by Amanda Owen
Raven makes a start on the horses, most of whom are overwintered in stalls. The horses are tied, with a manger and hay rack in front of them, and then put into the yards during the day. The land at Ravenseat is so boggy that the horses would sink knee deep into the mire and suffer from mud fever if they were let loose in the fields. They are rugged up and led to water (despite the old adage, they do drink, but it can take a while) and then let into the yards for their daily exercise. There is a lot of the proverbial to shovel into the barrow, hay racks to be filled ready for night and the floor left clear of straw to dry. Raven usually has two horses out and their stables done by the time the school taxi arrives.
The daily chores change throughout the seasons, with more to do in the winter than in the summer. As soon as the weather improves the horses will go back out to the moor. We usually keep a couple of horses back at Ravenseat and tether them, moving them around every day and using them instead of a lawn-mower. It also means they are to hand if anyone wishes to use them as a means of transport. Bait boxes and flasks of tea have all been delivered on horseback during hay time when other forms of transport are already deployed.
One beautiful summer morning, a school day, all was quiet at Ravenseat, far too quiet. There was not a sign of a child anywhere. The school taxi arrived in the yard, I was shouting frantically for the children and went apologetically to explain to the driver that he might be delayed due to absent schoolchildren.
‘I ’avent a clue where they’re at,’ I said.
‘I’ve just passed ’em,’ he said. ‘Coming past Black Howe on an ’orse. I turned ’em round.’
Sure enough, just coming into sight was Meg, plodding along with three children riding bareback, their only means of steering a halter tied into a loop. We waited patiently for them to return, not daring to shout to them to hurry up. They went to school that day with horse hairs on their uniforms and smelling distinctly equine.
It does not seem to matter how smartly I turn them out in the morning, somehow before the taxi arrives they always manage to look dishevelled. We often hand-rear calves and they tend to salivate at the prospect of their morning milk feed. School jumpers inevitably get smeared with milky slobber. Pigs exude a decidedly ‘piggy’ smell which seems to permeate clothing with remarkable ease. A favourite activity to pass the time before the school taxi arrives was pig riding: seeing how long they can stay on the back of a cavorting pig was, for a little while, a seriously competitive business. The Tamworth two, as we called the pigs we had at the time, took it all in good sport and almost seemed to relish flinging them off. I, on the other hand, was not too impressed, and was pleased when the pigs became part of breakfast instead of a breakfast-time challenge.
There are many mornings when the school taxi has to wait at the other side of the packhorse bridge because it has been raining so heavily that there is too much water in the river for him to risk driving across. The children wait in the porch, standing on the stone shelves and peering through the tiny glass window until the taxi comes into view. They announce its arrival with shrieks, then, grabbing their school bags, dash down the track and over the bridge. Whatever the weather, they are accompanied by our two terriers Chalky and Pippen, whose loyalty to the children knows no bounds. Wherever the children go, they follow. If the children split up and go off in different directions, I often see Chalky and Pippen hesitate, consciously trying to decide who to follow.
When the temperatures plummet, travelling to and from Ravenseat becomes a big problem. Snow and ice bring things to a grinding halt. The road becomes treacherous and stops the school run. Deliveries by animal-feed wagons and fuel lorries and other necessities have to be carefully timed. They can leave their depots on a crisp, cold, bright winter morning in Leyburn only to find the road blocked with drifting snow and sub-zero arctic winds by the time they reach the turn to Ravenseat. We watch the forecast carefully and try to plan well ahead: a dairy full of food, a barn full of animal feed and plenty of coal are all that are needed to keep us and our animals happy. If the people and the animals are safe, and we are not lacking anything important, then the prospect of spending a couple of weeks snowed in is not such a bad one.
We err on the side of caution with regards to sending the children to school in the wintertime. There is little point in putting them in a taxi only to spend the day watching and fretting about them getting back. Besides, with satellite Internet they can do their homework online – unless, of course, the dish is plastered with snow and not working. This may not always be entirely due to the forces of nature, as I have now and again spotted the children using the satellite dish for snowball target practice.
On one occasion we were caught unawares by a bad storm. The children had left for school when the sky began to grey over. Flurries of flakes in the wind soon turned to heavy falling snow. I rang the school and in my very best respectable voice said, ‘Hello, it’s Raven an’ Reuben’s mother here, I was wondering what you were thinking with regards to weather?’
‘Well, yes, it is beginning to snow here, just starting to stick,’ said the school secretary.
‘I think I need them back home if possible, it’s not looking too clever here.’
‘They were looking forward to show and tell,’ she said.
‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind just showing them the door and telling them to get the school taxi to bring them home.’
