by Amanda Owen
It is not just wild animals that appear unannounced at Ravenseat: we also get our fair share of domesticated animals turning up quite out of the blue. We have had dogs here that have clearly just been dumped out of cars. A dog running loose is the worst crime you can commit round here, it upsets everything – even the kindest, petted dog can turn into a sheep killer if it’s left to roam free.
We had a border collie dumped on us, and I put signs up all over the place and rang round the local area but I guessed it wasn’t a local dog: its eyes had the glassy look of a dog that has been kept in the dark, not let out. The search for the owner proved fruitless and reluctantly we had to ring the dog warden.
Our flock of chickens had an exotic addition a couple of years ago. I’m always shocked by the way people dump animals in the countryside but who would go for a nice ride out in the car and dump their chickens? In 2011, just approaching Christmas, a small flock of fancy chickens – Silver Spangled Hamburgs, Golden Sebrights and an Old English Game cockerel – were dumped at the end of our road. They were obviously not used to living in the wild, and they sat in a small sad clump at the side of the road in the snow. The chap who drives the snowplough through the dale has to turn round at our road end, so each day he would stop there to eat his sandwiches and throw his crumbs to the hens. It was just going to be a matter of time before something ate them: they were such an easy target. So we decided we’d catch them, which wasn’t difficult. We took some, and the others were re-homed with neighbours who already had hens.
Clive always had a small number of wild game hens living in the farmyard, but egg production was limited. I eventually put that right, on a scale that neither I nor Clive was expecting. Especially Clive. I was looking for about twenty hens and decided to get them from a poultry farm where they are kept in big barns. Every so often the barns have to be emptied, cleaned and disinfected before a new batch of hens goes in. I was given a telephone number to ring and said, ‘I’ve been telled that yer ’ave some chickens tha’ need new homes.’
‘Aye, free to a good home.’
He seemed like a decent chap: he certainly appeared to care about the chickens and was very keen for people to take them – otherwise they would go for processing into pies, I guess. The first time I went I didn’t know what to expect. I took a half-size trailer, and had visions of me and the children choosing the hens we wanted.
When I reached the farm I backed up to the chicken shed while the farmer directed me: ‘Left a bit, come on, keep straight, whoa.’
I had literally just got out of the Land Rover when the barn doors swung open, the farmer dropped my trailer’s ramp and then him and another lad armed with a big piece of cardboard shooed chickens from one end of the shed. They just swarmed into my trailer. There must have been about a hundred. I thought, Lordy, I wasn’t wantin’ that many! But I knew that if I chucked them out and said I didn’t want them, they were destined to be pies.
So I smiled sweetly at the farmer, thanked him very much and took them. All the way back the children were chirping, ‘What’s Dad gonna say?’
I didn’t need them to remind me that Clive wouldn’t be best pleased. I got them back home and into a barn. To the children’s delight they had even laid some eggs in the trailer on the way. They sat in the barn, stunned, half bald, with gormless expressions on their faces. I realized they were feeling the cold. They didn’t have many feathers because they were used to living inside a nice big warm barn so I shut the door to keep the draught out. Here was me thinking I’d done them a favour by rescuing them, when at that moment they probably hated me for it.
But they came right. For a while they were not sure about how to behave, and seemed perplexed at the whole outdoor thing – how to scratch and take dust baths – but eventually they feathered up and became like normal farmyard hens, laying eggs all over the place. I usually replenish my flock every year, but after that first sting I’m careful to say exactly how many I want.
We also have a peacock and a peahen; I like to think they give Ravenseat that stately home feel. They were given to us by someone whose neighbour didn’t appreciate the raucous shrieking noise that they make. I agreed to take them but I couldn’t imagine they would ever thrive here. I thought they were tropical birds and that the impressively long tail feathers would make the peacock an easy target for the sheepdogs. The reality is that he rules the roost. He is fearless and will stare out any dog, fixing him with his beady eyes until the dog backs down. I also discovered that peahens are terrible mothers: they sit tight on their eggs until the first one hatches, then they abandon the rest. We usually try to put the peahen eggs under a broody chicken, to get more hatched. Fortunately we have a friend who is a peacock enthusiast and is happy to buy the peachicks. I believe he has no near neighbours . . .
