Tracks Across Fields 177

    On the old American cowboy films that I like watching, they always seem to have an Indian tracker, to follow the hoof prints from which they seem to know, how many horses, which direction they are going and how long ago they passed that way, and even if one horse is carrying two people.

 My self watching these movies I always notice the horses themselves, how they move, the "gait" , or if one is lame, and always wonder how all the bullets only seem to hit the riders and rarely ever the horse.  How when a rider is shot and the horses head is brought round sharply, it falls to the ground without ever being hurt. 

The cattle stampede for miles and miles, when in fact they tire after only half a mile, then slow down, and when moving a large herd you could not expect them to do any more than three miles per hour. As in every herd there are always leaders, as long as they are pointed in the right direction the others follow by instinct.

Just a few of our April born calves picture taken end of September

This is our "leader", she is a Simmental cross Frisian cow, the cross bred suckler cow has a tendency to produce more milk than the pure bred beef breed. Her Hereford calf  as you see came out a  pale red colour. I have always noted the width of her muzzle, almost as wide as her eyes.   

The wagons used in films when they are in a wagon train, how rusty and dull the iron hooped wheels are, from my own experience of iron tyred wagons used at harvest time they are bright and shiny metal, but then I am only being picky, the film wagon trains perhaps will only do a few hundred yards while shooting takes place then parked up to continue going rusty again.

Back at home here in the middle of the UK I have become a tracker, just by default. If an odd one of the cattle get out of their field and onto the road, the first thing they do in a strange place is to lift their tail and let go some droppings as they walk, and from that and the hoof prints on the grass or in the mud you can see whitch way they went and what size of animal you are looking for, or if more than one how many. In our case if an animal gets out its either just one , who maybe in season, or if more than one, it most likely all of then get out on the herd instinct they seem to possess. 

Its the same with tyre marks that have recently driven out of our yard, in wet weather its fresh wet marks down a drying road or its dusty tryes marking the road, I can tell if some one has driven up my yard and how long ago and can recognize the tyre prints of most of my friends and neighbours vehicles and tractors.

In the fresh snow its the easiest first thing in a morning, all the small animals and bird that burrow and roost all looking in vein for food.           

                                                             Tracks Across Fields

                        

Tracks across the fields, and tracks off down the lanes,

In the snow in the mud, fresh tracks still it rains,

Paws, feet, hooves n’ boots, wheels with grippe tyres,

Big and small, heavy and light, not long then they expire.

Every print has a tale to tell, on who has crossed your path,

See the direction that they went, and if they’re causing wrath,

Follow to see where they go, and if they came back that way,

Intruders can see, up to no good, or if they’re out to play.

All the prints tell a tale, the pattern they leave behind,

The claws on paws and the gait of the stride aligned,

There’s webbed feet and long toes, belong to who knows,

And there’s birds that land, and take off like the crows.

There’s cows and there’s calves, and horses with shoes,

See how many have passed, that way from the clues,

Tyres leave prints be it bikes or cars, tractors and all,

Speeding and skidding, or getting stuck when they stall.

You can read every where, who’s has been up that way,

Prints and tracks tell a tale all every day,

You may be alone, but someone’s been up there,

A crossing of tracks in the lane be aware.

Owd Fred

One who walks in another's tracks leaves no footprints.

Proverb.

Of all the things that we have changed

When you take on land or even a whole farm for the first time, there are a whole lot of things to be changed or improved to bring it round to your own way of thinking and farming. When I took this farm on we piped in some mid field open ditches, made wider gateways between arable fields, save taking the header off the combine when moving to the next field. Water troughs and mains water pipe pulled under with a mole plough across to grazing fields, which had been watered by springs, which dried up mid-summer time.

 A great heap of soil along the lower boundary where the headlands had been plough out of the field off the top land, had to be pushed down further to form an extra acre or so out onto the peaty edge of the fields involved.

Lower branches of hedge row trees were lopped to get machinery under, with the coming of cabs and mirrors on tractors and the combine it was essential to utilize the whole of the field.

