January Issue 2011: Monthly Diary

Heidi’s Good Life by Heidi Berry

Heidi Berry writes about her monthly trials and tribulations as she attempts to combine a life of self sufficiency with the raising of her son, while also running a creative business. I don’t want to get 2011 off to a bad start by getting a reputation for having a fascination for all things morbid after last months article, when I murdered Linda and Graham with my own bare hands, but I’m afraid this month has a similar theme. Last spring, as a virgin farm hand on a friend’s farm, I helped deliver ten lambs into the world. This was only a small addition to the rest of the farms heard made up of lambs, hoggs, shearlings, tegs, wethers, gimmers, ewes, rams and tups! (The names define the stage that the sheep is at in its lifecycle but it gets complicated because they differ depending on where you are in the country). A female lamb is called a gimmer hogg when she reaches a year old or she has 2 adult teeth. When she’s been shorn for the first time she becomes to a gimmer shearling. When she’s had two sets of lambs she becomes a gimmer ewe. Wethers are castrated males but whether they’re wether hoggs or wether shearlings when they get big teeth and have been shorn I wouldn’t like to say! Have I lost you yet?

Anyway back to the story… six of the farms pet (bottle fed) lambs came to live with us here once they were almost fully weaned. They happily roamed our field for several months until ‘people in the know’ started commenting on their size and asking me when they would be going to market. The true test to whether they’re ready or not is to feel their bottoms! If you press your fingers gently but firmly into the fleece at the tail end of the spine you shouldn’t be able to feel bone, if you can they’re either too skinny or you’re pressing too hard. I couldn’t judge myself, I think it takes practice! My woolly flock had grown up so quickly and I had to start facing facts, these lambs weren’t going to become pets. I made enquiries about how the “system” worked and what my options were and then went back to trying not to think about it. A few more weeks passed and while I was up at the farm fetching bales I heard that my lambs brothers and sisters were going to auction the following week. I planned to go along but disaster struck that very morning, the pigs escaped and so instead I had to spend the day fixing fencing. Plan B was to skip the auction and take them straight to the slaughterhouse myself. This would be the most animal friendly option but would mean me pulling a trailer for the first time with live stock inside, not a good idea. Plan C was the easiest, I phoned the local butcher who is also my neighbour and offered him my fat lambs! The deal was struck and the following Sunday I was moving them from the main field into the little paddock ready for loading. As they were bottle fed as youngsters they were very tame and followed me around the field, not because I have any special animal attraction just that I’m the one who used to

feed them. I felt like a fraud watching their little trusting faces trotting behind me, nudging my wellies at the gate, then bleating gratefully at me from the new fresh pasture in the paddock. I didn’t cry but I was close, this was so much worse than the turkeys and I came to the conclusion that it’s all about aesthetics – lambs are cute, turkeys aren’t!

I insisted on accompanying my lambs to the slaughterhouse to make sure it was NICE enough for them and as I sat with them in the sunshine waiting for the transport to arrive I tried to justify what I was doing. My next problem was getting them from paddock, over bridge, over front lawn and into trailer without a major scene. Bob the Butcher arrived and although he didn’t say so I could tell was less than impressed with my sophisticated handling facilities (a board and old rabbit run). The lambs didn’t take to Bob, I think it was the smell of blood on his jeans, they weren’t for co-operating anyway. We both ran round the field for quite some time trying to grab a lamb, the expert caught his with ease but I had to throw myself through the air horizontally, like you see the goalies do in slow motion replays. Once my fingers were on the fleece I did not let go despite the lamb continuing to run, dragging me along behind it. We finally loaded the livestock, sorted paperwork and set off but I was exhausted, I sat panting hard and after a few minutes of being in the passenger seat I noticed that all the windows had completely steamed up on my side of the vehicle. When we arrived at the slaughterhouse I was feeling really uneasy and was so relieved not to be driving as you were expected to back your trailer up for unloading into the pens. We joined a queue of land rovers and watched the other animals happily trot down the ramps, glad to be out of their moving confinement and into thick straw pens. I found it difficult to look them in the eye as they watched me walk past, I felt a terrible sense of guilt and was tempted to open their pens and let them free.

While at the abattoir I wanted to see how the process worked, start to finish, and felt I should know exactly what was going to happen to my babies. The people there were a lovely bunch and seemed to genuinely care for the animals well being. It was a fourth generation family business and the young, immaculately dressed husband and wife team spent a lot of time showing me around and answering all my questions about the different equipment used along the production line. I didn’t actually see any killing, thank god, but now have a very good grasp of how you get lamb from bleating to eating!

