You are not going to believe this……. yet again a need to involve my non-country guests to help on the farm and sort out some very boisterous bullocks. The term bullocks” made the ladies blush. No girls, not what you think.
My beautiful cow, named Princess was due to calve – her 4th calf and never before had she caused me any problems. Due date was 15th of the month, and she was a couple of days overdue, so I was not nervous, but just a little tense. I was up my polytunnel at 6pm as usual watering, enjoying picking Alpine strawberries displaying themselves from hanging baskets lined with Jacob sheep’s wool (must be a business opportunity there) and then I was moaning at what wasn’t growing, cursing the flies, wondering why the melons weren’t growing, when all of a sudden I heard a long, stretched out moan, and it wasn’t me. It was a familiar sound of an animal in some sort of pain. It could only be one thing…my beautiful Princess was calving. I rushed out into the field where she had been on her own for most of the day and to my real surprise, she’d done it. There was the most beautiful calve, born probably 10 minutes previous, being licked furiously by mum. Within another 10 minutes the calve was up and looking for the milk tank. It never ceases to amaze me – a new life.
Enough sentimentality. The other 10 bullocks in the field were extremely curious and surrounding her. The plan was to separate them when she calved, so the next task was to drop down the electric fence which was put up to keep them nearby. So, I set off to achieve this task and no, the bullocks wanted to stay and pay their respects. I needed help and guess what….it was my b and b guests who were told they were needed. All excited they came into the field. The kids were more enthusiastic than the dads, but 10 running bullocks and kids don’t really mix. So, with kids sat up on the dung heap wall, the dads were given a stick each and yet again told to “obey commands”.
Well, it was not straightforward. The bullocks did not cooperate at first, but eventually we had them near the electric fence which had been lowered, but they are not fools and would not step over it. I quickly rushed and wound the fence back up and now was the time to get them on the go. My guests stood where they were told, but showed no real idea of what was required of them – fair point. So, with a raised voice I told them to blinking well take their hands out to their pockets, ditch their mobile phones and wave their arms with some level of enthusiasm. It worked and said bullocks galloped off down to the bottom of the field. I must, at this point mention our dear guest Barry who is one of the best down to earth chaps I have ever met. Always a smile on his face, but not this time in a field of large black bullocks surrounding him. He dresses in black, has genuinely black hair and always wears black sunglasses, I think as he moved forward towards the fence at my command, waving his arms furiously, the bullocks who are also beautiful black Angus cross Friesians thought……”he’s one of us, we’ll follow him”! In one of my recent articles, I described the scene with the escaped sheep and it was ‘thank you Ben”… this time it was boisterous bullocks so “thank you Barry”.
Janet