This morning was, well, lets just say if it hadn’t been my second to last day I would have gotten rather annoyed. I woke up and it was pissing it down – really heavy rain the likes of which I haven’t seen for a good few weeks. I figured a nice easy day pottering around the farm and then some time inside doing some DTP for M’s yoga and tai chi classes. But M said coppice, so coppice it was.

The logic was that since the coppice was a wood the trees would stop the rain coming through so it would be relatively dry. Right. All waterproofed up, M dropped me at the coppice just outside Chale and went off to her Friday morning yoga class in Niton. I trudged across the field in the belting rain to the coppice. I could feel the water seeping through my shoes already. I slid down the bank into a muddy puddle and entered the sheltered area. It was soaking. Yes, the trees had stopped the rain from coming through but only for a bit and now all that collected water was pouring down in huge drops. Still, only a couple of hours of this and it’s not all that bad. I’d worked through worse weather weeding the fields and it wasn’t that cold. Just wet. And muddy. Really muddy.

I suppose the advantage to this weather was that I wasn’t really able to stop and sit down. I certainly couldn’t roll a cigarette. Hands are funny things – very hard to dry when you don’t have a towel. I managed to get the components of a fag together three times but was thwarted by blobs of water falling if not from above then from me. It’s quite humbling to realise you have absolutely no shelter at all.

I’d cut down a good amount of coppice, at least equal to that done on Monday, and started bundling it up for Fred to collect later. I didn’t have a clock on me and the sun was well obscured but surely M should be here to collect me by now. All the coppice was ready and still no sign. After sitting in the mud for a bit I figured I might as well get more coppice and as I did so the rain stopped. And then half an hour later the trees stopped dripping. And then at 2.00pm M turned up.

On Monday M was late picking me up because the car was leaking petrol and had to be fixed. This time she’d skidded into a ditch and had to call out a mechanic. I think there’s a pattern developing. By this stage the change in the weather and my adjustment to being damp and dirty meant I wasn’t in a bad mood, and the sight of M slightly frantic about having crashed leaving me stranded in the coppice while wearing plastic bags tied over her shoes brought a mutual smile.

As we drove back to the farm for a big lunch and a quick snooze I reflected on how I probably wouldn’t be roaming around a muddy wood with a heavy duty saw in the rain for quite some time. I wonder if I’ll miss it.

I took clockwise while M went anti but we met with no sign. M started zigzagging the field while I double checked the ditch. Still no sign. I decide to join M on the hill but she’s suddenly striding off to the farmhouse with what looks like a serious purpose. I head to where she’d come from with dread, not really wanting to look for the calf. M comes out of the house and waves me to come down. She’d not found the calf and had phoned Fred for advice – Fred knows cows like, well, someone who knows cows really well – and he’d said not to worry. The mother often hides the calf somewhere so it can sleep while she stocks up on food. Wherever Rhona had put her baby it was a damn good hiding place. The calf is about the size of a big sheep. M had never had a calf born in the summer – usually it’s cold so they’re still using the shed at nights – so this wild activity was somewhat unnerving, but mother and baby are both doing very well. I finally got a good look this evening. Still a bit unsteady on the legs but looking surprisingly strong.

Jobs today: Reinforcing the bottom of the chicken run just in case a fox comes at it with pliers and a screw driver; finished weeding the flower beds; strimmed the long grass in the rented mobile home. Also took lots of photos of chickens.

More babies are on the way. Some of the chickens are broody again and one of them has been given duck eggs (M reckons she can corner the market in selling ducklings as no-one else bothers) while Ayisha, one of the Bengal cats is heavily pregnant and might, just might, give birth before I leave on Saturday.

Over lunch M was looking through the DEFRA guidelines for moving livestock and moaning about the petty regulations. Apparently Fred employs someone just to deal with all the admin stuff. I can’t really give an informed opinion on this but it does seem to come from another planet. I must have a good look through the DEFRA website at a later date.

After building a small perch for the chicken run to give them another dimension I spent most of the day weeding the flower beds which was quite nice as it was a small, contained job. Clearing a field of weeds is on such a massive scale that to just do a bed means you can really get down and eradicate. The end result is satisfyingly fascist compared to the anarchic organic wilderness of the rest of the farm. Though at the end of the day I know what I prefer.

