A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess

by Amanda Owen

  So one year I confiscated her eggs, put them under a broody hen, used a heat lamp after they hatched and soon had a whole chorus of peafowl squawking around the farmyard. It wasn’t the charming picture I had envisaged. They became predatory, stalking me when I carried a teatray to the picnic tables, and hanging around the kitchen door hoping for leftover toast from the children’s breakfasts. One day they ventured inside to peck at the crumbs when the wind blew through the house, the back door slammed shut and the six of them were trapped inside. Panic ensued as they flew at the closed kitchen window, knocking over a vase and some cups to the floor, losing a few of their feathers in the chaos. What a mess: smashed crockery interspersed with bird droppings.

  That was it, they had to go. Luckily, Geoff was happy to rehome them on his smallholding, and that was the end of our peafowl breeding programme. Sadly, Mrs Peahen died a few months ago, and Mr Peacock went into mourning for some time. Once he finally accepted that she had gone, he switched his amorous attentions to the hens. He’d strut his stuff, then try to corner one on the packhorse bridge, blocking its way by fanning his enormous tail feathers. In a moment of madness I asked Geoff to keep a lookout for a new mate for him, so the hens may be off the hook soon.

  One day Clive and I were loading the trailer with some fat lambs for the auction. As we ran them into the sheep pens, one of them turned round and charged headlong into the metal gate. Normally the lamb would be shocked, but would turn round and run back with the rest of the flock. But this time it dropped like a stone. We thought it had knocked itself out, but it was dead. It was unthinkable to let it go to waste, so I decided on the spot that we should butcher it.

  ‘Come on, Clive, gi’s an’ ’and to git ’im into t’barn, will yer?’

  Tying the back feet with baler twine, Clive helped me suspend the dead weight of the lamb upside down from a beam. I got out my penknife.

  ‘You’ll need a better knife than that,’ Clive commented. ‘You could ride bare-arsed t’London on that. I’m goin’ to t’auction now, so thee’s on thi own.’

  I was rather hoping that Clive would offer to do the job for me, but he didn’t, and I was determined that I would see the task through.

  You don’t realize what a skilled job butchery is until you try it.

  Skinning it wasn’t a problem: we’re good at that, as we often have to skin a dead lamb or calf to persuade the mother to adopt another one. I know how to gut rabbits, so I could do that bit. But then things got complicated. A leg is a leg, and neck end is obvious. But working out where to cut for chops was tricky. I got there eventually, but we had to be careful when we ate it, because lurking amongst the meat were quite a few splinters of bone.

  We do, occasionally, take animals directly to the abattoir. From time to time we’ll keep a lamb for ourselves, especially if the prices at the auction are not too good. Recently we took two rogue shearlings to the abattoir. They were very fat because they were forever ratchin’, which means they would jump any wall or gate, and were always trespassing in the best fields, eating the best grass. Finally they took one jump too many, out of my pickup and into the lairage, the holding area at the abattoir.

  We use a very small abattoir where we know Joe, who runs it, very well. We rear a couple of pigs every year, and he does them for us, too. I like the fact that we get everything back, neatly butchered for us. I hate waste, and I use the belly flaps, kidneys, liver to make pâté. Joe will make black puddings, sausages, whatever you like, as fancy as you like. When you eat it, you know its provenance one hundred per cent.

  Although we are a sheep farm with a small herd of our own cows, we also rear up cattle that we haven’t bred ourselves – buying them in as calves and then selling them on as ‘store cattle’ to farmers, who will fatten them up for market or breed from them. How long we keep them is dependent on the trade at the market, there’s no hard and fast rule. If year-old beasts are selling well, we’ll take them to the auction; if not, we keep them longer. The markets are volatile, prices fluctuate, and we can never predict how it will go. But one thing is certain: people will always need to eat.

  You have to be a bit careful working with young cattle, especially the bulls. Once they get to about nine months old, the sap starts rising and they can get frisky. Once they are speaned, weaned off milk, they are fed a barley and pellet mixture. In the summer they’re out in the pastures, but during the winter months they’re fed in troughs in the barn. I feed them twice a day, jumping over the cow barrier with a sack of feed. They are creatures of habit and always know when it’s time for their meal. If I’m late, they kick up a ruckus and bawl until the food arrives.

