by Sally Urwin
I’m not making that decision today though. Scabby follows me around while I do my other jobs, and as I leave she’s sitting in deep straw, contentedly chewing her cud.
Friday 15th December
I’ve bought some very sharp foot-trimming shears this week, just in time for our next feet session on the fat lambs.
Since we’ve brought them inside, quite a few of them are limping, and it looks like they have foot scald or foot rot.
This is very common, but harder to treat than you think. Sheep need regular feet trimming as the deep cleft in their divided hooves provide a perfect place for bacteria to grow. Feet scald develops when bacteria is trapped and starts a painful infection.
I’ll have to cut away all the excess horn on the foot and expose the infection to the air before spraying it with antibiotic foot spray and giving each affected lamb 10 ml of penicillin.
Foot rot smells disgusting, like a mixture of rotting cabbage, dead bodies and sewage. It lingers on your hands for days, even though I scrub them repeatedly afterwards.
I catch each limping lamb and tip them over onto their hindquarters so they can’t struggle and I can reach their feet. It’s quite an art, as they kick and flail when I balance them on their haunches. Steve catches and tips his sheep in one fluid movement, while it often takes me two or three times to properly position each animal. I tip one little lamb and she immediately slumps to one side, as if asleep. I wish all of them did this, as it would make the trimming so much easier.
Some of the worst-affected animals absolutely stink and their feet are hot to the touch. Clipping their hooves often means I pierce a pus pocket, and stinking yellow matter bursts onto the leg and drips down into the straw, while I almost keel over with the smell.
Official guidance says that badly affected animals should be culled, and feet trimming should only be done once or twice a year. In an ideal world that sounds like a great idea, but for a smaller farm like ours it’s not really practical. If we culled each animal that had foot rot we’d be left with about twelve sheep!
The worst-affected lambs are the ones we bought in the Mart in September. They haven’t yet managed to build up the correct antibodies to the bacteria that live on our farm, so they suffer more with foot rot than our existing flock.
On one or two animals, the entire hoof peels off, accompanied by a fountain of pus and blood. Strangely it doesn’t seem to hurt them, and after soaking their feet in antibiotic spray, injecting long-acting antibiotics in their bum and pushing them through the foot bath, the lambs hobble back into the shed fairly happily.
My new shears are doing their job brilliantly, although I have a few near misses when a sheep kicks and I almost take out my own eye. I have to bend right over to see the hoof, which means that one wrong move and I could stab myself in the face. It’s a filthy, smelly job, and after going through the entire flock with Steve we strip off our trousers and coats outside the house, so the smell doesn’t permeate through the entire building. I’m pleased that I’ve been useful, but I can’t help noticing that Steve manages to trim two to three animals to every lamb that I treat. My back is hurting as well, from lifting the heavy sheep and tipping them over. Being little is an advantage though, as it means I have less of a distance to bend than a six-foot farmer.
Saturday 16th December
Steve staggers into the house waving a bloody hand and making incoherent ‘oof, oof!’ noises. He’s managed to crush his thumb and it’s a mix of jagged nail and bloody pulp. He’s a strange green colour, and as I start to look at his hand he suddenly goes very pale and slumps over onto the floor.
Shit.
He’s too heavy for me to move so I drag him into a sitting position. Steve has a history of fainting when he sees blood. It’s a bit embarrassing for a farmer. He’s fine with someone else’s blood, but if it’s his, or even mine, he goes all woozy.
I examine his thumb. He’s crushed the tip and the nail has come away. He comes round and, ignoring his shouts of ‘I don’t want to go to the hospital!’, I haul him into my car and drag him to the Emergency Care department at Hexham Hospital.
They greet him like old friends. In his life, Steve has split open his scalp twice, almost cut off his fingers a few times, gouged a hole in his leg and run over and broken his foot.
Farming is a dangerous business. We all work on our own, and deal with heavy machinery or large animals, and tiredness or inattention can cost someone their life.
