The Farmer's Son

by John Connell

  “She’s a good cow, good meat on her,” says Jonathan.

  “Well, if she’s not in calf, it’s the mart for her.”

  Da has said this before. He hopes that she is in calf, for she is a good cow, but we cannot afford to have too many fallow cows. She will be another man’s problem or another man’s dinner.

  “Four months, Tom.”

  “Begod, the sneaky yoke.”

  All but the Black Whitehead are in calf. The job has been a success. She will be AIed again, but that is OK, for it is early in the season and there is still time for repeats.

  There are some who say it is a cruel practice to subject the cows to year after year of pregnancy and calving, but they have been bred for this purpose. Indeed, it is the same in nature: a cow will calve each year until she can no more, and then an old matriarch will be killed off by predators. The world wants beef, and so long as the animals are treated with respect and the calves cared for, there is little to complain of.

  Jonathan and Da settle up the bill. Jonathan will be back in a few weeks to check the next few girls. His appearance is always a breath of fresh air, and today he has brought good news.

  Doherty

  We lost Mickey Doherty four years ago. There is not a month that we do not mention him. He was Da’s best friend and our neighbor. He was also a senator in the Irish parliament and an advisor to former prime minister Albert Reynolds. He was an important man in the area and Da was the closest thing he had to a son.

  Doherty never married and was a member of the bachelor class. It was not such an odd thing then, for so many men of his generation never eloped. Along with Doherty, there were the so-called Wild Men of Soran—a pair of bachelor farmer brothers—the Scanlons and the two Neds. They are all of them gone now. In a way, Da is the keeper of their memories and stories, and with them our link to an older time and an older Ireland.

  Doherty was like a grandfather to us children. He was also the linchpin of our neighborhood and gathered us all to him on special occasions. My memories of our native sports of football and hurling shall forever be entwined with his house; for it was not to Croke Park, the great stadium in Dublin, that we traveled on match days, but to his small kitchen. There we saw the trials and triumphs of men and teams. We shouted in that amphitheater of brick and mortar and cried when our men were beaten and broken. At halftime, Doherty prepared tea and brack cake. It was his custom, and in its repetition it became our ritual.

  In his last year, as his mind began to wander, Doherty grew closer to nature, and whilst he was unable to recall dates and events, he communed with the birds of the air. Senility is best described in the old tongue, duine le Dia, for in that phrase is a kinder, more understanding view of the condition. Its literal meaning is “a person of God,” for only the person’s maker now can understand him. Perhaps in losing part of himself, Doherty gained something more, for there had always been swifts and swallows at his house each summer, but in those final months they became his friends. Often I saw them enter his open door and fly around the kitchen. He greeted them, and they in return sang out to him. He allowed them to build a small nest in the porch, and there they raised two crops of chicks that year.

  I remember his last night in that place. It was a summer’s evening and our cows had no water, for their drinker was broken. I do not know why, but I decided to walk rather than drive to them, and brought with me a book to read as I waited for the water to fill the blue barrel. The chore took some half an hour and the evening was bright and clear. When the sun is with us, there is no place quite so beautiful as Ireland, with its dandelion-strewn meadows and thistledown gardens, its stubble-mowed fields and its long, bright nights.

  The cows lowed and drank as fast as the water filled, and after all had supped and the barrel was full I rose and left.

  That same voice which had instructed me to walk now told me to stop in at Doherty’s on my way home. I found him panicked, and he began uttering the mantra that played over and over again that night.

  “I’m not right, I’m not right.”

  “Should I call someone?”

  “I need someone, I’m not right.”

  On and on this talk went, until I called our neighbors Christine and Michael Lee, and together the three of us decided what must be done. An ambulance was called and Doherty was wheeled out of the house. He never set foot in there again.

  Months later, I sat in the nursing home with Da as he dabbed his second father’s dry, cracked lips. The dying man gasped for air in a slow, rattling rhythm. My father did not speak that whole night. His movements said more than any words I could muster then or can write now, for in his act was the truest love and emotion. Doherty passed a few hours later, and so ended an era of our lives.

  Doherty’s house was sold and new people have moved in. They repainted the place and have made it shine once more; there is a beauty to it that it has not known in years. They are quiet neighbors and we see little of them, but it has been agreed they are fine people. Granny says all that’s missing is Doherty in the doorway, his keys hanging from the latch and the swifts playing in the breeze.

  The Gun Show

  There’s talk that our purebred calf will be a prizewinner. His points and form are right. He is tall, and though he failed for a week or two after we burned his horns, he is back on the mend. Rory is urging Da to begin training the calf, for it will take time, but Da is not so eager and is happy to wait.

  The showing of cattle is a particular craft. I do not know enough about show dogs, but I imagine it is something similar. It is an insular world that does not break ranks, a world full of characters and pomp, and sometimes villainy and pettiness too.

  It has been a long time since we have shown a bull, and the talk has brought back memories of Eric and Envoy, our Simmental show bulls. I remember Eric especially. I was eight or so at that time and the training of Eric had been going on for several months. When he was a calf, his nose was pierced and a ring inserted in it, and next he had a halter placed around his head. He wore the halter for two weeks straight, in order that he might come to understand that it brought him no harm. The breaking of a bull is a slow process, for he has not the intelligence of a horse, and so one must be patient.