I also spent an hour showing M how to scan stuff into her computer, something I’m more than happy to do (I always enjoyed IT training at work) but it’s quite an effort bridging the unintuitive whims of Windows and a non-computer oriented mind. I know that using a Windows PC is one big bodge requiring more mental sidestepping and abstract mapping than a walk across central London but the “average user” doesn’t expect to need to do this or have the time to develop such maps. So I have to try and explain that it’s not their fault while not getting them disillusions with the whole thing and giving up. I’m a bit out of practice and it was hard work but we got there in the end. Computer training is a bit like teaching adults to walk or eat – it’s easy if you’ve had years of practice but…

The coppice coppiced today is to be used to make a fence around the other caravan in the farmyard and I was looking for thicker branches no thinner than my skinny arms but definitely not as thick as Fred’s. It really is a case of trying to see the wood for the trees. At first glance there seemed to be very little suitable coppice in the mass of dark green but eventually the right trees popped into vision. It’s a bit like very slow hunting.

M had left me in the coppice to coppice away while she went off to an appointment and not having a clock on me I just carried on. And on. I’d remembered to take my camera with me this time and, after a break, took a few photos. Checking back through I remembered the camera time stamps them and by golly it was 2.30pm! No wonder I was getting hungry. Turned out the car had broken down hence the delay, but it was actually quite nice to be lost in time and space in coppice world.

It occurred to me that I’ve really got myself tied into clock watching while here because of the “six hours a day five days a week” WWOOFing deal. While it’s handy to make sure I’m pulling my weight while also not being exploited it’s still annoyingly similar to the 9-5 employee routine I was so keen to escape. Other than the 8.30am breakfast it’s not been strictly adhered to by M – it’s been me who’s been mainly aware of it, adding up the hours I’ve done and knocking off when they reach six. Often this is because I’m knackered or pissed off with a tedious job, but I wonder if there’s more to it than that.

Anyway, a successful coppice trip with 12 bundles of 3-4 big pieces ready for Fred to deliver later in the week.

Still, some stuff has happened. The young chickens have again been on the move. You’ll remember on the 11th they were released from their little chicken runs and allowed to roam around the paddock but after spending a good hour at the end of the day trying to get some of them safely shut away from the fox M decided this was not such a good idea. This morning a new plan. My big chicken house is finally going to be used for chickens and we moved in five of them. At first I was using a piece of wood to corner them towards M but her arms weren’t long enough so she asked me to grab them. This was the first time I’d had to physically handle the birds but jumping on sheep hadn’t been so bad so I went for it, grabbing them by the leg so M could pick them up. As with the ducklings before them the chicks stuck together in a block, uncertain about the concept of not existing in a single square metre of space, but eventually they spread out. Tomorrow will be interesting as we mix in more chicks from different mothers. Will they fight? Most certainly, but hopefully with no major casualties.

The main impetus for not mixing the chicks with the older generation of chickens is the ever present threat of the fox. I’ve seen the fox from my caravan window twice now. The first time I thought it was Saffy, the hunter cat, but the colour was slightly too dark. I went out and chased it away, although to be honest this consisted of making my presence known causing the fox to dart away across the field. The nest time I saw it in the freshly cut hay field presumably hunting the wild birds feeding on grass seeds scattered by the harvest. There are a few remains about the place – pairs of wings with the body missing looking like they’ve been left there by very small angels. Both these visits were in the middle of the day and within 20 metres of the farmyard, which is a worry. M says she had 20 chickens a few months back and now there’s just nine, most of them being cockrells, which is annoying as they don’t lay eggs, being male and all. It also means the balance is wrong with too many cocks fighting over an ever decreasing pool of hens. So the new lot will be kept penned up. And now you know why free range eggs are more expensive (and not strictly “free range”).

The weather truly turned today taking me back to May with huge winds beating down the hill from the west and a chill in the air. Good for doing the hard work of chopping down all the thistles in the middle field (barely done a quarter of it so far) but quite a shock after the stillness of the last couple of weeks.

There were a couple of showers though – one in the early morning and another in the afternoon – which have cooled things down a bit and a fairly consistent cloud cover kept the sun at bay, but while it hasn’t been sweaty the rain has dried rapidly, so much so I was working in a downpour without really getting wet. If anything the weather today has been perfect, as transitional weather so often seems to be.

