Farewell

On my penultimate livestock day i was told id be working with poultry, i wasn't best pleased as id been excited for the day as it was the last one with my livestock buddy and we had planned to have a bit of fun and play with the piglets. But in the end it worked out well and i managed to do everything and im pleased i had some experience with the chickens as i hadn't up until that point and i did want to work on all aspects of the farm. The day i was working we had to move 200 chickens from one area to another and so we set about catching them, well actually Csilla, the poultry pro intern, caught them and them handed them to me and i carried them to the hutch for transporting, she was passing me about 4 or 5 at a time and they weren't that small so it was difficult to keep them from flapping away, some of them were quite flexible too and were straining upwards to try to peck at my fingers. We seemed to be cramming quite a few into one hutch so we stopped and moved them, unfortunately on the short journey one of the chickens didn't make it, we think it had suffocated, it was amazing for me to think that the amount of chickens we had in the hutch for just a very short time is the usual amount for the that sort of space for battery hens where they spend all their time, its just such an awful existence. I think that if they are going to have quite a short life they may as well get to enjoy that time, and our chickens generally do, they have so much space to roam and do as please for much of the time. I also had to help clean out one of the roosting sheds which id been told wasn't a nice job as it smells like ammonia. I was given a set of white overalls and a face mask to keep the dirt (and lice apparently) off me and the smell from getting up my nose but once i got in there and started mucking out it was too hot to keep the mask on and when i took it off i realised that it didn't smell at all so i must have got a good one, lucky me! We were also collecting eggs as we went along and had to remove the hens from each little box to get them which most of them didn't seem to mind and didn't even flap when i reached in, one of the chickens laid an egg in the poultry guys' hand and he passed it to me, it was still warm so it sort of felt like a fresh boiled egg and it was perfectly clean.

On the last three days that i spent at the farm 3 sows farrowed each producing more than 10 piglets, im really starting to worry about how many pigs are on the farm and the amount of pork that is coming back that they just can't sell. The farmer is reluctant to sell the meat elsewhere and so it all just comes back to the farm and a lot of it is kept in freezers which are becoming increasingly full. Most of the piglets were fine but there was one runt in a litter that a had a cut so deep you could see its jaw bone and i found a very little dead one in a growers pen that the growers were trying to eat so i removed it. Pigs seems to like to take themselves away from the group to die.

I did on the whole really enjoy my time at the farm, there were definate ups and downs but it was a very unique experience and im so glad that i was able to do it. I would have liked do some work in the horticulture department as that seemed to be very well organised and there was always something new going on but i was there for a limited time and was already doing quite a few different things.

I enjoyed my livestock best of all as it was so unlike anything i had done before or what i ever imagined i might end up doing and yet it was so interesting and fun and challenging. I never got over my fear of the bigger animals but i did work with them when i had to and tried not to chicken out of certain tasks.

I will miss the interns so much as they were such a lovely bunch of people and there was a community spirit that made even the hardest days bearable, it was the kind of atmosphere id hoped for whilst assuming it could never actually be like that, i was really taken back by the kindness and good humour of every single one of the interns.

Thanks for reading

K

Last week

Im entering my last week here at the farm. Im looking forward to leaving but also sad, there are a lot of things i will miss. I think i will miss the other interns the most as its such an intense experience and i am with the same group for so much of my time it will be strange to go from that to not seeing them at all, and its not as if i get sick of being with everyone all the time i absolutely love the group. I will also miss the evenings when the public have left and we have had dinner and things are calming down, the sun is setting and the animals are chatting away, its a very peaceful time.

However i am looking forward to sleeping in a better bed and having a bit more choice about what i eat and at what time and perhaps not working quite so hard and not having to deal with farm politics. I think this is the right time to leave.

Its my last day in the kitchen tomorrow which im happy about as i don't like being in there on a sunday as it can get manic especially when the weather is nice and we seem to run out of everything. I don't think my skills lie in cooking to order as i like to plan things but i seem to be doing ok and the head chef offered me a job for the summer, i turned it down though as i really don't want to be stuck in the hot kitchen all summer.

