Chapter 14 - Sunday Mornings!!!!
It was a beautiful early Sunday morning and Roy had just gone out to let out the poultry, suddenly he came back and said … “Out here a minute!” … I slipped on my old shoes and went up into the yard. There, strewn all over their pen, were the bodies of four guinea fowl; a severed head stuck in the wire netting, another white one was a walking wounded and two had been taken away. Somehow, during the night, a fox had got into the pen and managed to move the piece of wood that had held the door of their house shut. It seems such a shame that they were slaughtered and left there, just killing for killing’s sake. While surveying the scene and trying to find out where the fox had got into the pen, a bantam hen appeared around the corner of the shed surrounded by four newly- hatched chicks. Life and death on the farm walk side by side.
No matter how big or small all livestock must be well looked after. I have spent ages looking for a calf. Usually, if you find one missing, its mother will know where it is and lift her head and look in the calf’s direction, but not always. The calf could be lying under a sheltered hedge or up in the croft under a gorse bush and be terribly difficult to find, but I wouldn’t go in until I found it. Once, when giving my visitors breakfast they asked me if I had a brown horse and a white horse. I told them I had; only to be told they had gone down the lane … “I’m very sorry but your bread and toaster is in the kitchen would you mind doing your own toast? I will have to go and get them back.” … Or, if I was calving a cow and it was evening meal time for my guests, they would just have to wait. Roy sometimes brings in a sickly or weak newly-hatched bantam or guinea fowl chick for me to put on an old tea towel and place in the bottom oven of the Rayburn (door left open of course). How satisfying when, after a while, you hear a little chirp; even if you don’t, you have at least given it a chance.
Another Sunday morning 2 weeks later!!!
The weather not so good this morning … rainy! Roy had to bring in a cow for AI at 8-00. Again he appeared at the back door … “Out here a minute! The cow is in the crush and has got her head stuck in the bars at bottom of the gate.” And was she stuck, and bellowing!!!!
She was standing in the race (a narrow containing structure with a metal gate at the end) with her neck sloping steeply down, her head through the first of three squares of metal at the very bottom of the gate, her nose on the ground. If her head went through there it should go back again; wishful thinking! We tried to turn her head and to push it back; but to no avail. Now what!! After various suggestions it was decided to use a small angle grinder and cut through the bar at the top and the bottom so that she would not cut her neck when she did get out. Roy got out his kneeling pad (a plastic feed bag half- stuffed with hay and tied with red string) and managed to get in position to cut the bar. It took some time to almost cut through the bar and with the sparks flying about the cow must have been terrified. The bar was finally released by hitting it with a lump hammer, angling it away from the cow’s neck. My job was to make sure that the gate stayed shut otherwise we would be in serious trouble as she would not have been totally restrained, I pushed on that gate for all I was worth! It then took what seemed like ages, but must have been only a few seconds, and her head was free! We didn’t need that to happen first thing on a Sunday morning, or any other morning come to that!!
Monica Olds