  One March morning, I was in the barn feeding the young bulls when one of them started to get a bit lively. He’d gallop up and down the barn taking big jumps, twisting and spinning round, then come to an abrupt halt next to me and try to rub his head on me. I was very wary of bending over the troughs.

  ‘I’m not ’appy goin’ in wi’ t’stirks,’ I said. ‘Yan of ’em is actin’ a bit stupid.’

  ‘’E’s just a bit full o’ ’imself,’ said Clive. ‘Just tek a stick wi’ thi.’

  So I carried on feeding them, day after day, with one eye on the antics of the cavorting young bull. One morning I noticed a wet, muddy patch around the water trough, which had clearly sprung a leak.

  ‘There’s an ’ole in t’watter trough,’ I told Clive. ‘Needs lookin’ at.’

  ‘I’ll sort it,’ Clive said.

  I went into the adjoining barn to fill a barrow with straw, while he went to the tool shed to find all he needed: a small nut and bolt, a couple of home-made rubber washers crafted from an old inner tube, and an adjustable spanner. Plus Raven, his unwilling plumber’s mate. They went to the far end of the barn, where the trough was. The metal at the bottom had rusted and become paper-thin, and there was a small pinprick of a hole which, if not sorted, would only get bigger. Clive rolled his sleeves up and was peering into the icy water whilst Raven, distracted, was gazing at the peacock perched in the rafters above. The stirks, having finished their food, were watching with interest. The lively one was getting closer than the others, intermittently licking the back of Clive’s jacket, for which he got the occasional tap on the nose.

  ‘Bloody ’ell! Ah’ve dropped mi flamin’ washer into t’bottom of t’trough. Mi ’and’s so cold I think it’s gonna drop off,’ said Clive, as he fished around in the icy water. ‘Ga’ an’ git me another bit of t’inner tube, Rav. ’Urry up and stop gawpin’.’

  Off she went, leaving Clive scrabbling about in the water.

  I heard the noise from the other side of the yard. It was a mixture of hoots of wild laughter from Raven, some serious swearing from Clive and a strangulated mooing noise. I ran round the corner to see Raven doubled up, laughing so much that tears ran down her face. Clive was also doubled up, his hair and face wet. It seemed that Clive had taken a dunking in the water trough when the bull mounted him.

  ‘By ’ell, I din’t see that one comin’,’ he gasped.

  ‘I told yer so,’ I said, trying not to sound smug.

  The next day the vet was called, and the bull became a bullock.

  Sheepdogs are an important part of our lives. Because our ground is so rough and steep in places, we aren’t heavily mechanized: the quad bike is the most useful bit of kit we have. But still much of our land is inaccessible except on foot, so we are a ‘dog and stick’ kind of farm, and we’ve had some top-notch sheepdogs over the years. Working dogs tend not to live as long as family pets, but they do have a more natural and down-to-earth type of life, out working on the moors and in the fields every day, come rain or shine, then sleeping in a straw-filled box in a kennel in the barn. They are not pampered but loved, cared for and respected, because without them our job would be impossible. A sheepdog will share the good times and the bad with unwavering loyalty. Some are better than others, and some that we acquire just don’t make the grade.

  One day I was chattin
g to Alec, who is an expert trainer of sheepdogs. He was about to set off to the sheepdog sales at Skipton. It was a big event, where he would meet up with other members of the dog-running fraternity. There would be between fifty and a hundred sheepdogs there: some fully trained and broken, some partly broken, and pups up for sale. Broken dogs would be run on a small flock of sheep immediately before their sale, so potential buyers could see them in action. Then the auctioneer, standing on a makeshift rostrum, would set off the bidding. Before Alec left I made a casual remark.

  ‘If thoo ever sees a dog that looks like mi job, would ta buy it for mi?’

  Unwittingly I’d just set him another challenge. He rang up a few hours later. ‘I’ve bought thee a dog . . .’ he shouted, still getting used to the idea of a mobile phone.