We all know the horror stories: getting stuck in potato harvesters, or sucked into combines, or mangled by headers, or trapped under quads, or run over by tractors or the plough, or falling into slurry pits, or knocked down by a reversing loader, or crushed by rampaging cows, or falling off the top of straw stacks, or crashing through unstable shed roofs.
Steve has scraped together some cash to buy himself an insurance package. It’s not a very cheery subject, but if he’s badly injured, or god forbid, even killed, then there’s no work payout or sickness package to fall back on. So each month he pays (quite a large) amount to ensure that if he did end up with one leg or no arm, he could still keep us all from the workhouse.
The full story emerges. He was hitching up the tractor to the plough when the bar got stuck. He got out of the tractor cab to have a look, and in a moment of stupidity tried to move it himself. Of course, the bar slipped and landed squarely on his thumb. Cue blood and bits of nail everywhere.
The nurses listen sympathetically, then stitch him up, update his tetanus injection, wrap his hand in a bandage and send us home.
We know a lot of farmers who have married nurses. Maybe they spend so much time in the local A&E departments that it gives them time to start chatting up the staff.
Back at home Steve promptly strips off the bandage and goes out to rehitch the plough, while I shout instructions at him to sit down and rest. He tells me he hasn’t got time to be ill. He’s continued working when he had pleurisy and stomach ulcers. God knows what it would take for him to stay at home.
Monday 18th December
It’s the week before Christmas. Steve has bought a beautiful six-foot Christmas tree from the sawmill in Hexham and sets it up in pride of place in our lounge. It looks fabulous, and it’s lovely to have a proper tree.
But when I look closely, I realise that he’s used an old sheep lick bucket filled with sand as the tree base. It’s still got traces of old lick crusted around the side. I could make him wrap it in tinsel but instead decide to live with it. No one mentions the fact that our Christmas presents under the tree are around a bucket proclaiming ‘Crystalyx Hi-Mag Molasses are No.1 for Sheep’.
Wednesday 20th December
In the summer I had enthusiastically bought the family tickets to a special ‘Christmas Evening’ at Beamish Open Air Museum. Today is the day – and the evening promises all things festive: Father Christmas; snowy tram rides; brass bands and carol singers; and a proper Victorian travelling fair. It sounds wonderful, and it will be such a treat for Lucy and Ben, as Christmas, sparkly fairy lights and feeling all cosy are at the top of their list of favourites.
When we arrive, the car’s thermometer is showing an outside temperature of –5°C. However, being farmers, we’ve come fully prepared for the weather, and are dressed in a multitude of padded anoraks and fleece jumpers. In about five layers each, we waddle off to see Santa.
Santa has a fabulous Geordie accent, is seated in front of a roaring coal fire, and has a herd of real reindeer surrounding his grotto. He’s everything I’d hoped for. After the kids have faithfully promised him that they will tidy their rooms and stop hitting each other in return for a Christmas delivery of a hamster and a kitten, we wander outside to sample a stall full of cinder toffee and roasting chestnuts. By this time it’s seriously cold, and when I arrive in the Edwardian Village I’m scuttling between shops trying to keep warm.
After the village the kids beg to go to the Travelling Fair.
‘Maybe we should go to the coffee shop i
nstead?’ I say weakly.
But Lucy and Ben have been looking forward all day to the fair, and we’re going to go, no matter if County Durham is the same temperature as the Arctic Circle.
By the time we’ve walked there it feels about –20°C, and I zip up my anorak to the tip of my eyebrows and pull my earmuffs right down over my ears to feel less frozen. I can’t feel my feet and my hands are so cold the fingertips are tingling.
‘I think I’ve got frostbite,’ I tell Steve, who never seems to feel the cold as badly as me. ‘Rubbish!’ he says, ‘it can’t be that cold.’
There’s an old-fashioned carousel, a gypsy caravan, some side games and, thank the Lord, a person in a ‘Victorian urchin’ costume selling cups of tea. I clutch mine and huff deeply at the warm steam, trying to defrost the tip of my nose. After paying a small fortune for the kids to have a go on all the sideshow games, everyone decides they want to ride the carousel as well.