Lots of little jobs today as the main job was abandoned on health and safety grounds when I very nearly fell off a ladder twice. Trimming the top of the fir tree hedge is proving to be a harder job than the original cut. The first time round I was able to work in and up the trees but this time I have to attack from above. This means using a very long ladder and laying it at a 45 degree angle to the tree so that when I’m at the top I’m overlooking the trees rather that looking up at them. Already you can see this is not safe as the ladder can slip backwards if no-one’s holding it steady. Then there’s what the ladder is actually resting on. If the trunk is visible then it can rest on that but otherwise it winds up on branches or hooked over branches. Now imagine if the bottom of the ladder slips slightly while the top is hooked over a branch. The whole ladder moves back putting all the weight on the branch rather than the trunk. At the same time the two parts to the ladder are seperated thanks to the top being hooked. And I’m right at the top with my heart popping through my throat and a sudden realisiation that I’m a bit too high to jump safely while the only thing keeping me and the ladder up is a branch about as thick as a stick of rock. Fuck. Slowly I edged down the ladder trying to keep it from flipping over and holding on to branches to minimise the pressure before jumping down. As this was the second time it had gone screwy I decided enough was enough. Especially as this was a pretty much cosmetic operation. Generally I don’t have much fear of clambering over things and taking risks but this was the limit. The job will be done but not without someone standing at the bottom of the ladder.

Again it’s been very hot and I woke up this morning not feeling my best. Still exhausted from yesterday and dreading the prospect of 12 hours of sweaty work I stumbled over to breakfast. But the jobs today we not that bad. First we reinforced a fence protecting some baby trees from the cows who like to nibble them before letting the animals into the middle field. The top field where they’ve been for the last month is actually going brown so time to switch. This is nice because it means I can see the sheep and cows from my caravan window which is very soothing and occasionally entertaining. The big bull was drinking from the trough this afternoon when a single sheep tried to get to the water. The bull nudged the sheep away, not in an aggressive way but strong enough to send the sheep flying. There’s a sense of respect between the sheep and cows and while they don’t mess with each other they definitely keep to their own species.

The afternoon centred on bringing a couple of these water troughs round to the front of the house to turn them into very long flower boxes. These troughs are about twelve foot long but they can be transported on a wheelbarrow if balanced perfectly. However the longer route has to be taken as they won’t fit down the side of the house this way, so it’s out through one gate and in through another hoping not to meet a car careering down the road in the process.

Troughs in place they had to be filled with soil and compost which was quite a sweaty job but nice thin clouds were filtering the sun just enough and I utilised the hose to soak myself cool. Then a quick creosote of the garden chair out front which was cunningly positioned in the shade, and the day was done. Half an hour sitting outside finishing my book (Roth’s “I Married A Communist” – very very good indeed) and it’s dinner time. The clouds were gathering as I returned to the caravan and there were a couple of flashes of lightening, but the skies have cleared again setting up for another stunning sunset. But the hay is now going into the shed so it can now rain as soon as it wants to. Now would be good!

First of all we brought the sheep in for spraying to keep the flies away. It’s still very hot and insects are everywhere so to stop the maggot problem (see previous posts) the sheep are sprayed with a rather evil looking pink mixture along their backs and down each rear leg. It was all surprisingly easy to do, especially as it was my job to herd the sheep into the crusher (basically a metal corridor linking the shed to the field which can be closed at either end. The “crusher” part means you can hold a cow in place by squeezing it, though I haven’t seen this done). Soon all 20 sheep and lambs had pink lines down their backs, the sun was starting the climb high in the sky and it was looking to be another very hot day.

Thankfully the next job was in the shade. The hay field has been cut and tossed and any day now will be gathered and bailed up ready to be stored for the year. There’s still a fair bit of hay left over from last year so we had to move it out so the new hay could go at the back. Hay will last 3 or 4 years, as long as it doesn’t get wet, but as with a fridge or food cupboard it makes sense to bring the older to the fore.

Now, the cow shed has a tendency to get very very wet and even in this weather the ground that isn’t open to the sun is quite sodden. Which is where the tyres come in. When M bought the farm she inherited hundreds if not thousands of old tyres – a bewildering range from huge tractor tyres to car tyres to motorbike tyres to what look like speedway tyres and everything in between. So you have a boggy floor to your barn and you want to store hay in there which has to be kept dry throughout the long wet winter months. And you have some tyres.