I had a livestock day today so ive been in a good mood even though me and the woman i was doing it with were really tired and hungover as we had been out in stevenage last night ( i hadn't had a proper night out whilst staying here so a few of us decided it was time to leave the farm and had a night out joining various royal wedding revellers n.b stevenage is not the place for night out unless you are desperate). I think being outside was probably best for both of us. I decided im not allowed to think about tagging pigs anymore as every time i do and i think to myself im pleased i don't have to do that again i end up having to do it that very same day! and so today was pig tagging day, i was for once the one who got into the pen to catch the piglets which was easier than expected as you just have to grab a leg, much easier than getting the bigger ones. We also moved a lot of pigs as there has been some new pens erected so that the pigs can graze on grass and the old pens will be seeded, there seem to be an awful lot of pigs and we have a lot of pork that we don't sell, i think there are too many and it doesn't seem to be bringing in much income as it costs so much to feed them. Not sure if management will listen though if we pitch to them the idea of reducing the number of pigs.

I will try and write more in the week, cheers, K

Its Ardeley perfect but its Waygood

i really should stop leaving it so long between each post as a lot happens and i think i might forget some of it. Also so much happens in such a short spance of time here its hard to keep track and especially to keep a record.

The orphan lambs are growing so quickly and some of them are starting to gamble which is really sweet. The one ewe of the field who has one lamb seems to have adopted or is at least tolerating the company of the other black lambs. Ive found out that black lambs are quite a bit more skittish than white ones, they don't like you to get too close and are way more protective of their lambs. Many of the ewes are out of the lambing field and in the field where they are left almost alone to raise their lambs, except when we go to check on them and on a couple occasions to try to chase them out of the horticulture areas which they seem to be munching their way through.

Psycho pig has farrowed so there are now lots of mini pyschos, at the moment because they are only a few days old they are still incredibly cute, but if they are anything like their mother they won't stay that way for long.

The days are getting longer and we seem to be getting more jobs to do in the time, there isn't very much time to relax and especially if you start at 7am and are doing the dinner shift, or the night feed of the lambs, the working day doesn't end til about 8pm. by which time most people are tired we can't even be bothered to gather ourselves to watch a film. There seems to be something different about Fridays though and even though most of us are working the next day, we usually will go to the pub or have a few drinks, as if pretending that the working week is over and we can now relax.

A few of us decided to go on a jolly to a neighbouring village last night as there was a band playing in the pub and its always good to leave the farm. One of the members of the group knew about a shorter route so we followed her, into a field of horses. As i am with most animals, im scared of horses so i was immediately a bit worried, but she said it should be fine, she has some horses herself so i presumed she was right, once we were about half way into the field, the horses started to get a bit curious and they all galloped around us and came towards us, so the person in the group that knows horses instructed us all to stand close to the tree and hold our hands out so the horses sould 'sniff  and chew' us and see we were harmless, i didn't liek the sound of this but did as i was told. This process took forever as each of the horses, and there were 9 in total, gave us all a good sniff and some of them came back for more. A few of  us were so terrified our breaths were shakey and we were trying to stay calm as apparently our behaviour was very important as they could sense we were nervous. At one point one of the horses heads was so close to mine and it bent its neck down as if it was then going to swing back and hit me in the head so i took a step back and and turned round and had another two horses right in my face, there was nowhere to go so i just had to stand there tentatively stroking their heads until they walked a little away and then i stood up against the barbed wire fence with most of the group wondering if i could climb it to scramble out. One of the girls was trapped against the tree with two horses holding her in whilst the rest of us were told to slowly start walking back down the field. At this point the group got broken up as two people had managed to make it quite far down the hill, the girl on the tree was still trapped and a couple people were trapped next to a tree stump with horses between them and the other people. I decided to just keep walking as i needed to get out of there and my hand was shaking so much it was turning 180 with each turn. So i overtook the horse whisperer who was whistling to distract the horses and kept walking hearing them behind me gathering speed, it took all my strength not to run as i knew if i did i was screwing all the people behind me as the horses would get angry and kick out. When i got out i heard the horses canter past and the horse whisperer instructed everyone to run so i got the gate open and everyone ran out. I decided we should all have a group hug to celebrate getting out safely. Everyone's adrenaline was pumping so much we couldn't stop laughing, we didn't make it to the village so headed to the pub next to the farm for a drink to calm our nerves. The person that was with us that knew horses said at one point it did get a bit hairy as the horses were apparently displaying aggressive behaviour, im pleased i didn't know this as the time.

I realise this is not really related to the farm but its an experience ive had whilst ive been here and i think it is worth sharing.

I only have three weeks left here now, time has gone so quickly but i think i will be ready to leave when the time comes. Certain people at the farm are startign to wonder if it is all its cracked up to be, the ethos of the farm and how it works in practice seem a bit at odds. There have been questions raised about the standards of animal welfare, though to me they seem higher than anything i have heard about or seen before, i have now had a bit of experience with livestock and i havn't yet seen treatment of animals that i think is cruel. I am slightly more critical of some of the cost saving measures that seem to have come into place which have led to less than ethical products being brought in for use in the cafe. I havn't mentioned exactly where i am, though im sure most of you know, as if i say something critical it is just an expression of how im feeling and my opinion rather than an outward attack on the farm.