The children and Steve choose their animals: a majestic swan, a dragon and a fairy carriage. The roundabout starts to move, so in a panic I heave myself onto the nearest wooden horse. They’re quite far off the ground, and being short I find it tricky to get on. My horse is painted sickly pink, has a stupid grin and is missing one of its hooves. Carousel horses are not the easiest things to hang on to, and so I clutch madly at the central pole while the whole ride begins to revolve.
The kids love it, and so does Steve, who, in his fairy carriage, is protected against the sub-zero Arctic wind. On my pony I’m completely exposed to the cold air, and a few minutes into the ride my top lip has frozen onto my gums in a rictus grin and my grip on the pole is beginning to slip. There doesn’t seem to be any stirrups. Surely Victorian carousel designers wouldn’t have overlooked stirrups? I have a terrible vision of me falling frozen, with a solid thump, onto the painted boards beneath and being run over by the bright orange tiger behind me.
Gripping on with frozen legs and feet, I look down and see that my horse’s name, Willie, is painted onto its neck in big pink letters. The music gets louder and seems to be a funereal steam organ version of ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’. I revolve on Willie for many long, unhappy minutes in the teeth of a freezing wind, lips pulled back in a terrifying, frigid grimace, trying to avoid the eyes of waving onlookers. Eventually the ride judders slowly to a stop and I half slide, half fall off Willie onto the icy ground.
‘You looked a bit uncomfortable there,’ comments Steve, as I cling onto his coat, trying to absorb some of his body warmth. I hunch over trying to keep my fingers from freezing, with one hand in an armpit and one in my pants. I’m convinced I’m becoming hypothermic and start to suggest everyone should walk back up the hill to the tram stop when the kids catch sight of the other ride.
‘Let’s go on the shuggy boats!’ they shout in excitement.
‘Oh god, not the shuggy boats,’ I plead.
‘Take your hands out of your pants,’ says Steve. ‘You look like you’re fiddling with yourself.’
The kids, with many happy squeaks, climb into the shuggy boat, while I lean on the fence and fantasise about forcing my way into the gypsy caravan. I bet they have central heating in there. Or one of those electric heaters that blow out hot air. Maybe if I stand in that ticket booth I’d be able to defrost? Eventually, painfully, the shuggy boat creaks to a halt and we set off back up the hill, the children with pink cheeks aglow and Steve striding out purposefully, while I bring up the rear in a kind of frozen half crouch, my feet too numb to walk properly.
I ring my mum that night and tell her about my ordeal. ‘Did you get diarrhoea?’ asks my mum. It’s a rule that members of my family are struck down by stomach problems when they get too cold. My mum calls it ‘catching a chill’, and after a winter walk, there’s always someone languishing on the sofa, clutching a hot-water bottle to their guts.
I didn’t get diarrhoea, but there were definite ominous rumbles on the way back in the tram. All the other families at the exit look happy and festive and excited with their visit. I just shuffle into the car and fart miserably, crouching over the hot-air blower with the seat heater on full blast all the way back home.
The kids spend the evening chattering on about Santa and the rides. ‘I loved it all,’ says Lucy in excitement, while Ben sits on my knee and explains how it ‘was the real Santa, Mummy. It was the absolutely real one cos I could tell by his beard.’
It was definitely worth it.
Sunday 24th December (Christmas Eve)
As a young girl I remember the shivery excitement of Christmas Eve, laying out my stocking and waking up to a satsuma in the toe, and usually a brand-new Sindy horse and Silver Brumby book.
Lucy and Ben are no different. Lucy has been promised a kitten from a half-feral litter at next-door’s farm, and Ben wants a hamster. On Christmas Eve we all go to the Christingle and crib service at Royal Church – an ancient, tiny building with walls covered in Saxon grave covers featuring the swords and shears and old crosses used to denote who is buried beneath. The interior is lit with candles and hung with holly and is utterly magical. Outside, there’s a full moon and a clear sky, and the grass is already crackling with frost.