My father used to send two of us lads out with a tractor and a single furrow horse plough to get that two extra furrows closer to the hedge.   

Sheds for loose housing cattle were all made so the tractor and front end loader could get in to clean them out, and back in my father’s day when I was a kid, he changed all his cowshed from the old oak stalls and blue brick floors to new pre-cast concrete stalls and smooth concrete floors that could be scrubbed.

In my own period of modernization cows in stalls gave way to cow cubicles and self-feed silage the cubicles being invented around 1960  and it would be almost 1970 when my own cows were introduce to cubicles. Along with this the milking parlours came in and bulk milk tanks, in my first abreast parlour we milked directly into churns until the road milk tank collection started.

And so it is that now I am retiring, the new young and keen farmer who is taking over the land I have farmed for the last forty five years, he will modernize and model the fields to his pattern of farming, in his case milking cows in a big way. I started with twenty six cows on ninety six acres in 1960 building up to seventy two cows plus followers by 1985, then in the village the first ninety cow herd and now 2013 a 350cow herd building up to 400 this next year. I can’t imagine where it will all go in the next lifetime of farming up to the 2060’s. 

 Figure 1. Old redundant farm buildings with the old stable door on the right housed three shire work horses, then large loose box for rearing calves, the large drift house doors where loads of loose hay (by horse and cart) were pitched onto the lofts on the left and right for feeding the calves, and down to the shire horses in the stable and the cows in the cowshed to the left  

Figure 2.  On the left of this picture is the cowshed door with another pitching door for hay into the lofts

 Figure 3 This is the oldest section of the farm buildings, as we find nowadays modernization and extending cow housing must have taken place a hundred or more years ago

 Figure 4  Door on the left was the modern flat roofed dairy where milk was cooled and measured into churns, door in the corner was the engine shed where an old open crank engine worked the barn shafting and latterly an electric motor installed to do the same job and later    still the milking machine vacuum pump, also the coal boiler for steaming and sterilizing the milking utensils. The double doors with the loft above was the feed shed with all the barn machinery, in the loft driven by the loft shafting was a straw chopper a cake crusher, linseed cake and ground nut cake came in big curled up slabs and had to be ground or crushed down so cows could eat it. At the back of the feed shed was a root pulper, to slice mangols and turnips mixed with chopped straw and fed along to the cows in the stalls

This shows the low sliding door on top a churn stand where the milk lorry/truck would pull alongside to off load his empty churns and load the full ones, behind is a continuation of the cowsheds, in all there was stalls for 45 cows. These building have now 2013, stood un-used for cows now for almost thirty five years, it is expected that they will be converted into three or four houses, (for people, god help them).

Memories of how the farm,

Looked when we first arrived,

Of all the things that we have changed,

N’ things for which we strived,

The gates the fences fields and sheds,

The land we plough for crops,

Of all the weather hail or rain,

The work it never stops.

Owd Fred

Retirement kills more people than work ever did.

Malcolm S. Forbes

A Grip like Iron 152

A Grip like Iron

I don't know how mother came to have such a strong grip, (she could actual crack a walnut in her hand)  if she caught a hold of you for some reason, there was no hope of getting away, perhaps it was the hand milking in her younger days that gave her that grip, I remember some old cows were very hard to milk, it seems to have been bred out of them nowadays along with the bad feet and curled up toes and pendulous udders.

Mother had a Grip like Iron

When mother was young she had help, around the family farm,

Milking cows by hand them days, strengthened sinews in her arms,

Her hand were still ladies hands, no bulky muscle show,

Belied the strength built into them, beyond you'd ever know,

Mother had a grip like iron, nothing failed her grip,

Screw lids on jars and bottles, give it me she'd quip,

The grip she had to skin a rabbit, or ring an old hen's neck,

Crush a grape; she'd crush a walnut, power she'd got by heck.