  I hadn’t expected him to find my perfect dog so quickly, and started to worry, as I knew that the highest price ever paid for a sheepdog had been at the Skipton sale. That dog had made five thousand guineas. Alec didn’t reassure me when he boomed down the phone, ‘Tha’s gonna ’ave to sell a few cream teas to pay for this ’un.’

  ‘Alec, yer ’aven’t brokken t’record sale price, ’ave yer?’

  ‘I just saw t’perfect dog for thi so I kept flappin’ mi ’and. I tell’t ’em to book it down to thee.’ I winced.

  ‘Just tell me about it when yer get yam, Alec,’ I said, fearing the worst.

  He arrived with Kate, who was eighteen months old and fully trained. A little green, perhaps, but she was good, very keen. What she needed was work, lots of it, to bring her on. A year at Ravenseat has brought her on enormously, and Clive’s very impressed with her, but she is my dog. People have commented that they even see similarities in our personalities, Kate being a full-on action dog, sometimes even referred to as a bit of an airhead . . . But the price? Three thousand guineas. A lot of cream teas, for sure. But what is a shepherdess without a dog? If she turns out as good as we think, she’ll be more than worth it.

  In sheepdog trials, it is an absolute no-no for a dog to have contact with sheep, but in real life, as a working dog on a farm, they sometimes do. My first sheepdog, Deefa, was not by any stretch of the imagination the greatest gatherer of sheep; her speciality was catching them. When I’d failed in every other attempt to get hold of the yow or lamb I needed, I’d yell ‘Catch it!’ at Deefa, increasing the volume of the command until she’d separated the sheep from the flock, knocked it off balance and pinned it to the ground, never harming it, until I caught up. I would lavish her with praise, and she’d do laps of honour round the field in sheer delight. Bill, Clive’s dog, won’t harm sheep either. He’ll snap and lunge at those that refuse to move, sometimes grabbing at the wool; but he never bites or punctures the skin.

  Bill is very hard, a man’s dog. In many ways he’s uncouth: he’ll wait until there are visitors then he’ll scratch himself, fart, and for some reason he loves to poop on the highest thing around – including, on one occasion, on top of one of the picnic benches. Luckily there were no visitors there eating cream teas at the time. He likes playing dog skittles: he runs around other dogs in ever decreasing circles, then comes at them at full tilt, knocking them off their paws. Kate is wise to this, and lies down whenever she sees him approaching. Pippen and Chalky also roll over when he comes at them, but our third sheepdog Fan never learns, and gets taken out every time.

  Bill’s powerful, not just in his build but in his eye, his personality, his determination. And he’s clever. There are two sides to his character. With Clive he’s really butch, always runs alongside the quad, responds instantly to Clive’s commands. With me he is more relaxed, doing things he would never do with Clive, like riding in the footwell of the quad, putting his head on my knee for a stroke and giving me an idiotic sort of dog smile. He even rolls on his back for a belly scratch. The only time he rolls when Clive is around is if he’s found some fox poo, or the rotting corpse of a small dead animal. He doesn’t prefer me: he’s definitely Clive’s dog. But he knows I’m different, and he’s not stupid: he knows if he is gentle round me and the children, it will get him further in life. With us he is a big, slightly whiffy ball of gentleness. When little Annas was eleven months old she was with the other children playing down by the river. We’d all been holding her hands and trying to get her to stand up, but it was only when she put her arms around Bill’s neck that she pulled herself up, and took her first steps alongside him.

  When it comes to handling sheep, Bill knows what you want him to do even before you have time to tell him. It can be a problem when he makes assumptions. He knows the lie of the land, which way the sheep run and where the gates are, so if you want him to do something a little different from normal you end up battling to persuade him you really mean what you are saying. He will set off on an outrun around the sheep, but will keep glancing over his shoulder, looking back with questioning eyes as if to say, ‘are you sure you want to do it like this? This is not how we usually do it.’

  Our working bearded collie, Fan, is mine. She’ll never be a top work dog – she’s far too timid to make the grade – but she has a good, kind temperament. She comes to feed the sheep with me in winter, but she does not have the inclination or power to be a good moor dog. She’s quite lethargic and laid-back, and there are times when you need speed. She is the opposite of Kate, who is rather more gung-ho and has to be encouraged to ‘take time’. Dogs, like people, are individuals, and for a shepherd the relationship does not always run smoothly, but over the years we’ve had some really special dogs.

