off and achy, it was destined to go wrong.

Half way up the hill I stopped for the rest on a plateau before attempting the final slope. The wheelbarrow seemed secure and I turned to stretch. Bad move. The water must have still been sloshing and the momentum caused the bin to rock backwards. As it did so the barrow fell backwards and the water splashed out. All over my trousers. This is not just water but water taken from the algae-green trough in the field. And while they were my work trousers I’d just had them laundered for the first time in two months. I stood there agast as a river of water trickled down hill through the cow shit and completely forgot the swear. Then I remembered.

Eventually the trees were watered and I was back in the caravan listening to “Wireless Wise”, the worst Radio 4 quiz show ever devised, gently fuming. Not a good day…

Why are all the good music radio programs on so late? This is a rant I’ve been building up to for a while so expect it coming your way soon, but Mixing It on Radio 3 is the most tedious culprit, running for a mere hour from 11.00pm on Sunday night. While getting to bed at midnight is not really that bad, these late night avant-guard music shows tend to be a bit on the cerebral side which, while great radio doesn’t exactly wind down the mind. And then there’s my bedtime book, The Illuminatus! Trilogy which tends to send my brain off in a million different directions keeping sleep further at bay.

So, as I staggered out of the caravan at 8.30am this morning in the stumbling dash for the portaloo, the sight of a couple of gates in the wrong place puzzled me slightly until it dawned on me. The sheep were being sheared.

I wandered over and was greeted by what looked to me like a goat that had been plastered in that 80s DIY manner using a square plastic tool to make random rectangles across the wall. This goat was of course a sheep and it bleated at me as I clambered over the gate. Four or five others were milling around looking somewhat dazed, while cooped up in the shed were the other sheep, nervously bleating as they awaited their turn under the razor.

The shearer had set up a small pen with a gate at each end. She herded in a few sheep from the shed and then took them out one by one, grabbing it under the chin, pulling it up and onto its arse and shaving from the belly out. It was interesting to see these stubborn creatures being manhandled in such a quick and effective way, but then the shearer said she’d been doing this since she was a wee girl. She sure had the arms to prove it, but an incongruously high pitched voice. A few of the sheep were nicked by the shears (which is basically a bigger version of what I use on my own head) but aparently this breed cut quite easily and should heal in a day.

There were some quite traumatic moments when the lambs were separated from their mothers and one of the mums even tried to jump back into the shed to be with her child, the mothering instinct obviously overriding the fear of being sheared again. And then the rams started getting boisterous. With the wool gone their smells were different and suddenly a couple were butting each other. One of the rams already has a split skull so we tried to separate them, which was rather daunting as they growled and struggled to get past the human barrier between them.

But all in all it went very smoothly. They do look very odd now. Their heads seem far too large for their bodies and, compared to pre-shearing, they look almost skeletal.

Anyway, there was not much for me to do so M asked me to start on some weeding in the front garden. With the rampant sunshine of the last fortnight the weeds have gone ballistic taking over every patch of soil and more. And so it was that I spent most of the day pulling up small clumps of grass from the gravel drive. Best described as very Zen indeed. And there’s really not much more to say about that.

I’d had a do-nothing-day today. The wind was battering the caravan turning the boiler flu (for which there is no boiler) into a sound effect for a really scary movie and I just fancied lying around reading. Then, at about 7.00pm, M unexpectedly knocked on the door. She needed some help bringing the sheep in.

We walked the long way to the top field to approach them from behind, M armed with a bucket and me armed with my arms. M’s still got this tedious virus she’d picked up at the doctor’s surgery when she went there to get an insect bite looked at. This is ironic as she never goes to the doctors as a rule and so has obviously not built up an immunity to the sort of bugs city people shrug off easily while her catching something from the animals is very unlikely. I asked if it was getting annoying, being drained of energy when there’s so much to do, but she said she didn’t have the energy to get annoyed. So far, touch wood, I haven’t had any symptoms, but then I have spent the last decade in cities.

(Of course, I’m now worrying about this sniffle I’ve developed, but that’s probably just from having carried a bale of hay which always seems to set me off. Yes, that’ll be it. Yes…)

Anyway, the sheep had to be brought in because tomorrow morning they’re getting sheared. The rain seems to have cleared, though you can never tell with the island weather, but they’ll still get wet from the dew first thing, so in they come.