I waited for half an hour before setting out on the quad bike to the road end to meet them, wearing a scarf pulled up over my nose, a balaclava and a hat. It was almost impossible to see where I was going and to not veer off the road onto the moor. Visibility was so poor I had to keep stopping to get my bearings and work out where I was. At last I reached the road end, and turned left down towards Keld. The taxi had stopped on Hoggarths Bridge and could go no further. The children zipped up their coats, put on the balaclavas that I had stuffed in my pocket before leaving (too embarrassing to wear them to school) and perched themselves behind me on the bike. They huddled in tightly, their faces pressed into my coat to shield them from the stinging, driving snow. There is a point when you become snow blind and everything is white. No matter how hard I scrunched my eyes up and tried to focus I could not make out where I was. I knew that the turn into Ravenseat was somewhere close but I couldn’t find it. It was only when Raven began digging me in the ribs after spotting the telegraph pole that we realized I had driven right past. I turned round and back onto the Ravenseat road, but it struck me how easy it had been to get disorientated, making a situation like that downright dangerous.
The novelty of snow and ice can wear a little thin, and after the skiing (I bought skis on eBay and the children love skiing down the hills), sledging, snow angels and igloo building has been done, there are water troughs to defrost, doorways and gates to dig out and feed to distribute to the sheep outside. Ravenseat is exposed, there is little shelter from the driving snow, and the bitter wind blows the snow around leaving some places where the grass can still be seen and others where the drystone walls are completely covered. Eskimos may have fifty words for snow, but around here we have our own word to describe the snow being picked up and blown around: stowering.
It is vitally important that we get our sheep down from the moor and to safety. We gather them into the sheep pens or in-bye (enclosed meadows and pastures) where we can open up the barns for them. If they shelter at the wrong side of the wall in a storm they can soon be overblown and buried under the snow. There are gutters and ghylls here that are notoriously dangerous, and I remember wading slowly along a wall, through snow up to my thighs, poking down into the snow with my crook trying to find three tup hoggs that were missing presumed buried. Bill, Clive’s sheepdog, is terribly good at locating buried sheep but unfortunately gets overexcited in the process and will try to eat them if he finds them. They can survive many days under the snow but, really, it is avoidable if you are shepherding your sheep regularly, watching the weather and know where you have them.
One year our old neighbour Tot had just a handful of sheep in the Smithy Holme, the field next to ours. They were perfectly fine, having a barn in which to shelter, but were marooned there with nobody able to get through the snow drifts to feed them. He rang us fretting about them. Clive told him not to worry and that somehow we would get there with some hay. We got as far as Beck Stack on the bike and then we set off walking, taking it in turns to carry the hay bales. We took giant steps through the snow, sinking down above our knees with each stride, every so often sitting on the bales for a breather. When we finally reached the hungry sheep we tossed a few canches of hay into the hay racks in the barn, and then retraced our steps back to the bike and home.
Everything becomes so hungry at times like this, children and animals alike. We once had a bull in a loose box in the yard. Every morning I would break the ice and fill up his water bucket, fill his hay rack and leave him a scoop of cake, and every morning a rabbit would squeeze through a gap in the door and join him, nibbling the short pieces of hay that dropped to the floor under the rack. It looked extraordinary, such a big beast sharing his food with a little rabbit.
It is during these hungry times that I revel in cooking traditional foods for us all, heartwarming stews that I can put in the range and forget about all day until evening. I like to feel that we can be self-sufficient and make good use of everything available to us. Nothing goes to waste: there is a hierarchy of animals, from dogs through to pigs and chickens, waiting for any leftovers.
It is not only snow that wreaks havoc. The sub-zero temperatures can put a stop to our water supply when the pipes freeze. No water in the outside taps and water troughs is bad enough but no water in the farmhouse makes life very difficult. The laborious task of carrying bucket after bucket of water from the beck to fill kettles which in turn are used to try, usually unsuccessfully, to thaw out water pipes, is back-breaking and soul-destroying. It is surprising how much water a household uses, and after a week of washing clothes and hair in the sink with tepid water the beauty of the snow has long since worn thin. It takes many buckets of water to fill a cattle trough, then a cow turns round, lifts its tail and deposits a clap in the trough, and you have to start all over again. The joy that comes with a thaw is indescribable, the sheer luxury of turning on a tap or the flushing of a toilet.
Water isn’t the only amenity that gives us problems: we have been blighted by power cuts. We are lucky to have mains electricity, but being at the end of the line means we are subject to both power surges and cuts. I can be sitting quietly, usually waiting for something crucial to finish cooking in the fan oven, and suddenly the lights will go brighter and brighter and then . . . nothing, darkness. My heart sinks, along with the cake. Only quite recently we had almost three full days without electricity and decided that, apart from the problem of freezers defrosting, we would embrace the idea of being powerless. We cooked entirely on the black range, went to bed when it was dark and got up when it was light – exactly as our forebears must have done.
Despite the challenges we face at Ravenseat, I really love the farmhouse and it seems that other creatures sometimes feel the same way. It was during a prolonged bitterly cold spell of weather that we had a visit from an owl. Edith discovered him sitting on the mantelpiece in the little sitting room. He was covered in soot and had clearly come down the chimney and then taken fright and tried to escape by flying at the window. He had dusted the sofa with soot and covered the windowsill with crap. Now he was sitting there, watching us with wide eyes and a stupid, almost nonchalant, expression. The children were very excited, there was even talk of keeping him and training him Harry Potter-style. But his impressive talons soon made them change their minds. I armed myself with a towel, did a few circuits of the room until he made a mistake and got stuck behind the TV, then managed to grab him and wrap him in the towel. We took him outside to have a closer look, Reuben armed with a bird book, but he was so sooty we couldn’t be sure whether he was a tawny or a short-eared owl. We had a countdown, then launched him skywards, watching as he headed for Tan Hill and out of sight.