First you cover the ground in tyres turning it into an obstacle course where the aim is not to walk in-between them or else your foot will sink deep into the gunge. Then you take pallets (of which a generous number were also left) and cover the tyres with these creating a floor that is raised. You then place a few tonnes of dried out grass onto this surface and hope the weight doesn’t push it all into the wet.

There were about 50 bails for us to shift. Each bail is about four foot high and three foot wide and is quite heavy. Some of the bails were full of weeds and were to be spread over the cow area of the cow shed (tyres used there would just result in broken cow legs) and some had ended up too close to the mud and were going a nice shade of mouldy black so ditto for them, but most were perfectly fine.

The first part of shifting them is to get them down from the stacks, usually three high, where they’ve slipped slightly over the year. This requires a fair bit of clambering and a good tug or kick to send the dusty bundle tumbling down. Then roll it to where it’s to go and hoik it up on its end. Rolling it generally not that hard unless the bail has been squashed at the bottom of the pile and has a flat side, in which case either a rapid pace or lots of strenuous pushing is in order.

This job could have been terrible if we’d been out in the sun but thankfully it was all done under the shelter of the shed making the ambient temperature rather hot as opposed to bollocks-to-this fucking hot and the steady pace meant that while the heat did slow us down we didn’t actually get knackered. By 4.30 all the bails were moved, half to an easily accessible corner of the hay shed and the rest to middle of the cow shed where they’ll be fenced off from the bovines. Time to fix the floor.

It was decided that we didn’t have enough tyres so we went off to get some more. The tyres live… this is a bit hard to explain so bear with me. The top field is a hill and should slope gently into the middle field, but in order to create the flat farmyard it’s been chopped short creating a 10ft or so cliff atop of which is the hedge. Between the hedge and the edge are the tyres, piled up ten high and three deep. I went up the ladder and, with prior warning, started tossing them down. There’s something very satisfying about rapidly chucking large round pieces of bouncy rubber into a bouncy pile far beneath you and I was somewhat disappointed when we had enough.

Tyres laid down and pallets returned the shed was ready to receive the new hay and it was time for dinner. Today was a good day for various reasons. Firstly the conditions, while slightly harsh (the only thing that sets off my nose here is the dust in the hay shed) and hot, could have been hotter and I actually preferred being out working than lying in the oven of a caravan. Secondly the job was directly and obviously connected with the running of the farm. Thirdly the job was a visible achievement on a satisfying scale. And finally M and I were working together as a team, working at an equal level and chatting about stuff and nonsense. For the whole day.

While I have no regrets at all about staying here these last few months and have benefited from it a lot, don’t get me wrong about this at all, these reasons are why I was thinking about moving to a bigger farm. I felt absorbed into the farm today, forgetting about how sweaty and dirty and tired I was. There was no struggle to adapt or feeling of being slightly out of place because there wasn’t the opportunity to dwell on such things. If you get me. Ah, whatever. It was a good day.

After lunch, at about 2.30, I went into Newport to quickly check my emails before the library shut. I’d discovered a new route in which, which a little longer, is almost completely a cycle route. A month back the route from Newport to Sandown was opened along a disused railway and as such it has no hills. After bombing it down the only slope to the wonderfully named Bohemia Corner, home of the RSPCA, you continue east to Merstone to join the cycle route (number 23 on the National Cycle Network). Turning right onto the route I did the three miles north to Newport, did the online thing and when the library closed at four considered what to do next.

I’d had a pretty dopey morning and to be honest fancied a dopey afternoon but I knew that the caravan would be currently turning into an oven. Fuck it, I rationalised. I’ll go to Sandown. If I’m on the move at least there’ll be a breeze and when I get to Sandown the beach will be somewhat cooler than the farm. I’ve got my book, I’ve got my water bottle, so let’s go.

There are two things that are quite awful about the new cycle path. The first is their insistence on telling you how much further you have to go at every junction. It’s eight miles from Newport to Sandown and to see these miles slowly ticking down makes it seem all the longer. For example, the cycle route from Newport north to Cowes is a good four miles but it doesn’t seem like it because there are no signs. You just put your head down (but not too far as I realised when I nearly ran into someone once) and get into the ‘zone’, and before you know it you’re there.