Follow me on twitter or become a fan on facebook!

February Issue 2011: Monthly Diary

Heidi’s Good Life by Heidi Berry

Heidi Berry writes about her monthly trials and tribulations as she attempts to combine a life of self sufficiency with the raising of her son, while also running a creative business.

So last month I was almost a converted vegetarian after my visit to the lovely Riley’s slaughterhouse and was quite content about how the animals were treated throughout the whole process. This month I’ve reverted back to my original status for reasons that will become apparent as you read on. Being a vegetarian I hadn’t really built up much of a relationship with my lovely local Butcher “Uncle Bob” until now as the only time I’ve darkened his door is when I’ve been ordering my Christmas meat for family entertaining or when I’ve set the alarm off in the village hall and needed assistance. I now feel that Bob and I have bonded having been together throughout the traumatic experience of taking lambs to slaughter and then recently Bob giving me a lesson in Butchery. I honestly found it fascinating comparing and handling various vital organs and body parts that we’d cut or tugged from a variety of carcasses. I didn’t feel the slightest bit queasy – which is staggering with my track record! I was particularly interested to learn where all the different cuts of lamb come from and to do this I had to physically saw a lamb in half. Just as I was nearly through the rib cage the phone rang in the butchers and as I waited for Bob to take the call I was left trying to stop one half pealing onto the floor. I was praying that we didn’t have any customers come into the shop at that point as it wasn’t a position I’d have liked to explain. After that I got the chance to fling a cleaver about the place which is such good fun but very tiring as it weighed almost as much as me. I was supposed to be making lamb chops but as my aim was impaired by the weight of my weapon I was having to take several swings at each cut and created a strange looking feathered edge to the meat. I suggested Bob could charge extra for this artistic finish but from the look he gave me I think the answer was no. I’d missed my opportunity to ask if he’d take me on as his apprentice.

Because all went unusually smoothly and the lambs were despatched as planned when my crazy pigs escaped for the 6th time in as many weeks, annihilating my rabbit hutch * on route, my choice of punishment was made easy. Marj and Ethel, the pigs, were supposed to be getting the artificial insemination treatment for Christmas but the thought of receiving a spiral shaped baster full of an unmentionable substance through the post wasn’t helping to extend their life expectancy. The thought of spring piglets however was but my fence fixing skills had been tested to the limit and I could take no more. The decision was made… the pigs days were numbered! I rang around butchers trying to sell two Mangalitsa pig carcasses when they were still

running round in my field… I am so going to hell. I also had to find another slaughter house because the nice Riley people don’t do pigs, it’s another set of regulations for them apparently. Finally it was all organised and the only thing we had to do now was to catch and transport the girls. Sounds easy does it? Tuesday seemed such a long way off. You’d have thought two adults, a trailer, two huge buckets of food and 48 hours would have resulted in a successful conclusion but we failed and were forced to call for back up. It arrived on Wednesday in the form of “Pig Expert Chris” and “Cowboy Joe” and using 2 trailers, 6 metal gates, 2 bails of straw, a banana, a box of cereal, 4 sweaty adults, some bailing string, lots of swearing and 45mins later….. “Bish, Bash, Bosh” they were trailer…ised! Pulling them on the motorway was a worry for a virgin trailer tower but we did it and arrived at the abattoir pulling into a yard next to several skips containing large pink chunks where white coated workers paced about carrying dripping red knives. After backing the trailer into another gateway two guys covered in blood opened our trailer and pulled my poor pigs from their straw bed by the ears, squealing!!! It was horrendous and I would never ever do it again as long as I lived. It would have been so much kinder to the beasts to kill them at home without all the stress of catching, transporting and putting them through all that. I’m sure this isn’t the case everywhere but I’m going to investigate and will let you know! A few days later I met my pigs again in the morgue / cold store at the butchers I’d organised to do the dissection. I could have got very emotional but put on a brave face and watched Nigel (my other new butcher chum) expertly making all sorts of fine fare from the slabs of flesh. I’ll end on a positive note and finish with the finale of the sausage making… this I really enjoyed. I was allowed to have a go at filling the skins, which I’d always fancied doing and am now an expert linker after spending 2 hours transfixed in a sausage linking frenzy at 2 degrees below freezing!
(* no rabbits were hurt during the writing of this article)

Follow me on twitter or become a fan on facebook!

March Issue 2011: Monthly Diary

Heidi’s Good Life by Heidi Berry

Heidi Berry writes about her monthly trials and tribulations as she attempts to combine a life of self sufficiency with the raising of her son, while also running a creative business.