It wasn’t so hard this time. At dusk they’re more happy to come inside as their feeding is done and they’re ready to bed down for the night, but there were a couple of stubborn ones which I had to wave my arms around at and scare forwards. As I weaved across the top of the hill with my arms outstretched the setting sun cast a long shadow of my crucifixion in front of me. I am Jesus bringing in the flock, I mused for at least three seconds.

The sheep will generally follow M anywhere and they were soon in the cow shed. But the journey was not yet over. They had to go from the cow shed across the farmyard road into a different shed. With me holding three gates in a line to stop them getting into the rest of the farmyard M tried to lead them over with the bucket. Most of them followed but a few remained. Why should they move? They’re happy in the cow shed, after all. So M goes back to encourage them, followed back by all the by all the obedient sheep. Every time she goes back and forth another stubborn sheep joins the happy throng until there’s just one left. This one ain’t moving. M stands behind it and shoves but it’s like a donkey that don’t wanna go. I should point out that I’m helpless to assist as I’m holding the gates up. If I go, they fall and the sheep get everywhere. Eventually the sheep are completely out of the cow shed but not yet in the other shed, but at least we’re able to close the main gate so they can’t go back. Gradually we’re able to edge the three gates from a straight line to half a hexagon, then two sides of a triangle and finally, with a quick shove, a single gate holding them in. Eighteen sheep and four lambs all accounted for. And then Fred turns up to help. Nice one, Fred!

Last weekend I went for a quick drink with Dave and Anita, a couple of old friends who happen to be civil servants in Winchester City and Hampshire County Councils respectively. While it never really occurred to me, the Island is part of Hampshire and therefore during her work Anita has contact with the council here. She said that she had noticed they do things slightly differently here and have a slight scepticism towards “the mainland” which bore out some of my observations. Nothing drastic, you understand, but it was interesting to see the uniqueness of the Island described from a completely different perspective.

Anyway, I joined the library today. Armed with my so-easily-forged letter ‘from’ M which I typed and she signed, and an old credit card statement sent to my mums address - where I haven’t lived since 1991, I strolled up to the desk, sweat pouring from my bearded face after the bike ride, and announced that I would like to join. The perfectly normal (ie clean) young librarian stared at me for a second then started the usual patter about proof of address and after I’d presented my documentation went to consult a slightly older librarian. “How long are you staying on the Island?” she asked. Ooh, at least until October, maybe longer!

As my addresses were being typed in a chap at the next desk was enquiring about a book he’d specially requested which was coming from another Hampshire library on the mainland. A very familiar confusion was played out as the staff couldn’t work out where the book was but fortunately the guy wasn’t that bothered, but I was again struck by the repeated use of the term “mainland”. Turns out there’s an extra surcharge of £2.50 to get a book over on the boat as opposed to the basic 50p to get it from another Island library making for a two-tier system.

It’s easy to find this amusing, as I do, but thinking about it, what how else would you describe “the rest of the country”? When Fred talks dismissively of the mainland it’s hard not to raise a smile, but there are obvious logistical issues here. This is not just an island but a massive, self sufficient, community that doesn’t have the normal blurring of boundaries that other areas of the country have. I still haven’t put my finger on how exactly this affects the society here - it’s not exactly isolated but it’s also not homogenised into the rest of the south of England, and you have to factor in the huge tourism industry and large number of retirees which brings in a wide range of other voices and cultures, but it’s still a very different place.

That said, if I was living in an isolated part of Yorkshire or Wales it might well have the same feeling - my chum Brett’s stories from Lampeter in darkest west Wales seem to bear this out.

Anyway, I joined the library, principally to use the free net access through the spangly new People’s Network initiative, and I must say I’m quite impressed. You log on using your library card number and this gives you your own Documents and Settings folder to download and save stuff into. I logged off a couple of times and when I logged back on my files were still there and IE still remembered my browsing history. Whether this stays until the next day, and whether this sits on that specific computer or on the server I don’t know [later: it doesn't, obviously deleting everything with a reboot], but makes for a nice personalisation. You can also plug in USB devices, like my digital camera, although the computer had problems with the jpeg images for some reason. And other than the usual restrictions you’d expect (nannyware blocking restricted sites, not able to install programs), it gives a very good impression of being your own computer, which so many internet cafe type systems don’t.