  Clive’s very first dog was one that still holds a really special place in his heart, for sad reasons. She was called Nellie, and she was given to him when he was seventeen by Ebby (Edward Metcalfe), the farmer and dog trainer who was Clive’s mentor.

  ‘Look after thi dog, yan day it’ll mek a good ’un,’ he told Clive.

  Sure enough, she was a lovely dog: loyal, devoted and exceptionally clever. Clive was living at home, and every morning when he got up the dog would be lying on top of his old white Cortina to make sure he didn’t go off to work without her. He even took her on dates with girls.

  ‘She nivver cramped mi style, quite the opposite, they allus took to ’er. It worked a treat . . .’ he’d tell me, smiling.

  Clive dreamed of one day being a farmer himself, so in order to raise the capital he needed he worked as a builder for a while – and Nellie went with him, pottering around the building site all day and sharing the sandwiches from his bait box. When he was working on a site only a couple of miles from home, Clive used to run there, and Nellie ran with him.

  He was only nineteen, working hard and playing hard. Friday nights were about parties, the pub and girls. At that age, you don’t always think things through. When work finished one Friday afternoon, Nell wasn’t there. Clive looked everywhere: it was odd, because she never wandered. He set off home, hoping she might be there. She wasn’t, so he jumped in the car and set off back to the building site. He found her body on the road: she’d been knocked down crossing a road, on her way back home. She knew where she was going: she was trying to get back to him.

  He gathered her up, putting her on the front seat, where she had always travelled, and took her home. He was heartbroken. He couldn’t even bear to dig her grave: his brother Malcolm buried her. Clive says, ‘I was very lucky to have her as my first dog. Some fellas spend a lifetime and nivver ’ave a dog like her. If yer first dog isn’t a good ’un, you could lose heart and mebbe spend the rest of your life doing summat else, like building. But Nell was so good, she was a big influence on whether I carried on with sheep, she got me going. I learned a very hard lesson that day.’

  The stories of my dogs, Deefa and Red, and of Clive’s dog Roy, are told in my first book. When I moved in, Clive was worried whether I would be acceptable in Roy’s eyes. Roy, rather like Bill, had two sides to his personality, and could occasionally take a great dislike to somebody. Luckily I was deemed acceptable in Roy’s eyes: who knows what w
ould have happened otherwise?

  Sheepdogs come in all shapes and sizes. We prefer a smoother-coated dog, because when they’ve been working on the hills their coats dry much quicker, which we think means they are less prone to rheumatism as they get older. A dog with a huge, woolly coat can still be damp the next morning. The tail should be carried low and straight, as this gives the dog good balance. If you see a sheepdog with its tail stuck up in the air, chances are it will be a muppet. Clive says he likes his dogs like his women, ‘On a longish leg, and fast.’

  I say I like my dogs like my men, ‘Devoted, athletic and dependable.’

  Dogs command more respect from sheep if they are darker-coloured, as sheep sometimes chase a light-coloured dog, probably mistaking it for another sheep or a lamb. Deefa was lighter, and occasionally she had this problem, but overall she worked very well, and Clive came to respect her.

  After my beloved red dog, Roger Red, died, I asked Alec to look out for another red and white collie. They’re quite a rarity, and Roger had been a character who served me well, so I thought another red one would fill the gap he left. I had been to look at various pups that had been advertised as red and white collies, only to discover that they were more of a brindled or roaned colour.

  Alec eventually found me a lovely pup I named Red, in honour of his predecessor. He grew to be a very handsome dog, big and beautifully marked, with a sleek, shiny coat. He was unswervingly loyal, would go everywhere with me, do anything for me. Well, almost anything. There was one thing he wouldn’t do: he wouldn’t chase sheep. He wasn’t frightened of them, but there was no way he would run after them. I tried unsuccessfully to get him interested, chasing amongst the sheep myself with him and even bringing the other sheepdogs down to the dog training field to provide encouragement. Surely he’d want to join in? No, he just stood beside me, surveying the scene, wearing an aloof expression.