It is amazing how quickly animals can adapt to their situation and the peacock has become quite predatory, hanging about the picnic benches, looking menacing, waiting for an opportune moment to get his beak into an unsuspecting walker’s scone. In fact, the picnic benches are a prime location for scavenging: the children, the peacock and the terriers, Pippen and Chalky, are all wise to the fact that here there are rich pickings to be had.
Chalky and Pippen spend many happy hours loitering around the walkers. Chalky is nimble and her tactic for obtaining food relies on speed and a certain amount of brazen cheek. Pippen, on the other hand, plays the sympathy card and will develop an entirely fake limp and sorry expression. One day a rambler came up to the house cradling Pippen in his arms.
‘What a sad-looking dog,’ he said. ‘Was she a rescue case, has she been abused?’
That’s how good Pippen’s act is.
Chalky can be fickle and it takes no encouragement at all for her to happily jump into any car. This was nearly her undoing recently. She likes to patrol our road on the lookout for road-kill, a squashed rabbit or the like. It seems that she jumped into the car of a day tripper who, instead of enquiring about her home in the vicinity of here or Keld or Thwaite or even Richmond, took her all the way to the kennels at Bedale, an hour and a half from here. Fortunately she is microchipped, so they rang me. I was not best pleased. Chalky had an overnight stay, which cost me £45, and I got a telling-off from a snotty kennel maid about letting my dog wander free without a collar.
Farm dogs never wear collars. The risk of them getting caught up in something, such as a wire fence, is too great. You’ll never see a sheepdog with a collar. The only time they wear a collar is if they are tied up. Unfortunately, Chalky’s a wanderer, especially when she’s in season. When we had the party of bikers camping here she disappeared. I felt quite guilty because I’d had harsh words with her for sniffing around the barbecue food. She was last seen following some walkers, and was brought back two days later by our neighbour Susan. Goodness only knows where she had been during this time. It was only a few days later that she went AWOL again, returned this time by the postman, who’d picked her up down by the road end.
We don’t have our dogs spayed or neutered. It takes something out of a sheepdog, they’re never quite the same. Pippen is quite an old lady now, and she’s never had a litter, so we suspect that she is a non-breeder. Anyway, to put a stop to Chalky’s wanderlust Clive borrowed a Jack Russell dog, a smooth-coated, squat little chap called Spud, from his friend Lawrence, and all three dogs, Spud, Pippen and Chalky, had a bit of a love-in, a canine ménage à trois.
We’ve sometimes had cats appear from nowhere, also seemingly just chucked out of a car. Sheep farmers aren’t happy about cats, because there’s the risk that they spread toxoplasmosis. We let them stay, but they never seem to last very long in this environment. We had a bonny little ginger cat here for a few months but one day we found it dead in the walk-through trough. We suspected that the tups at either side of the trough had taken a dislike to it and it stood no chance when they came together and squished it. Not nice, but it simply wasn’t bred for life on a farm, and the blame lies with whoever dumped it.
Perhaps the weirdest thing we have ever had dumped was somebody’s girlfriend. She seemed a nice enough lass, dressed in white pedal pushers and high heels. She tottered into our yard and said, ‘Could you tell me where the nearest bus stop is, please?’
It emerged that she’d been out with her boyfriend, there had been a row, he’d ordered her to get out of the car, which she did in a huff, and he sped off, back down our road. I persuaded her to wait for him to return.
‘Don’t worry, he’ll come back,’ I reassured her.
I really thought he would. I made her a cup of tea and sat her down, and time ticked on. It began to get dark, and she was obviously very embarrassed. Of course, there are no buses, and a taxi from here to Hartlepool, where she came from, would have cost a fortune.
In the end, we drove her to Kirkby Stephen, which I think is the wrong direction for Hartlepool, but at least she would be able to get a bus to somewhere. It’s not exactly a bustling metropolis, but she had more chance of getting home from there than from Ravenseat. I have no idea what happened to her, but something tells me that relationship was doomed.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that at Ravenseat you must expect the unexpected. You never know who, or indeed what, you are going to find. Aside from unexpected visitors, there are the animals that the children bring into the house . . .