I will write more soon

Piglets and Prolapses

Apologies to the 3 or 4 of you that read this, i know its been a while since the last one. I was half waiting until i had something interesting to put and then when i did i was too tired to write anything! So its probably going to be another long one.

First of all and most importantly for me we finally have some lambs! there are quite a few now, including some sets of triplets which means we also have some orphans as the mothers can't support all three. Unfortunately we have also lost a few mothers so we have more orphans, the first one we had was because the mum had a prolapse and died, he has turned out a little funny his head is always cocked to one side and at first he could only walk around in circles and hardly support himself like a little bambi, we have since discovered he is blind. He is everyone's favourite lamb and is named Toni after one of the interns. There are a few of us who are bottle feeding the orphans as it has to be done at 7:30, 11:30, 3:30, 6:30 and 9:30. Its a lovely task though as they can get quite snuggly especially when they are tired and they make little baby gurgling noises. I also had a sad experience with the lambs recently when we had just checked over the lambing field to make sure all the expectant mothers were ok and then we walked past one of the pens with a mum and baby in and the farmer was desperately trying to save a new lamb, he had found it half out of the mum and it wasn't breathing, he was rubbing it with straw to try to warm it up and even giving mouth to mouth but nothing worked and he had to give up. He then handed it to me as it needed to go in a bag and had to hold it, it was quite heavy and still wet from the birth and wasn't a pleasant sight. Unfortunately that is just something that happens and you have to get on with it.

On my first real day on livestock i also had to carry a pig that had just died, we found her when she was sick when we were doing the morning feed and when we came back she had crawled into the shed and died. We had to carry her into the trailer and then later after she had been disected, lift her into a freezer, the smell was horrible and it was a disgusting sight with all the blood sloshing around and her organs showing. It was a strange introduction to livestock.

I am however very much enjoying my two days a week on livestock which i managed to negotiate. Its nice to work at a different pace and you pretty much have to go with the flow as things come up as the day goes one, animals being born, dying, escaping their pen. The pigs still scare me but im trying to be brave with them and the people i work with are really supportive and helpful. Last week we had to catch a lot of piglets so that they could be tattoed to keep track, im not very good at catching them so i was the one who held them while they were tattoed, pigs don't liek to be picked up so they squeeled a lot, and some of them left behind a nice present on my jacked and trousers because they were a bit stressed. There is one pig names pyscho because when there is food around she goes mental and chases more than the others and has been known to bite, i havn't yet plucked up the nerve to get into her pen and feed her so i think that might to be this weeks task. Apparently the trick is to pour some feed into her mouth to distract her then run to the straw where the rest of the food is spread.

Ive noticed now when i eat pork it tastes especially piggy, i think its a combination of it being particularly good meat and also i think the smell of the live pigs isn't so dissimilar to their cooked smell, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable after spending the day with them but at the same time i think thats how it should be, i came to learn more about food and farming and i am now doing exactly that.

I think that is most of the animals news i have so im going to leave it there.

This week

This week has been quite interesting and also quite hard, more emotionally than physically. There seems to be a certain amount of farm/internship politics related to managing to do what you want and working in particular areas. I have learnt that working in the cafe is something that is often given to new people often with the hope that they will take it on almost in a management capacity so that the owners can have someone that does that for free. Because i have experience working in cafes and restaurants i guess i seemed like a good fit for that but that isnt what i came here to do so a lot of this week has involved battling with the people in charge of the rota so that i can get a chance to do a variety of things while im here rather than just working in the kitchen and cafe.

Monday was a good day as i was in the store, i had been wanting to find out more about the clientele and the produce. From what i could gather they were pretty much as i had expected and fall somewhere under the yummy mummy category. Though there were also a few older locals that seemed to be regulars as they got their papers from the store. I was quite surprised to learn that most of the vegetable produce is not actually from the farm but from other ones in the area, apparently we sold everything we grew and then there are other things that we don't grow so have to buy in. To me that seemed to defeat the point of the sustainable farm especially as we were selling lemons and oranges that weren't even from the country. The meant however all comes from the farm and there is a lot of it and it looks great. There was a funny moment for me in the strore when i overheard an interaction between the butchers assistant and a customer, the butchers assistant is a very straight talking young woman from Hungary, she was trying to help a customer buying lamb, the customer was remarking on how small the cut was and the butchers assistant said very matter of factly "yes thats because it came from a very little lamb" this seemed to upset the customer a little and put her off a bit, which the butchers assistant didn't get at all. I thought it was brilliant because the woman was buying meat from the place where the animal was born and raised, i don't think she had really thought about how close she was to where it all happened, the butcher ofcourse knowing very well.