  When Eric had grown used to the halter, we tethered him up to a wall. This act alone is what determines a good bull or not, for if he cannot settle and accept the tying, he shall never be trained. We started small at first, tying him for only ten minutes or so. Fight as he did, he was not strong enough to pull down the wall; with that, he learned that the rope was a powerful thing and only we could relieve him from its strange power. It took several weeks to build up his tolerance of being tied and to educate him in its way.

  To lead a bull is a dangerous task, for the man must be sure that he can trust his bull and that his training in tying has been complete. There are those who favor breaking the bull first with a donkey. They yoke the two animals together and it is the donkey who leads the bull, for once an ass makes up its mind, it shall not be swayed from its course. In this way, the bull learns that he must follow and not lead.

  Eric was a good bull and his training moved apace. I remember in his final weeks we led him out to the backyard to show Mam. Da stood erect and proud in his white coat and hat, and Eric looked every bit the prizewinner. He learned quickly, it seems to me now, for with little work he followed our simple commands and the cattle stick did not have to be used. In competition, the overuse of the stick is frowned upon, for it shows an ill-trained animal.

  On the day of the show, Eric got a makeover. His tail was clipped and his hooves cleaned. He was shampooed and washed, using Da’s secret method to make the hair shine, then dried with a special dryer, combed and straightened. Finally, he was given two pints of Guinness to calm his nerves. And so, golden and strong, smelling of rose petals and hibiscus, Eric was ready for the show.

  I recall that my brother and I had the day off from school to accompany Da. The national Simmental b
ull show attracted men and buyers from as far as England and Scotland, and we were but the newcomers. We were excited by the spectacle of it all. Da walked Eric around the show ring, and I remember the feeling of pride hearing the words “That’s the Connells of Longford.” We did not win any great prize that day, but Eric was sold to a good man for a fair price and Da was noted as a young man to watch out for on the scene. He was not much older then than I am now. In the evening, we ate a burger from the truck outside with salty chips, and went home happy in our day.

  I should like to relive those show days again. The purebred has real promise, and we are at a point of decision, for he may well be the best animal we ever breed here, and to sell him could be a fatal move. I have checked that the soft velvet show ropes are still in the toolshed. They are cobwebbed and worn, but they could be made great again. We still have our white coats and plastic cattle sticks too. It could be done again. We could hear men say our name once more at the ringside.

  This is Da’s decision to make. I shall clean the ropes in hope, like a squire might do his old master’s armor.

  Crocodile Dundee

  There are times in farming when nothing can be done. The beast is too old, the calf too sick, the man too worn out, the situation too hopeless. It is at these times that heads must be cool and hearts must be stout.

  The lamb was too big, the ewe too small, the vet was not there, and in the end there was but one answer: I had to cut the lamb’s head off. It is strange to say, but I did not shy away. I knew the ewe would die if I did not act: she would rupture and have an aneurism and bleed out, and we would lose two animals. I had seen it once before, with our very first birthing three years ago. It was that birth which knocked Da’s confidence and pushed me to take charge. Tonight, when I decided to take up the knife, I asked for the lamb’s forgiveness before I began.

  We had a small knife but it was not fit to the task, and, searching for a time, I found an old butcher’s blade and sharpened it. All the while Da watched me in a quiet awe. I had skinned animals before. I was the man who took the pelt of a kangaroo and salted it years before.

  The blade was sharp and clear and I sawed through bone and flesh and sinew, and after a time the head came loose in my hands.

  “Them Canadians would never believe you could do this,” Da said, in reference to my old life in North America.

  “Aye,” I answered, and pushed the thought of that world from my head.

  I fished out the rest of the lamb’s body from his mother. There was space to move now, and soon I found his legs and pulled him from her. The ewe shouted and cried, but her pain was over and she would live.

  “I’ll get her a lamb tomorrow,” Da promised.

  “That’d be good.”

  Sometimes we must take life in order to save it.

  Truce

  The nights have begun to show on me. I am tired, my bones are sore, and my mood is erratic. I wake still weary and I need to rest more, but I will not give in. I do not know why that is—perhaps it is something about needing to prove myself, or my fear of beds, for I have spent too long sick in them.

  It is Tuesday and we are cleaning out the cattle houses again. I do not want to do this job today. I feel we are stuck in an infinite loop, a monotony of cleaning and bedding, of feeding and caring of the sick and the dying, and I have not left the farm in weeks and money is tight. We are halfway through cleaning the big house when I snap at him.

  “Don’t throw the dung into the box. You’re getting shite all over me.”

  “What’s wrong with you today, at all?” Da asks.

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  “Well, you’re not in a right mood, that’s for sure.”

  “I’m fucking tired, all right.”

  “Well, take a break, go on in.”

  “No.”

  “Well, don’t be sulking so.”

  “I’m not sulking.”

  We return to work then, but before long I shout at him for reversing the tractor too close to the wall, and we are at loggerheads again.