Round by the coal ruck was her hammer, there to break the coal,

Coal it came in big lumps, some from steam loco it was bowled,

For coal alone the big lump hammer, it was there reduce.

Best steam coal was hard and bright, cracked it down for use,

When we were young she'd lace our boots, bow she'd pull real tight,

They never came undone all day, right into the night,

Sewing did with button thread, no tear came open again,

And buttons only came off once, thread she used times ten.

With age her hands were not so nimble, feel it gradually went,

Knitting that she'd done all her life, on wool she no more spent,

Her skin and nails were without blemish, soft and pink they were,

But on grip she never lost her strength; she was the best mum ever.

Owd Fred

When she sat down in the evening, mother would pick up her knitting, she could knit without looking and when we had our first television she could watch and knit at the same time. Jumpers hats gloves scarves socks( with socks she knit button thread along side the wool while knitting round the heels) she always had a good stock of wool. There seemed to be two stock colours, grey and fawn, other colours were bought for a specific jumper or sweater. When the need arose she would be darning socks, nowadays they get thrown and a new pair bought.
She liked to experiment with new patterns which she gleaned from her magazine, but mostly she only did the patterns up the front where it would be seen, then she could "bomb" on with the back and would produce a jumper in a week.

Mothers Weekly Magazine

Mother had weekly magazine, knitting patterns every week,

These she used to knit up the fronts, of our jumpers so to speak,

Some were cable some were ribbed, some were chequered squares,

Some were bobbles in a lump, couldn't buy anything that compares.

The wool she bought was in skeins, a dozen at a time,

This she got us to hold while she wound into balls like twine,

We held our hands out at full stretch, while she wound full tilt,

Arms would ache on the second one, then our arms would wilt.

Brother next in line was asked, turns we had to take,

Wool was grey, or fawn, or blue, for what she'd got to make,

Socks she knit one every night, jumpers took over a week,

Stitch the front and back together, sleeves to the arm holes tweak.

Started with the welt, the grippe bit round the waist,

Tested it on the one who it's for, half way round our hips she placed,

On up to the armpits, try it for length again,

Then the neck onto the shoulder, it was a blooming pain.

Next the socks they're mostly grey, started top welt round,

These were pulled up to our knee, and turned the top bit down,

Knit on down to the heel, measured it on our legs,

Three needles used on this job, pulled them on like stuck out pegs.

Heels we always wore out first, so in with the wool she knit,

Strong button thread along side the wool, in pattern this wasn't writ,

So when they did get bare and thin, she darned them time agen,

Then they were called our working socks, for us working men.

Sometimes when jumpers, got wore out up the front,

She would unpick the seams, and rewind a whole segment,

Then would knit again, into little gloves or woolly hat,

In winter balaclava, or scarves on many things she'd tat.

When we were young she'd knit and knit, no woollies bought at all,

As we left home she knit again, next generation when they were small,

Knit up to her seventies, when finger would not flex no more,

Big blow it was, she knit by feel, for old age yet, there is no cure.

Owd Fred

Don't rule out working with your hands. It does not preclude using your head.Andy Rooney (1919 --)

I Record My Memories 43

 

In the 1940's most of the young men of the village had been called up to the armed services , so it was all the older generation of men working on the farms and on the estate.

As we got to the age of ‘call up’ the war had ended and younger farm lads could be exempted, and father had a lot of papers to sign just to keep us lads at home and prove there  was enough work for all of us on the farm.

I Record My Memories

I record my memories, of where I lived my life,

People who lived and worked here, all about the strife,

The ones that moulded me, from very early age,

Learning how to cope with life, recorded on this page.

I started with my mother, and all the things she did,

Father’s next on how to work, and earn an honest quid,

Then it’s all the neighbours, of how they influenced me,

Its on to school and educate, to use my head you see.

Everyone’s an influence, in a small village like ours,

Tell you tales when they were young, they went on for hours,

Some were porkies I’ve no doubt, but non of them were lies,

Stories told and past down, told before they meet demise.