I’m quite impressed with this setup, especially as it’s a new thing and will hopefully evolve in interesting ways. An obvious development would be establishing WiFi hotspots in each library so people can bring their own laptops into the library and hook up, and to then extend the range of internet applications away from the Microsoft stable. I’ve noticed a drift away from the browser of late with RSS aggregators, IM programs and the like, so this would be a natural development. It’s clear someone with a bit of vision is co-ordinating this initiative so we can only hope for the future.

It’s the little things. Last weekend I brought back from my stash of stuff in Winchester a sheet and duvet cover. The idea was that now it’s getting warmer I can escape the straight-jacket of the sleeping bag and have a proper bed. This is actually quite important. The sleeping bag I have is one of those hardcore ones that narrow at the bottom. I suspect this is to keep the feet warm during a hardcore camping experience. Which is all well and good, but I don’t sleep well stretched out like a board. Also, the sleeping bag liners, which are a brilliant idea for keeping the bag clean, just add to this constriction. I can deal with this for a short period but after two months it was getting a bit much. I’m also informed that lying foetal-like with the knees level with the stomach is good for the back, and boy do I need stuff that is good my my back. So I put the blankets in the duvet cover, laid out the sheet and lo and behold, a bed.

Now every time I go into the bedroom I’m greeted by a very good impression of civilisation. This is compounded by the sheets being ones I used in London for the last couple of years. The room is quite small and the double bed rather dominates it, so every time I go in there I’m greeted by a vision from my pre-farm days, completely out of context. I half expect to see an iMac and loaded bookshelf in there. Very, very odd indeed.

Today started wet and stayed wet, the most heavy rain we’ve had here for weeks. But at least it’s warm rain and not too windy. M’s got a virus laying her low so we weren’t able to get the bits needed to finish the monster-chicken-run (hinges, bolts, some more chicken wire), so I spent the day cutting back the hedge and weeds around the gate. I’d trimmed this back a bit last week when M’s son pointed out how hard it was to see oncoming traffic when driving out, but was surprised when M asked me to take it further back so the gate posts were visible. gate posts? There are gate posts?

A picture is emerging of how this farm came together over the last year or so. I know that when M took it over it was in something of a state, and also that she was starting pretty much from scratch having had a much smaller smallholding in Chale. When I got here in April it looked pretty smart but the house had only just been built, the paddock just fenced off and so on. I suspect that as these important things were taken care of, other things, such as trimming hedges, were understandably left for later.

This would explain why I feel there’s an almost transitional feel to the farm. Sometimes it runs smoothly and efficiently as M obviously desires that it should, while at other times it’s a bit more haphazard as things are being done for the first or second time and the systems are still being worked out.

It really is an incredible thing M is taking on here. To set up and run a farm on her own (with help and advice from Fred of course, and with Mike coming down at weekends) in the current uncertain farming climate (I keep hearing about CAP reform in a very negative light - must do some research on it) takes a lot of guts. I wouldn’t dream of putting words into her mouth and trying to explain why she does it, mainly because I’d probably be insulting with my level of ignorance about farming, but there’s obviously a belief or knowledge that this is the right thing to do, a credo that I 100% subscribe to.

In my “specialist fields” of comix and blogging there are many people who do stuff for little or no material reward because it’s the right thing to do, and I consider myself one of them, so it’s illuminating to confirm that this kind of behaviour goes on in other realms. I can say with certainty that this farm operates on the principles that animals should be raised with love and respect and that pesticides are not necessary. Again, I could be wrong, but I think what I’m seeing here is the “think global act local” idea taken to the next level.

I will confess that my passion for organic farming is only slight, fitting in with a mass of other somewhat utopian ideas about rampant commercialisation, the evils of target-based efficiency and the dehumanisation of modern post-industrial society (get me drunk sometime and I’ll tell you all about it!), and I don’t think I’ll be playing much of an active part in the WWOOFing world once I finish here (although I suspect any holidays I take in the future will probably be working on a farm) but a revelation is starting to come through to me.