The second is really only temporary but it’s still a pain. The council, in their wisdom, have decided to cover the new areas of path with fine gravel. In time this will be ground into the path and form a solid long lasting surface, but currently it can be like cycling through sand. But like I said, this is just because it’s new.

Overall the ride was lovely, even more so when I noticed nearly every male cyclist was topless and decided to join them. Rather than soaking into my shirt and dripping down my face (the sun was behind me so no need for a hat) the sweat was whipped away and I’m sure my back was acting as a solar panel giving me energy. Either than or I was really warming up.

Finally I reached the end of the route and as I passed the sign pointing the other way saying “Newport 8 Miles” I let out a little cheer. Finally, the beach! Not so fast though. While the cycle route is generally a wonderful thing and the Council should be congratulated for it, the burgers of Sandown haven’t quite got the connection between it and the beach sorted out yet and I found myself spat out into suburban hell. After riding though nature reserves and past fields with wonderful views of the hills to suddenly be in a seemingly never ending sprawl of identikit closes on a bakingly hot road (no trees) was, well, not nice. And no signs telling me I was going the right way, which of course I wasn’t. I guess they don’t plan for tourists in this part of town and after a couple of miles I was popped out on the boundary between Sandown and Shanklin. At least I knew where I was and, by five o’clock I was on a quiet bit of beach just outside Yaverland lying on the sand reading my book. The breeze was light but cooling and the gentle noise of the waves was oddly calming.

After an hour I set off home again to catch the Archers and have my tea. The ride back was incredibly easy, especially as it was ever so slightly uphill. As I started to really tire I was suddenly back at Merstone with half an hour to spare, so a gentle ride to the RSPCA and then a walk up the only hill and home.

The lambs seemed very content to be back in their paddock and had a good munch on the new grass and clover before settling in their old shelter just like they used to do when they were smaller. And I knew why they were happy. Last night, at about eleven, I’d popped outside to get some air and in the moonlight saw the two calves bound towards me from the other end of the paddock. They’ve got quite used to me now and while I never feed them they probably assume there’s the possibility that I might. The sound of their hooves rushing through the grass was relatively quite loud and the lambs darted out of their shelter looking very perturbed. Now, it was dark and in the moonlight I couldn’t exactly see what was going on, but the calves stopped and became very interested in the shelter. First the bigger calf noisily stuck her head in and sniffed around and then the smaller calf got all the way in. I stayed and watched for a good ten minutes and they didn’t budge. Meanwhile the lambs, who obviously just wanted some peace, wandered as far away as they could and waited for these two buffoons to go away.

The calves and the lambs did have a rather fractious introduction to each other but it all seemed to have calmed down. Now it looks like the calves are on the offensive and the sheep are not happy. They can escape from the paddock quite easily by jumping through or squeezing under the gates as has happened when they got a little too enthusiastic about being fed, but they then tend to hang about the same area. Today it looked like a concerted break out, as if they’d been bothered by the bovines too much and enough was enough. Tonight they’re in the farmyard paddock but no doubt they’ll be put back in calf hell tomorrow. I wonder if they’ll end up reading the Daily Mail…

On a day like today I should have been out in the sun, maybe down at the beach or walking the hills. But I spend all week in the sun and I wanted the opposite. Shade. Air conditioning. I headed for the library and spent five hours in the internet room. I had thought that I might venture further into the world but a fag break confirmed to me that it was too hot. The forecast for next week is the same and I’m going to be out in it, so while everyone else was rushing to take advantage of the heat I felt somewhat justified to be in a cool room with the blinds shut.

When I got back to the farm at 6.00pm it was as hot as ever and my caravan had been soaking it up all afternoon. Oddly, other than the cow shed there isn’t really anywhere on the farm that’s decently shaded where you can sit, and the cow shed is full of cow shit, naturally, and not a stranger to flies. In fact there’s something of an insect frenzy at the moment no doubt thanks to the lack of pesticides and the stunning variety of wild grasses and flowers about the place, so sitting still outside is not really an option. Especially as I’ve been bitten by the nastiest fly I’ve ever encountered. It looks like a normal fly but can smell sweat and dive-bombs any bare flesh. Swat it away and it circles you for another attack again and again. Then finally it manages to land and immediately stabs you. By the time the pain hits your brain and you bash it off it’s too late. Two bites on my arm have come up and they itch like hell.