______

Looking Back them Years Ago 42

This is The Beeches Farm where I was brought up, the house was built in 1862,  it is almost a copy of where I live now at Yews Farm, built in the1830's  (picture in the snow in the right hand margin)  , and note the dormer upstairs windows, and the lower roof.

 Just compare the two pictures, half a mile apart

A traditional farm yard with cowshed and stables on two sides of the yard and on the other side almost out of site is the lofts where the corn (wheat and oats) was stored for grinding.
Below was the mixing shed, the engine shed and the milking machine vacuum pump sheds, also a row of loose boxes for calf rearing and pig stys, all brick and tiled roofed building exept the hay barn.




When mother thought we were safe to leave alone for a couple of hours, mother and father went to the weekly whist drive up at the old club room, the Beeches farm was a few hundred yards  down the road from any other houses.

I can never remember our back door ever being locked, though the door had a big bolt solid with paint and not workable.

So you can imagine what went through our minds when we eventually heard the back door catch click and foot steps into the back kitchen.

 Looking Back them Years Ago

Looking back them years ago, when we were little boys,

We bumped our knees and elbows, and father made us toys,

Played around the farmyard, in and out the sheds,

Testing all the puddles, thick mud into the house it treads.

When at first we started school, father trimmed our hair,

Combed and washed with new cap, new shoes without compare,

Short trousers and new jacket, a satchel on our back,

We all went there to study, but often got a smack.

Times tables chanted every morning, and the alphabet,

Till we knew them off by heart, of this I‘ve no regret,

Isn’t till you leave school, that you realise,

How useful school and education, help to make us wise.

Father showed us all his skills, from very early age,

Studied Farmers Weekly, read almost every page,

The pictures they were mainly, of inter-est to us,

News and reports on prices, what a blooming fuss.

We also had the Beano, a comic for us kids,

Dandy and the Eagle, must have cost dad quid’s,

Him he had his farmers weekly, it must be only fare,

Mother had a knitting book, for inspiration n’ flare.

It must have taken fifteen years, till we felt grown up,

Left alone at home at night, parents meeting as a group,

In fact it was a whist drive every Friday night,

We supposed to be in bed, but sometimes had a fright.

An owl it hooted in bright moonlight, scared us all to death,

Door that blew in wind, with fright we nearly lost our breath,

Scooted up the stairs so fast, and under the bedclothes dove, (another word for dived )

In darkness we were frightened, it was for courage that we strove.

On hearing the back door open, it was never locked,

Foot steps in the kitchen, bedroom door we chocked,

Then we heard mothers Coo-eee, relieved to hear her call,

Have you missed me duckies, we bloomin have an all.

So our sheltered life was over, sometimes fended for our selves,

Mother learned us basic cooking, as long as plenty on the shelves,

One at a time we left home, with basic thing that we were taught,

This knowledge we’re to build on, foundations life not bought.

                                                 ________

I Have Just Got Over Retiring Age 41

Bet a good many folk are in the same boat as me, getting left behind farming wise, getting slower, and just don't want the work. We have done our share over the years, much of it is mechanised now, not so much hand tools, If it conna be done from the tractor seat , it just does not get done.

 

I Have Just Got Over Retiring Age

 I’ve just got over retiring age,

And only now put pen to page,

And now I’m getting past my prime,

 Thing appear all in rhyme,

Following a train of thought,

It must be a bug that I’ve caught,

On looking back all through my life,

 How lucky I’ve been to have good wife,

She generally sorts out all my bugs,

As well as order all the drugs,

Cuts my hair and wash my cloths,

Boots I wash down with a hose,

 Food it’s bought with so much care,

Low salt and sugar be aware,

Meal are always at a regular time,

This I’m used to whole my lifetime,

Get up early every morning,

When most folks they are still a snoring,

When cows I milked got up five thirty,

 In for breakfast hands were dirty,

Not done this for twenty years,

But this old habit never blears,

A couple of hours of time and thought,

Before breakfast rhymes to mind are brought.

________