  “Fuck this,” I say.

  “Clean the shed.”

  We are shouting and our voices fill the space.

  “Fuck you and the shed,” I say. “I’m the one helping you when I’ve work to be at.”

  “Ah, you wouldn’t know how to hold down a real job,” he says.

  “Arra, fuck you, you old bastard,” I say. I never used to call him old, but in our fights I do now. I know this is a low blow when he is still in his fifties, but our tempers are out of control and the fight will take its course. The animals are looking at us and wondering at what strange sounds emerge from these usually quiet men.

  I walk out of the shed, go inside and take a cup of coffee and try to read the paper. I have let myself down; I should not fight with him. I know it is the tiredness and the night shifts speaking. I know too that we are not unique, that fights on farms are as old as the trade itself.

  Da finishes the houses himself, and after lunch I apologize for my behavior and thank him for finishing the work.

  “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s OK, we all get like that,” he says.

  “Think I need a night off from the sheep.”

  “Take it. I’ll look at them.”

  I rest for an hour or so and watch an episode of Heartbeat, an old period drama set in Yorkshire. Later Da tells me there are days that he too wants to throw in the towel.

  “But you can’t give up when there’s over a million euro on the line,” he says.

  “No,” I agree.

  We end the day as friends. All is forgiven, the houses are clean, and the cattle are fine. They have not died without me being there for a few hours. This fast reconciliation is a triumph for us. Perhaps it is a sign of how things can be in the future. Perhaps we can find an understanding between us. I hope so. That evening we go in peace.

  March

  ❦

  Raft

  I smell the hay today and think of summer. I long for its warmth in this cold weather. When I was a boy, the summers seemed longer, the weather brighter. I know this is nostalgia, that the time was just as short, but the world was a bigger place then, for I was smaller.

  Every summer we would build a raft and set sail in the Camlin River, which is the main waterway through the county. Our neighbors the Lees would accompany us. We would take a loading pallet and affix four plastic barrels to its underside. Then we’d wheel it down the lane atop my brother’s skateboard and carry it across the road and down through Mickey Doherty’s fields to the river bend.

  We were all of nine and eleven and the work took time. When the raft was floated into the river, we took turns steering it. We would jump from it, fish from the riverbank for trout, and in the evenings fry up sausages.

  Mam often came to sit by the bank on hot evenings and soak her feet. She joyed to see us so free and young. We are all of us grown men now; the Lees are emigrants and live in Australia and in the North. The children do not build rafts around here anymore, and Doherty, who was a grandfather to us all, is dead. All things change, even the weather, which we blame now on climate change. But the river flows still and the trout now swim uncaught. I return there from time to time to sit and think. It is a beautiful place. One day maybe the next generation shall sail from there again, down the rapids to Kilnacarrow Bridge, and steal plums from Trappe’s trees.

  Inspection

  There is a big clean on this morning, for the food-quality people are coming. It is a new scheme from Bord Bia, the Irish Food Board, to ensure that all meat in the Irish market can be traced to its source. Mam has pointed out that the yard needs tidying, and so I have begun to clear the scrap steel and metal that my brother has left here from various building jobs. I neatly stack and pile it upon wooden pallets and move it out of the yard. When the yard is cleared, I put fresh disinfectant in the footbath. It has been fifteen years since the last outbreak of foot and mouth occurred, but I still
remember the disinfectant at school and the dipping of our feet. The country treated the disease most seriously, for it was highly contagious and could wipe out entire herds. We had seen the damage it had wrought in the UK. We had seen the pyres of burning cattle corpses and did not want this to happen to our animals. In the end, nearly 300,000 cows were slaughtered in Britain; there was but one case in Ireland. We are still careful to this day.

  Da is inside preparing files and medicine bottles, for we must be up-to-date on the paperwork. The buzzword now is “agribusiness,” for each farm has become a producing unit, and we the farmers, the custodians of the land, are now manufacturers, or growers. We have become a cog in the wheel of industry.

  Da is not so fussed about the inspection. It will not affect the grants we receive, but, as he says himself, it would be nice to get the stamp of approval, for it might soon be mandatory.

  Farming in Europe is subsidized by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy, which emerged in the 1950s, following a period of food shortages during World War II. Under the policy, EU farmers receive subsidies to farm and produce food for the greater population. Over time, this scheme has evolved to include trade control and Europe-wide compliance to standards such as animal welfare and environmental practice.

  It has always been a source of contention amongst the urban and more industrial nations of Europe that farming is subsidized, but as any farmer will tell you, there is not much money to be made in this profession. The subsidies take the form of the Single Farm Payment now. It is a strictly controlled system, and without it many smaller farms would be finished.

  There are some who argue that these subsidies prevent agriculture in Europe from modernizing, but I do not believe that most Europeans want American-style or corporate farming. People want to know that their food was grown by a farming family in a particular place. I know that the Irish would not opt for big business to run their farms, for the idea of local ownership of our land runs deep in our culture, perhaps as a result of colonialism or the Great Famine, and I think our French and Spanish farming brothers and sisters feel the same way. Our food is better in our own hands.