But I digress. The insects were forcing me inside, but inside was an oven and I’d just cycled four miles. Did I say there’s no wind today? There’s no wind today. So there’s only one thing to do. Strip off to your pants and lie very still.

Anyway, enough of the moaning about the weather. It’s all very good and I’m dead pleased with my tan. I just wanted a break from it today. And the sun soon went down and it got all cold, which is lovely.

“How did the idea of Ira’s shack maintain its hold so long? Well, it’s the earliest images – of independence and freedom, particularly – that do live obstinately on, despite the blessing and the bludgeoning of life’s fullness. And the idea of the shack, after all, isn’t Ira’s. It has a history. It was Rousseau’s. It was Thoreau’s. The palliative of the primitive hut. The place where you are stripped back to essentials, to which you return – even if it happens not to be where you came from – to decontaminate and absolve yourself of the striving. The place where you disrobe, moult it all, all the uniforms you’ve worn and the costumes you’ve gotten into, where you shed your batteredness and your resentment, your appeasement of the world and your defiance of the world, your manipulation of the world and its manhandling of you. The aging man leaves and goes into the woods – Eastern philosophical thought abounds with that motif, Taoist thought, Hindu thought, Chinese thought. The “forest dweller”, the last stage of life’s way. Think of those Chinese paintings of the old man under the mountain, receding from the agitation of the autobiographical. He has entered vigorously into competition with life; now, becalmed, he enters into competition with death, drawn down into austerity, the final business.”

Philip Roth, I Married A Communist, 1998

A good friend of mine’s ex-boyfriend had an interesting approach to work. He still lived at home and worked in computing earning relatively silly money on short-term contracts. His system was to spend a few months earning loads of cash and then spend the next few months constantly online gaming until the cash ran out. Then he’d do it again. Whether this led to him being a friend of mine’s ex-boyfriend I’ll let you decide, though I should say he was a decent chap and good company down the pub.

This is not a new idea for me. I’d often thought about what I would do in his situation and now it looks like I might be in a position to do this. If I could be in a position where I’m able to just fuck off for a month or two to dig up weeds on a farm that would be a good thing. A little, teeny worry is that once I’m back in a city I’ll lose not only the fitness but also the mental attitude I’ve developed these last few months. If I can recharge regularly and as part of my normal life with minimal reliance on the goodwill of others that’d be five-red-cars-extra-super-good.

The problem had been this. When eggs hatched we moved the mother and chicks into a chicken run. Now they’re pretty much adult it’s time to set them free of the cage, not only for practical reasons (breeding, eggs, not having to feed them so much grain) but also because having four to six large chickens in a cage designed for baby chicks is really not on for an organic, free range farm. But how to do it? The bigger run I built is being saved for the next generation of ducklings (or something – I don’t know what’s going on with it) and so eventually they’re going to have to join the existing chicken population. But in order to make sure they know where their new home is they’d have to be shut in the chicken shed for 2 or 3 days, along with the older birds. It’s currently very very hot indeed and keeping the birds in for that period of time might kill them, if they didn’t kill each other first. So the logical solution seems to be to open up their cages to the rest of the farm but close them up at night. That way they get used to the big outdoors but still know where home is. Interestingly, most of the chicks didn’t leave the cages even though the doors were open – I guess after three months of knowing one a square metre of space the concept of moving outside that was completely alien. Still, they’ll get used to it. Plus it’s probably a good thing they don’t have the instinct to wander or else they’ll be fox food.

In the adjoining field grass was being harvested for silage. As usual, don’t rely on my accuracy in this, but from what I can gather the grass is bailed up in what looks like a big bin liner and left to slightly compost. Cows love it but it’s poisonous for sheep. I suspect it’s more nutritious than dry hay and allows the cows to eat something wetter in the winter. How it’s bailed up is rather fascinating. An ordinary roll of green hay is placed on rollers which spin it round very slowly. While this is going on a roll of black plastic whizzes around it tightly wrapping it. Once this is done it’s picked up by a forklift/digger thing and stacked up. It’s like some kind of industrial food packing cellophane operation on a massive scale. In a field. With tractors. And it makes a quite unearthly whishing sound.