The day to day life here is hard. Some days I’m bouncing with energy and some days, like most of this week, I feel terminally exhausted, filthy, sore and shitty. It’s also quite a lonely existence - M values her privacy and I respect that. In fact, when your thumb is bruised from hammering in 2000 nails and missing three, your knuckles sting every time you clench your fists thanks to the tiny thorns embedded in them, your back aches from repeated shovelling and carrying of mud, trees, weeds and wood, and when you look in the mirror and a haggard face with dog-tired eyes and a matted beard looks back at you, it’s very easy to wonder what the fuck you thought you were thinking about. And, if I’m honest, as I sit in my spartan caravan making a cup of tea from water collected from the paddock in a mug that hasn’t seen detergent for a good few weeks, that thought crosses my mind a few times each day.

I’m starting to look like an old man. This is not something I’m worried about - in fact I’ve embraced the signs of aging with excitement over the years - but it’s become much more striking over the past month. Maybe it’s the heavy beard that does it, covering up my babyface cheeks and extending my chin down. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve actually got hair on my head for the first time in ages that the receding hairline is more pronounced. And maybe it’s the weather beaten look in my eyes that says so much more than just tiredness. Maybe if I shaved, scrubbed up and lived indoors for a few weeks I’d look no different to when I first came here. But maybe this is the physical turning point, a kick start into middle age. Like I said, this doesn’t worry me. I’m merely curious.

And yet, despite all these negative things, I’m staying here. Yes, it’s true I don’t have anything much to go back to, that in a way I’ve made this the only option in the short term, and also that it’s a relatively easy option, not having to take responsibility for my day-to-day existence.

Part of it is a trial, I suppose. If I can see this through then I will be a better person. I want it to be hard and I want to falter. I want to put my problems into some perspective. But a big part of it, something which is so obvious it often sits unnoticed, is that I’m in an ethically positive situation. I was thinking about the WWOOF setup, which as been running since the 1970s and is now a collective of international groups, and wondering if the very simple system of hosts and guests trading labour for food and accommodation, could be applied in other areas of society. I wish it could but I have great difficulty seeing how it might. Any ideas?

Y’know, keeping this journal actually has a use. While I was on the mainland last weekend I spent a bit of time tidying up the presentation of my three year old weblog and glanced over entries made in 2000. This blog was started just after I’d moved to London and while it’s not a strict diary, it does show certain nuances to my thoughts and mental attitude. Key moments aside, the actual content is pretty irrelevant and I don’t think it has any value as a work in and of itself, but there’s something in the immediacy of it that says different things about me than a strict diary would. In other words, while it doesn’t necessarily stand up as literature, it stands up to analysis and as a springboard to memories.

With that in mind I just had a re-read through the first four weeks of farmblogging. I must apologies not only for the typos, many of which will have bypassed the spellchecker, but also the appalling structure of parts of it. I really must proof read these entries more. All I can say is that this Targus Stowaway keyboard takes some getting used to and I was really knackered those first few weeks.

That aside, I’m really glad I kept the journal. I’m still having niggling doubts about my ability to stick this through, but to be able to look by and see not only what I was doing in April but what I was thinking and the assumptions I was making really helps put things into perspective. Memory seems to work for events but not for states of mind. It’s good to have the changes in my state of mind recorded.

Kneeling down, hammering in a nail, I spied two wellington boots walking along with a familiar gait. “Hello young man!” came the call. Fred-the-Farmer was in the house. This was good news as the chicken house I’d just built was way to heavy for me to move so I needed a hand. Fred gave a sharp intake and pointed out his thumb which was all swollen up, but still went to one side of the house. With one arm he gracefully lifted his side and started moving it. On the other side I struggled to keep it an inch clear and pretty much dragged it along. “You’re not liftin’!” he helpfully advised. Yes, but I haven’t spent the last 30 years carrying cows about the place now, have I. “Ooh, I’ve done a lot in my life” he said, before leaning in close and lowering his voice. “Did you ever sleep with five women in one night?” The mind boggled, got itself together and came to the conclusion that he’s probably telling the truth. Then the mind boggled again, just for good measure. By the time the mind had stopped acting like it was in a Douglas Adams novel, Fred had gone to find M.