Today was also a good day as its the day i bake for the store, we made similar things to last week plus some pastry cases, i discovered im actually wuite good at making pastry which i didn't think i would be because of my ridiculously hot hands. I also got to see inside the butchery and abbatoir which was fascinating for me, i have never seen in my life such an enormous amount of meat, it seems like a very intense and aggressive environment, with people hacking away at so many dead animals. There were pigs and cows hanging in the chiller which were pretty impressive looking. The only animal that is slaughtered at the farm is the chickens and everything else is taken away. I want to know a bit more about the butchery but I find it a bit intimidating at the moment and the two guys that work in there don't speak English very well.

On the night before me day off i went to london and had a lovely evening and next day there and got to catch up with some people. It hadn't been so long since id been in civilisation so it wasn't so weird.

Ok thats all for now. X

someone bought my bread!

I think i need to start by apologising as this post isn't going to be particularly related to farm life, it is about my life here at the farm but from what ive been doing i really could be anywhere. It should get a bit more farmy in the coming weeks as i have said i want to help when its lambing time and here and that will be early April so that should be an interesting time. For the period before that i have been taken off livestock for a while until i get settled and will be mainly working in the cafe and cooking, which is really not what i thought i would be doing here but im trying to find my feet before i take on too many new things. Might not make for interesting reading though! Yesterday was a good day for me as i was in the prep kitchen in the morning and helped to bake a gingerbread, lemon and poppy seed cake and two kinds of bread, these were then sold in the shop today, i have always wanted to cook something that goes on to be sold (and not bought by friends or parents!) and it happened today so it was quite a little achievement for me. In the afternoon i worked in the cafe and was in there all day today, it is quite long hours for no money at all so a little hard to keep going at times!

I moved into my new room last night in the caravan, it is approximately the same size as a standard double bed but it feels like luxury in comparison with the couch i was on for the previous two nights and it has a working heater, all i need now is a duvet and i should be set!

For a bit of farm news, a calf was born this morning just as the interns were going out to feed the cows, apparently mum and baby were fine.The last one to be born was in October so it has been a while. It is a tad worrying though that we don't have a trained vet at the farm and during lambing season the person who will oversee everything is the man who owns the farm and im not sure how much training he has had. Anyway we will see how it goes.

Thank you for reading my blog :) i will put up some pics soon

She's a right stick in the mud

I was contemplating writing a post last night but i decided against it, what happened yesterday as quite traumatic and i guess not so much to do with the farm, not in the way that i intend this blog to go anyway. I will instead write about today. I got up at half 7 after approx 2 hours sleep and got ready or breakfast, all the interns have breakfast together at half in the cafe. I didn't really have an appetite but tried to eat something as i knew it was going to be an intensive day then. Then after signing my paperwork with the HR lady and watching a ridiculous food hygiene video i went to meet Luke, one of the interns who is experienced with livestock. We loaded up a trailer with pig feed and rode around the farm going to all the different fields where there were pigs, about 15 in all. It was quite scary for me as the pigs were hungry and excitable and as soon as they knew you had food they were noisy and chased us. At one point my welly and i got stuck in some mud and two huge sows began to jump at me and i dropped the food which only made them more excitable, i had to call out to Luke so he could come and yank me out of the mud. I was a bit flustered but carried on as i didn't want him to think i was a wimp, though i was shaking in my boots!
Luke asked if i wanted to have a go driving the trailer up a field so i gave it a go, it was hard to change gears as you have to apply a lot of force but it was reasonably simple after that, and a more comfortable seat than riding on the bit at the back! After my morning of feeding pigs i got changed and washed and helped out in the cafe after lunch, it was quite quiet so i went into the kitchen and helped glaze a ham and peel a crate of artichokes and then helped to cook the interns' dinner which was mainly veggies that were not good enough for the veg boxes and we made apple crumble for dessert with rotting apples, yum!
Im finding it all quite overwhelming and not very settled as i don't yet have a bed to sleep in but im trying to give it my best shot and wait and see a bit longer before i decide how long i will be here, it might be a relatively short lived blog! stay tuned x