As I sit quietly tapping away at my keyboard in the studio, Peter the goat bleats to me from his shelter. He’s staying under cover because it’s a wet miserable day and he’s calling to me because he’s feeling lonely! Sadly two weeks ago Elvis the goat, Peter’s partner in crime, collapsed in the field. Named Elvis because of the huge quiff he sported when he was born and being a bit of a Costello fan myself I couldn’t resist. We’d noticed that morning he was a little slow at coming out for his breakfast, being the oldest he was at the top of the hierarchical tree and bullied the others if they ate before him but not that morning. He did venture out eventually for a nibble so we continued with our day just putting it down to being a cold winter’s morning. As we returned from a family walk after lunch we saw the other 2 goats standing oddly in the corner of the field then spotted Elvis lying next to the fence. Rushing over to him it was clear he was dead and had died quickly. It was a horrible shock and so sad to see the other goats looking so frightened. Elvis had been with us since the summer of 2004 and would have been seven on Valentines Day this year, he was a grumpy old goat but I still loved him.

We discussed his funeral, picked the burial spot and purchased a commemorative tree. We even planned on renaming the estate “Graceland” and had practically written the press release for the new Chipping attraction when it struck me there may be laws against planting pet goats in your garden. I rang round the various agencies and was passed from one to another, I left messages and was given new numbers to ring but eventually, 3 days later was told that I couldn’t bury my pet and would have to get him collected by a “knacker man”! The following morning Jack and I went out to feed the animals and noticed Cassie the goat didn’t come out for her food straight away which rang alarm bells. We chivvied her on and with a little encouragement she came out for some mix and water then started munching on some hay. We watched her for a while before going inside to organise Elvis’s collection. She took to her bed again in the afternoon so we rang a vet who offered to visit the next morning. Peter by now had gone to stand in the far corner of the field, the same spot we found him when Elvis died. It was as if he had a sixth sense and knew Cassie was leaving us. We gave her blankets and hot water bottles and I sat stroking and talking to her. It was getting dark by this time and the temperature plummeting. I wanted to move her into the house but it was becoming clear that she wasn’t well enough to be moved. I rang another vet who suggested we drive her to their practice but by the time I got off the phone Cassie had slipped away. I was too shocked to

be upset…. loosing one animal was bad enough but loosing two in a matter of days was a disaster. What was it that was killing them so quickly, they were up to date with their treatments and it didn’t add up? Immediately I was on the phone to several vets and farmer friends desperately trying to find out what we could do to save Peter, I wasn’t going to loose him as well! We came up with a cocktail of drugs that should protect, strengthen and arm him against this epidemic. The following morning Peter was injected and poked we then waited and watched his every movement (quite literally). The poor thing was so confused he followed me around the field and even back into the house a few times. Kit, my son, thought it was fantastic having a goat in the lounge. It’s not until you have them in a confined space that you realise how loud their bleating is…equivalent to a bag pipe I’m sure! We still had the rabbit in the house since the pigs trashed his hutch during their great escape a few months ago so at one point we had a dog, a cat, a rabbit, a goat and a chicken in the lounge…. while Kit just sat watching TV as if it was quite normal. Mum phoned from Devon during this bizarre scene, calling for her daily update on the death toll and when I told her the goat had just come inside again she started shouting “Heidi get it out… you will all die of goat disease!!!! (She’s such a drama queen!).

The next trauma was to deal with the bodies, as it is illegal to bury them I had to pay for their collection. To protect their dignity and our squeamishness we had Elvis and Cassie shrouded in an old carpet and an old curtain well out of the way of all the other animals but when the lorry arrived we had to drag the lifeless bundles 100 yards for loading. I pulled Cassie still wrapped in her curtain towards the front of the house. The driver was nice but they were just dead animals to him and as soon as I reached him he removed the fabric and dumped her on the front lawn. Elvis was not only a dead weight but being wrapped in a wet carpet had become very, very heavy. Again the driver assisted by removing the shroud and shouting to Jack “grab a leg”, which he obediently did. We had 2 dead goats on the front lawn that were now being tied together with a metal cable and winched along the ground into the back of the (already full) lorry! I was shaking like a leaf by now it was soooooooo traumatic. I don’t think the neighbours were impressed either….I’m expecting another letter from the residents committee any day now!

The good news is that Peter is still going strong and despite still being a little bit tubby the vet gave him a clean bill of health. He regularly pops in through the back door for a bleat or a cuddle and all being well will have a new friend in the spring!

Follow me on twitter or become a fan on facebook!

For watercolour commissions, greeting cards and gift ideas go to www.heidiberrydesign.co.uk