After the service we all troop home and cuddle up round the fire, stockings, mince pie and a glass of good-quality whisky all laid out for Santa. I’ve tried to spread the cost of present-buying this year to help with our parlous finances, finding one or two little gifts each month for the kids since August. Once the children are in bed we stuff their stockings and lay out the presents. It always makes me proud to see that they both have a decent pile. However hard the year has been, we always manage to sort out a proper Christmas.
Monday 25th December (Christmas Day)
Ben wakes me up at 2.45 a.m.
‘I think I’ve just seen Santa! I saw a light in the sky and it was definitely the reindeers!’ He’s literally vibrating with excitement.
‘Go back to bed darling, it’s too early,’ I croak, and he gallops back into his bed and clutches the duvet up to his nose.
He’s back again at 6 a.m., and we stagger downstairs to watch the children rip into their pile of presents. An hour later all is open, and Steve is already knee-deep in batteries and screwdrivers, methodically constructing a laser shooting game.
Cinders the tabby kitten has arrived in a cat carrier and is in a special cat pen with a fluffy bed, litter tray, water, food and numerous crinkly cat toys. We’ve put her in the spare room and she’s tucked deep inside her bed, curled up tight and ignoring all attempts at stroking her fur. She’s a beauty, with a silvery grey coat with dark brown whorls. Her mum and dad are ferals from the farm up the road, but she seems remarkably calm and sensible. Her whiskers are almost as long as her body, and her eyes are a deep, fiery orange.
Jellybean the new hamster has arrived in a great second-hand cage I found listed in the local newspaper. His fat little body is buried deep in a pile of shavings. He’s a lovely, dusty yellow with a pink nose, surprisingly large yellow teeth and a black fuzzy spot on his bum.
But farming doesn’t stop on high days and holidays, and after admiring the new additions to the household, everyone rams on coats, hats and gloves, and goes out to feed the animals. Steve and I are holding our breath. It’s passed into family lore that on Christmas Day – or Easter Day, or a bank holiday – there will be something the matter with one of our flock. They seem to take great delight in getting ill or dying on a day when everyone else in the country is lying in bed, eating Quality Street and watching telly.
Today is no different. There’s a ewe with her head stuck through the fence at the bottom of the field. The kids, Steve and I bounce over the frosty grass on the quad and with frozen hands carefully work her head out from the wire strands. She doesn’t seem to be any worse for her ordeal, and trots smartly away with a few bald patches around her neck.
Then, after feeding all the animals, bedding up with clean straw and smashing the ice in the water troughs, we can go back to the house and
Christmas Day starts properly – with hot chocolate and a huge bacon sandwich.
Tuesday 26th December (Boxing Day)
I thought about taking Candy to the traditional Boxing Day hunt but realised I would have to spend most of Christmas Day washing her to try and get the ingrained dirt out of her thick coat. And then I would have had to keep her clean overnight with some kind of home-made sheet, as I haven’t got a rug to go around her stomach.
Instead, we pile down to Corbridge to watch the traditional Hunt Meet, to pet the hounds and stroke the horses. It’s a cold, clear day and the horses’ hooves ring out on the tarmac in front of the village Market Cross. Everyone is in tweeds and woolly hats, drinking hot mulled wine and eating sausage rolls.
Back home there’s more feeding and bedding up. We use the tractor to distribute huge bales of hay to the sheep outside. The grass has literally no feed value at this time of year, so the ewes crowd round when we unwrap the bales. It has the most fantastic smell – part fresh grass, part floral/fruit smell, with a hint of bananas. Almost good enough to eat ourselves.
Sunday 31st December (New Year’s Eve)
I am not a fan of New Year’s Eve. I can never keep my eyes open until midnight, and often fail to see the new year in altogether. Steve talks wistfully of country parties when local farmers would pile into cars (no drink-driving laws then) and steam off to others’ houses to go ‘first footing’. This involved a dark-haired man being pushed out the back door with an orange and a piece of coal. He would then knock, and amid much hilarity, the plastered partygoers would let him in and everyone would get back to the serious business of drinking. It was supposed to ensure the houseowner and their family enjoyed prosperity in the next year. Sometimes these parties went on until first light, so I can imagine that feeding animals and mucking out must have been hard work with a hangover.