One summer we were hand-rearing a calf, Toffee, and I came into the living room one day to find the children had brought her inside. She’s completely tame and will gallop along behind them, and they were engrossed in filming her doing a variety of simple tricks and tackling an obstacle course made from pouffes and footstools. They were planning her future as a performing cow.
‘If we teach ’er to play t’guitar we can go on Britain’s Got Talent,’ Raven said.
Miles said he felt the trumpet was more suited to her.
Another farmer had a spare calf so we brought it up here as a companion for Toffee, so now we’ve got Bubblegum as well. The children love them, but they have a completely pragmatic attitude to animals, and they know that when their calves grow up they may be sold on.
Little Joe is our Shetland pony and he too has been allowed into the house. During the summer holidays a new game was devised: whenever the doorbell rang Little Joe would be ridden down the passageway and into the porch and the door answered by a small person on horseback. They were delighted with the reaction of the visitors, which was one of complete disbelief as Little Joe trotted off up the yard and then back again, waiting for the next unsuspecting arrival. The children like to shock visitors and I suppose I should be a little bit more of a disciplinarian. I’m not house proud though: as long as everyone is fed, warm and happy, then that will do. One of them did tramp a peacock poop in the other day, and was ordered out smartish, but on the whole life’s too short to worry about such things.
13
Sidney in the Snow
Baby number six, Sidney, was due at Christmas 2011, but as usual he came early, a month before my due date. By this time Rav was ten and a half, Reubs was eight, Miles was five and a half, Edith was three and Vi was eighteen months – a great spread of ages.
It was quite lucky Sidney was early, because I was worrying about the snow coming and stopping us getting to the hospital.
As usual, life was hectic, what with all the back-end sales and tupping time. I’m usually too busy to notice the baby kicking; the only time I feel it is when I’m lying quiet in bed at night. My babies have a tendency to lie sideways so I don’t feel them moving much anyway, but even I had noticed that for a couple of days the baby had been very quiet. I told Clive about it.
‘Does ta want mi to tek thi to t’hospital?’ he said.
‘Nay, if summat’s up, they can’t do owt.’
I put it to the back of my mind and thought about getting on with what needed doing; we’d brought the horses in because winter was fast approaching, so I had three stables to muck out that morning. I also had a small group of James Herriot fans coming for afternoon tea and a tour of the farm. It’s funny when they come: Clive and I slip into the roles, talking the parts as if we were out of the TV drama, without any pre-arrangement. It just seems to happen naturally, and then, of course, we egg each other on.
‘It’s a bit of a rum do . . .’ he’ll say.
‘Veterinary’s comin’ . . .’ I’ll say.
‘Eeeee, it’s a plain owd day,’ he’ll add.
I have to go out of the room to stop myself laughing sometimes. Anyway, they were on their way, so what does any good Daleswoman do for visitors? I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the flagstones with caustic soda. They come up gleaming, but it’s probably not a good idea when you’re eight months pregnant.
Just before the tourists arrived, my friends Rachel and Elenor (the daughter and widow of the late Jimmy Alderson) called in to pick up some eggs. They could see I was having a frantic morning.
‘How yer keepin’?’
‘I’m fine, but the baby’s not been moving.’
Elenor, a former midwife, said this might be a sign that the baby would soon be arriving.
As they left, the James Herriot fans arrived and I served them tea and scones while Clive chatted away with his OTT Yorkshire accent. Just as I was pouring the tea, one of them asked me, in a long American drawl, ‘When’s the baby due?’
‘A’fore day’s owt,’ I said. I don’t know why I said it.
They drunk up their tea sharpish. They weren’t going to be hanging around for me going into labour.
‘You’ve seen ’em off proper this time,’ said Clive as we stood in the yard waving goodbye. ‘Yer not really gonna ’ave t’babby this afternoon, is ta?’
‘I bloody well think I might!’
