Down the deep lanes

The farming project has hit a hurdle, in this case what appears to be a global shortage of hurdles. There are apparently no metal gates with sheeting to be found anywhere in the United Kingdom for at least another three months. No one knows why, though I suspect the number of crush barriers evident at the London Marathon has a role to play.

Luckily, stoicism comes with the job and I have, in any case, rapidly adjusted to the peculiar demands of"farmer time." This is where any job carried out by a contractor, supplier, neighbour or friend takes a minimum of 6 months from the first approach and filters down as far as adding an extra hour to an agreed meeting time at the pub. Everyone understands the system as farmers are not really constrained by deadlines, as such, but rather the cycle of the seasons; if it is suddenly sunny and settled you cut the hay rather than disappear to a dinner party agreed three months in advance. On the other hand, it is never wise to lend money to people who think in terms of seasonal solstices, which also rules out Druids and warlocks of all kinds. 

The delay is frustrating enough to make me wonder whether I couldn't galvanize a load of steel myself in one of the old sheds. My neighbour tells is that all you need is an acid bath and a load of molten nickel so it can't really be that difficult. The gates are vital because cattle now need penning for regular TB testing and the only way to pursuade a 450 kg heffer to cooperate is to herd it into a crush and lock it tight with a yoke. The other method, which I had to learn at Bicton college, is to subdue a cow by sticking your fingers in its nose and locking its head back tight. In theory it won't go anywhere, and neither would you if a burly farmer stuck his fingers in your nose. Anyway, no gates means no cows for now. So I am instead going to Italy to see the family. 

I did have an interesting trip to see a cattle crush in North Devon. Unfortunately it was too small for my chosen animals, but it was a fascinating trip into James Ravilious country. North Devon is defined as North of the A30 corridor and boy doesn't it take a long time to get there. The total remoteness of the area has conspired to preserve the last of the small tenanted farms in Devon from an invasion of pony paddocks and commuters. North Devon villages are the last place to see proper tumbledown barns and acres and acres of corrugated iron roofs in their full rusting glory. It is rather like the Devon I remember from my childhood when a decent cottage in Ashton cost £10,000. Anyway, James Ravilious, son of the artist Eric Ravilious, documented the lives of North Devon folk as part of the Beaford archive. This is well worth checking out as one of the great social documentary experiments in modern Britain. Ravilious took over 60,000 photos as part of his effort to capture the landscape and nothing better defines a labour of love.