The area is currently busy with harvesting and hay making. A month back I could sit on the hill and maybe see a truck drive along the side of field but now there are tractors everywhere with all manner of cutting and swishing things attached to the back. The hay field on this farm was cut today, which was a nice piece of closure as I’d spent a good chunk of my time here clearing it of ragwort and thistles. It’s a bit odd looking out on it. Yesterday the wind was blowing waves across it and now it’s flat. Tomorrow, once it’s dried out a bit, it’ll be tossed over using a machine that looks like collection of brushes to dry completely and then it’ll be bailed up and stored in the shed. All this is organised by Fred, of course, who seems to act as hay-making broker for the local farms.

I had a nice little chat with Fred today about me leaving. He asked if I’d be coming back to the Island. In fact he said “You’ll be coming back though, won’t you?” and then offered me a job, saying he’d house, feed and pay me. So either he’s got completely the wrong impression of my abilities or I’m better at this lark than I think. Whatever, it’s worth bearing in mind. I think next year I’d like to spend a bit more time on a farm – maybe a couple of months over the summer – and if I could get paid it’d make a big difference. In fact, if I didn’t have the computing stuff in mind I’d seriously consider taking him up on it now. But I’m not going to.

Today I tried to be clever. On Thursdays I have a big lunch and sandwiches for dinner as M runs yoga classes in Freshwater in the evening. So, finishing work at 5.00pm, I jumped on the bike and went to the library which closes late today. I figured I could get a couple of hours internet time in and set some stuff in motion for my return. But the internet was down. Might be back at six, so I hung about typing up my emails in Word. Maybe seven, so I went through the fiction department looking for interesting books. Library fiction departments really are quite poor but I managed to get three books. James Ellroy’s Cold Six Thousand for the 60′s American Kennedy stuff, David Mitchell’s number9dream for the cyber-Murakami angle, and Philip Roth’s I Married A Communist for the 50′s American McCarthy stuff. All three have been raved about by bookseller mates and I might have time to actually read them over the next couple of weeks. On the book tip I just finished Norwegian Wood which for some ungodly reason I hadn’t read yet and it was stunning. Absolutely incredible. Read it now. Still waiting for the library to hit home with the net I worked through their collection of Asterix books and to my surprise found them slightly lacking. And yes, I was avoiding the later ones. Seven came and still no internet. At 7.15 I gave up, bought a floppy disk (30p! Storage is cheap these days!) to store my emails on and went home.

The only measure I have of my relative fitness is the cycle ride into Newport. Last week I was rather shocked to make it up every hill and today I made it in without reaching for the water bottle. Now, this is only about three miles but when I bought the bike three months ago I was walking up every slight incline and downing a bottle of water each way. Have I gotten fit? Looks like it.

So, today I cleaned out a water trough (it was in a field without animals and was going stagnant with lots of wiggly things that would probably grow up to be flying bitey things and eat us all alive), finished painting the big sheds with the evil black pant, fixed a chicken run so the door can be opened with ease, and creosoted another couple of sides of the garden shed. And then it was dinner time. The weather has been really hot. At one stage I slipped off the stool and splashed creosote down the front of my t-shirt, though most of it went on the shed which was a relief. I perfected a way of keeping cool by soaking a bandanna in cold water and plopping it over my head like a scarf. This is held in place by the cap and flops down the back of the neck. The water keeps the head cool by dissipating the heat and it stops nasty sweat pouring down your face which, when your hands are covered in paint, is impossible to wipe off without toxifying your face. Very nice.

So that was my day. Sorry for the lack of flourish, but I have been thinking about what I’m going to do with this journal once it’s all done and dusted. Should hopefully be a good un.

So, what’s been going on on the farm? Well, today I discover that sheep like paint, especially really evil black paint that’s mixed with white spirit, comes in big barrels and is for slapping on the side of barns. This stuff really is evil, sticky and impossible to get rid of without lashings of turpentine, which is in turn impossible to get off your hands without hot water, which I don’t have in my little portaloo.