Clive sprung into action and rang for an ambulance there and then.
The rule is that you have to stay on the line until the ambulance gets there, so Clive was twining (moaning) to the operator.
‘This call’s gonna cost mi a fortune,’ he said.
‘Could you tell me where your wife is now?’ asked the operator.
‘She’s gone for a bucket o’ coal,’ said Clive.
It was the same old situation, the operator thinking I was gripped with labour pains, while I wasn’t having any contractions at all. I felt fine but I knew what was going to happen.
I stuffed a few bits and pieces into a bag, had a shower and changed my clothes. Clive had become bored with talking to the operator, so put the phone on the dresser in the shower room, and I could hear a little voice now and again: ‘Are you all right? Anybody there?’
I was busy manoeuvring myself into a decent dress and applying waterproof mascara and lipstick – I wasn’t intending to look too rough when I got to hospital – so I kept shouting back, ‘I’m fine!’
The paramedic arrived and after a quick check over established that – true to form – there was not a right lot going on, so as his medical skills were not required for the moment he went to chat with Clive.
Then the ambulance came, by which time Clive had summoned the children and they were sitting in a long line on the sofa.
‘Are yer havin’ t’baby?’ they wanted to know.
‘I reckon so,’ I said, smiling. ‘Now thoo be good for thi father, I won’t be away long.’
I set off in the ambulance, but we didn’t get very far, not even as far as Reeth. I was sitting quietly, with my bag on my knee, watching out of the window as we followed the winding road down Swaledale. We were only half an hour into our journey, just coming into Low Row, when I had that familiar heavy feeling and I knew the baby was coming. The ambulance man banged on the window for the driver to stop. I clambered onto the bed, and before the paramedic who had been following us could get out of his car and get to the ambulance, I’d had Sidney. He was wrapped in a towel and handed to me, still attached. It wasn’t the most comfortable position, neither sitting up nor lying down, one hand gripping the bedrail, the other arm jammed betwee
n the side of the bed and the ambulance wall. It was virtually impossible to get Sidney plugged in for a feed, and eventually I gave up trying and concentrated on keeping him warm, not dropping him or rolling off the bed. It was a relief when we pulled up at the front of the Friarage. I was trolleyed through the front foyer and up to the maternity ward. As I was being wheeled along I overheard someone say, ‘Oh, look, it’s that lady off t’Dales, ooh, look, she’s got a baby!’
I didn’t think I was looking too ropy, but I was slightly embarrassed by the umbilical cord that was on top of the pink waffle blanket between me and the baby.
The baby weighed in at six pounds, a good weight for a baby four weeks early. I wasn’t the least bit fazed by his early arrival: after coping with a tiny one ten weeks premature, like Reuben, I didn’t expect any problems.
We decided to call him Sidney, because it’s a lovely old-fashioned name that’s easily shortened, and the shepherd who features prominently in the book Hill Shepherd, and who is now a friend, is called Sidney Reynoldson. For a middle name we added Ingram, after the retired clergyman, Ingram Cleasby, who had visited us.
Sidney was a bit cold after the journey to hospital and was whisked off to the special care baby unit to be warmed up and checked over. I stayed in with him that night, trying to get feeding established. Clive and the other five children came to fetch me the next day. I had been given my discharge paperwork and was waiting patiently for him on the SCBU when I heard the buzzer ring and saw my nearest and dearest coming into the super-sterile area. Clive didn’t look too bad but the children were looking pretty dire, their appearance at odds with their careful application of the antiseptic germ-killing cleanser. Clive was carrying Violet as she was wearing only one welly and a sock that looked as if it had been worn around the farmyard; Reuben was in his boiler suit with the usual oil stains; and Miles, although wearing a pair of wellies, had clarts of rough muck stuck to the bottom of both. Raven and Edith had clearly been doing something with the horses and were dressed accordingly in wellies and cream jodhpurs – well, they had once been cream. This is how they dress on the farm, but I was mortified at how unhygienic they looked in this spotlessly clean, sterile environment. I was keen to get out of there before we were accused of contaminating the place.