I hadn’t warned Fred about what he was about to get involved with because I suspected he would have made a quick getaway, or at least prepared a solid argument as to why he couldn’t possibly do what M wanted him to do. The sheep had to be de-maggotted and no way was M doing this alone, and no way was I likely to be competent enough to help her.

As I’ve previously described, when the sheep’s fleece gets long it tends to collect substantial amounts of excrement around the tail and arse area. In this hot weather flies are attracted and because the wool is so matted with shit no wagging of tails is enough to deter them. So this encrusted wool has to be cut off and the remaining area sprayed to kill of any maggots that are feeding there. The implications of leaving this can be fatal as the maggots burrow into the sheep, either up the anus or through the skin, eventually killing it. On this farm the symptom is known as “mucky bums”.

Normally this wouldn’t be such a big problem as the sheep tend to be sheared before the flies take an interest, but M couldn’t get a shearer until next Monday. Now, this is an assumption and I could so very easily be wrong, but I suspect that because farm sheep have been bred for their wool over the centuries natural moulting isn’t fast enough to protect them. In fact they do seem to suffer from a lot of problems that were they wild would probably render them extinct. But I digress. [later: and I'm wrong - see later post...]

The last time mucky bums were dealt with it was a Saturday and I was off on my bike. This time I was on the farm and while I didn’t actually get my hands dirty I was helping to herd them into the tunnel between the shed and the field. Here’s how it happens.

First, Fred and I chase some sheep from the shed area into the tunnel by walking behind them with out arms outstretched making hissing noises. If they tried to bolt through us we just jumped in their way forcing them back. Eventually one or more of them would go through the gate. At the end of the tunnel is M who they are not afraid of. She hold one of them steady while Fred inspects the arse, cutting off matted wool to see if there’s a maggot problem. If there is, M sprays the area while Fred keeps it clear. After a quick check of the hoofs, trimming where necessary, the sheep is let out the other side of the tunnel back into the field. Simple.

Of course, it’s not really that simple. Not only is the job quite disgusting and the sheep stubborn, frightened and quite absurd, but M and Fred have what is best described as “a certain dynamic”. I can’t describe it in detail without seeming to take sides and probably be mortally offensive to one or both parties, but suffice to say the standard of discussion has a level of stubborn argumentative bickering that can only exist between two very good, old friends. I kept well out of it.

At one stage an exasperated M shouted to ask me to check their feet as she wasn’t convinced Fred was checking them properly because he’d only popped in to feed the calf and have a cuppa and wanted to get off as soon as possible. M couldn’t check them herself because she was being crushed against the gate by two sheep desperate to get through it. I just stood there are grinned the grin of an idiot. Me? Check the feet? Sure, I could check they had feet but I wouldn’t know if they were problematic feet or perfectly fine feet. Looking into this narrow passageway containing two farmers, five sheep and a lamb I decided my helping would just make things worse, so I did and said nothing, and nothing else was required of me.

Two hours later the sheep were processed and all that remained was a shitty pile of shitty wool. On Monday the shearing lady comes to shear and the mucky bums syndrome will be over for another year.

Here is the recent news from the farm…

• Millie the cow has gone back into the field. Last week one of the other cows was sold so the total number of cows out there is still four with three calves. The calves look very small next to the monstrous bull. I’d gotten used to seeing Millie in the context of her calf (which is still in the shed) so it’s odd to see her with beasts her own size. It’s also odd that I can recognise her very well while the other cows are more anonymous.

• The orphan lambs are slowly getting less afraid of the big outdoors, crying out less and venturing into the rest of the paddock rather than just hugging the fence nearest to the house. I was confused by their fleeces turning a light brown colour until I realised they spend most of their time sitting by the gate on the soil rather than on the grass like the other sheep. So they are dusty lambs.
• The weather this last couple of days has been somewhat overcast though still very warm. This has had the unexpected effect of making the farm very quiet for some reason, especially as the baby animals are growing up and making less noise out in the fields. It gets quite serene in the afternoons.