The next morning Edith excitedly came into the kitchen and announced, ‘He’s back.’
‘Who’s back, Ede?’ I asked.
‘Mr Owl,’ she exclaimed.
‘No way!’
‘Come and look,’ she said, tugging my sleeve.
I followed her through to the small sitting room, pushed open the door and there, sitting this time on the fireside companion, was an owl. The owl! The room was trashed – again. I had only just sorted out his previous night’s dirty protest. Once again he was unceremoniously slung out, and this time told he was barred. And I thought owls were supposed to be wise . . .
Warm summer evenings persuade us to leave the windows open, which is an open invitation to other winged intruders. One night, all was quiet, the children sleeping soundly, then:
‘Mam, mam, there’s a bat in mi bedroom!’ Raven shouted.
‘Is there?’ I replied sleepily.
When I looked, there was indeed a small bat, circling the room.
‘Can’t you just ignore ’im? I’m sure he’ll find ’is own way out,’ I said.
‘Nah, I can’t sleep wiv ’im in mi room,’ she said.
Downstairs I went. I’d seen the children playing with a fishing net and this seemed a likely tool for the job. Back in the bedroom the bat had a captive audience, all the children now hypnotized as it did ever-decreasing circles round the light bulb. I waited until the bat was heading round for another lap, then stuck the net in the air and bingo – I had him.
‘Let’s ’ave a closer look,’ said Raven, screwing up her nose and inspecting the angry little creature in the bottom of the net.
‘Do thi bite?’ she said.
‘Nooooooo,’ I replied, thrusting my hand into the net to disentangle the bat. I cupped it gently in my hands and lifted it free. Then, as Raven admired its tiny little mousey body, it sunk needle-sharp teeth into my hand. It didn’t let go, just hung on for all it was worth. It was only when I put my hand out of the bedroom window with the bat suspended from it by its teeth that it finally let go.
Not long after, I was in a particularly deep and delicious sleep when something disturbed me. As I lay, semi-conscious, something wafted past my face. I instinctively tried to brush it away but whatever it was had gone. A few seconds later something swept past my face again, so I reached for the light switch. Another bat. Round and round and round it went, I was mesmerized as it circled the room. Clive was awake by this time.
‘Not another bat,’ he said as it did another circuit. ‘Maybe it thinks you’re Meatloaf?’
‘Thanks for that,’ I said. ‘Now thoo can blinkin’ well sort it.’
‘I’m just gonna tu’n t’light off, you know how t’song goes.’
I did know the words by Meatloaf, but Clive was wrong, because our Bat out of Hell was not gone before the morning sun. In the end Clive became so frustrated that he threatened to introduce it to another bat, a cricket bat, before finally conceding that he would have to go and find the fishing net again.
One day, while I was down at the picnic benches serving a cream tea, I saw a family of ducks trooping up the yard. It was a glorious day and I talked to my customers for a little while, then returned to the house with an empty tray. When I reached the front door, I was met by a low-flying mallard, and as I came into the living room there was a scene of chaos. The mother duck had clearly decided to take a shortcut through the house and had encountered Edith, panicked and ta
ken fright, leaving behind her family. There were ducklings everywhere, Edith frantically trying to gather them up into my washing basket. Once we reckoned we had them all, we deposited the washing basket full of ducklings in the garth and, sure enough, within a few minutes, mother duck had returned. Reunited.
Another morning I was standing at the kitchen sink staring wistfully out of the window, planning the endless list of jobs for the day, when I felt a draught of air behind me and caught a glance of what I thought was a bird swoop through the kitchen and into the hallway. Drying my hands, I set off after the uninvited visitor. Reaching the bedroom, I saw a sparrowhawk perched at the foot of the bed. It was only after the sparrowhawk had been caught and released that we discovered a blackbird quietly hiding on the windowsill behind the curtain. It had clearly come into the house in a panic, with the bird of prey in hot pursuit. It had a very lucky escape.
We’ve had a vole in residence for some time. It’s known to the children as Slow Mouse, because it doesn’t scamper about like a mouse but proceeds across the room at a stately pace. It always emerges and takes a leisurely amble around the living room when I have visitors. One morning Slow Mouse made a mistake and took a stroll into a discarded wellie. Spotting it out of the corner of my eye, I decided it was time it had a taste of the great outdoors. I quickly grabbed the wellie, folding over the top, and then deposited Slow Mouse in the little garth. Half an hour later he meandered his way back through the front porch and into the house again. I hadn’t the heart to turf him out. The distance he’d travelled was about the equivalent of walking the Coast to Coast for his little mouse legs.