But back to the lambs. I’m painting the side of a barn, a job I quite enjoy, when I hear a shuffling of little hooves. The three lambs have come over to say hello and George is immediately drawn to the ladder, sniffing and nibbling the narrow end which has fresh splashes of paint on it. Now, these lambs will not run away because they’re hand reared and completely tame, so I had to kick the ladder to stop George from licking it and push them away. Then, one of the moaning twins was attracted to the barrel of paint which, thanks to a useless design, has a lake of fresh paint around the screw top lid. Before I can do anything she’s stuck her nose in and is licking away. I shout and wave my arms around and she stops but has a black goatee beard. Don’t worry, I got a photo.

I’ve decided I like painting. My canvas is a ten foot high wall of corrugated iron and I have but one colour. The resulting work is simple, if a little dark, and I’m pleased with the aesthetic result. So far I’ve done five pieces which are on show in the farmyard. The juxtaposition of my somewhat flatly morbid work with the life and vitality of the farm is quite provoking.

So, three weeks to go. Better make the most of it.

M identified another sheep that was hobbling and again we got it on the ground. This time Fred said to “sit on it” but knowing I didn’t have a clue what was going on M said she’d do the sitting and perched on the shoulders of the sheep holding it down while I held the hind legs steady. This sheep was not a problem and after a couple of snips we let it up. The third sheep I was permitted to sit on, and sit on it I did. This one had developed a mild case of foot rot and Fred was keen to point out the maggots to me, which was nice. A quick spray and off it went. Other than this being a regular thing that needs to be done it’s doubly important for the rams because eight of them are being sold.

Two went today which was why we brought the sheep down in the first place to separate and pen them in ready for the truck. Getting them away from the rest was quite a trick and Fred’s technique is best described as shuffling or sifting by holding a gate. A collection of sheep, say about 10, were in the shed and we had to let out the 8 that weren’t being sold while not letting the 2 that were out. The trick was to move the gate into the pen scattering the sheep and then quickly bringing the gate back to only let a couple out. Eventually the two target sheep were in a corner and we rushed the gate towards them penning them in while the other sheep moved out. Then we quickly dragged the gate back to keep them in.

The sheep have now been collected and are probably by now on the mainland at some stage of being slaughtered. Which was a bit odd. As I’ve said in much earlier entries M doesn’t like selling her animals for food but these were castrated rams so no good for breeding, and in a year or so would have not been worth selling for food, so off they went. (The other six still have their balls and will be sold at auction as breeders in a few weeks.) They definitely knew something was up as they were shut into the shed on their own while the rest of the flock were free to roam and they jumped and bashed against the gates trying to get out. Soon they gave up on this and lay down like dejected dogs. I wasn’t there when they went off but M said they went calmly into the truck taking the man by surprise as he’d never seen sheep go so easilly but M was talking to them all the way.

Apparently, when there were more small slaughter houses, farmers and shepherds used to ensure their animals were killed in the most human manner possible staying with them to the end. Today the nearest slaughterhouse is miles away on the mainland. I can’t believe there isn’t one on the whole of the Isle of Wight, but there isn’t. So the animals have to be taken on the ferry and killed in what is probably a massive industrial operation. Of course the pros and cons of this system can be debated and I’m not in a position to do so with any intelligence, but one myth that’s been exploded for me is that farmers see their animals as mere product.

Yes, M has a somewhat unique emotional attitude towards farming and, while incredibly commendable, can’t really be seen as the norm, but to see Fred dealing with the cows (his speciality) is a revelation. He’s been a farmer since birth and is under no illusions about his animals becoming food, and yet he treats them in a way that’s actually quite hard to describe other than with great kindness, respect and identification. They are his livelihood and he treats them as much more than product. In fact he probably treats them more as humans than a lot of companies treat their employees. During the foot and mouth debacle I was quite scornful when reading of farmers getting upset about their animals being slaughtered – surely they were going to be killed anyway so what’s the difference? It’s rather shocking to see how ingrained the notions of resources and profits were in my mind that I couldn’t see outside of that model, even though I’d felt vaguely similar things about books in bookshops. But then I along with many others got burnt by getting emotionally involved in bookselling when Waterstone’s went down the road of rationalisation and cost cutting so maybe I’d assumed that combining hard business sense with a love of the things you trade in was impossible. I wonder if, when people talk about farming being in trouble, this is really what they’re on about – that farming still just about has a handle on something that the rest of us have nearly completely forgotten about. Something to think about methinks.