You can take the boy out of the farm...

It’s been a weird rollercoaster of farming vibes over the last year or so. Farming on any level is time consuming, relentless and unforgiving. And at our level you have to pay for the privilege. You make a loss not a profit. You are shackled to the beast. 

10 years after we started the dream, a dream that had lived and grown like a carbuncle for all my years in advertising, the holy grail, the pasture ever so lush, just out of reach. 10 years of growing our Dexter herd, nurturing them like a family, seeing them grow from little poppets, into obstreperous teens, into honest patient Mums then Grans with gravitas… but it all seemed so much work, day in day out….maybe times were a changin’. Maybe it was time to travel, to live en Francais, experience the new, we are only here once. 

Canal St Martin - Paris

Out of the blue, a lady from Wales, calls, she says she wants the whole herd, it seems too good to be true, they all go together, the generations of Tremewan Dexters all off together, as a big family unit. 

Goodbye lovelies….

The day comes, a desperate day, it broke me, I wasn’t right for days, it was the loss of a close family member….

I bought a kayak, made me feel better, it was symbolic of freedom, of travel, of journeys. 

The year rolled on, the fields were empty, the grass grew, I cut and cut. We rented the fields out, but it was desolate, we wandered the fields, hmm. There was something missing, like a city without people, pointless. 

It was inevitable. Back in October, we relented. Pathetic. We didn’t last long!! 3 charming heifers turned up. Nosy. Cantankerous, oozing character, the fields had purpose. 

Last month, we ran out of beef. We bought the best Aberdeen Angus steak mince we could find. It was pink, no depth. We made a Spag Bol. Same recipe, same everything, bar the beef, it just wasn’t the same. Devoid of that rich beefy undertones...

Next week I am going to pick up another 3 cracking 8 month old calves….

You can’t take the farm out of the boy. 

It’s only when you don’t have it, that you realise how essential it is.

 Early February is a strange time for the Nap, it’s normally fairly quiet, bookings are coming in, in dribs and drabs mainly for the spring and summer with a fair few late bookings as well.

Last weekend was one that we didn’t fill, fortunately. It gave us the chance to be a guest at the Nap, a delightful holiday away from normality, with the shortest journey ever!

 I know we built it ourselves, a labour of total love, and we would say this, but it really is a truly magical experience up there, even in the depths of the February mizzle.  The warmth from the fire, the views across soggy valleys, combes and moors, a game of Yaatzee with the family, spag bol, a fine glass of rich Tempranillo and some very agreeable tunes – it’s a heady family mix.

Sometimes I try to  put my finger on what it is that is so special…I think it’s the sense of being cut off from the world, no cars, no roads, no paths, this off grid feeling but contrasted with a  cabin that exudes, light, air and warmth, with high ceilings and endless views to expand your horizons; cedar wood oozing freshness, colours modern, furnishings to sink into…Scandi cool, even a spot of hygge,  you just breath better, deeper, longer, and each breath, tensions and the modern world start to disperse.

 Yup, it’s about breathing. Better breathing. Each exhale, those knots, those pains dissipate.

 At the end of our stay, we pottered down to the farm to feed the animals, and then down into Ash Park, a 17 acre field that dips down to the Taw Valley, here, the rest of our cattle are happily over-wintering, chewing the final goodness from the grass supplemented by haylage, fresh as a June day recently unwrapped.

 On our way back we stopped at the shed to pick up some more hay with the tractor. Becky waited at the gate, while I swapped over the bucket to the forks on the tractor to pick up the hay. And that’s when it happened. And now, it doesn’t work and I can’t do anything and I never realised how important it was.

 It’s pretty simple, my big toe is broken, as I took the bucket off by pulling a lever, the loader wasn’t properly positioned and it came crashing down on my toe. Cracked the right-hand bone straight off.

There, that split second, our son’s birthday and Christmas present to go to skiing, gone in a flash, all his hopes and dreams, taken by his stupid father. He was so close, only 3 days to go after a wait of 400. Gone.

I screamed and screamed, but Becky couldn’t see me, she thought it was the cows mooing over the grinding of the tractor engine, I realised she couldn’t help to raise the loader, somehow I pulled my foot out. I yelped, tears rolled. All I could think of was the holiday was ruined.

 A bit later, sitting in the hospital, it dawned on me that this wasn’t just about a frivolous holiday, it was about being completely incapacited for many months. No driving, no animal feeding, no trips to the Nap, all of these responsibilities handed over to Becky, while I sit, bored and frustrated, scrolling and key tapping, huffing and puffing.

One second bouncing around like a cub, the next Herman Munster dragging his feet across the carpet.

The moral of the story, is: be thankful of what you have.

Should I cut or should I not?

Make hay while the sun shines…..hopefully. There are so many emotions wrapped in the simple world of making hay, or haylage, or silage. You watch the weather with eagle eyes. Willing and wishing for 5 days in a row. You check the forecast, it gives you hope and then a little rain drop half way through those five days and your buggered, deflated.

So you start finding other forecast apps, anything to give you the optimism you need. The thing is, is that making good hay, the type that smells in deepest January, of long warm hazy crazy days is an art. It's making the decision as to when to ‘go’ i.e cut. Once you’ve started there is no going back. It normally takes 5 days of 20 odd degrees, but with a fair, no, strong wind, it could be 4. If it rains just as the sward has been cut, it doesn’t matter to much, but rain on 3 hours before you are going to bale and it's hair pulling out time.

So here we are, rain tomorrow, and then 7 days of sunshine, off I go to the shed to hitch up the old 6ft drum mower. Sad and dormant for 11 months. I get this feeling in my stomach, a sense of excitement, apprehension, you feel almost heroic, with the sense that its up to you to bring back the harvest..those animals, sitting in the fields, gazing over the Taw valley are relying on you, dont mess it up. And then you’re off, the noise, the insects smacking against the headlight, the heat from the engine, the oil, the view, the grass going down into symmetrical rows. Its graphic, the rows shine in the sunshine. Then the grass wilts, the colour starts to change…..I’m getting carried away, lets wait and see, tomorrow the forecast could change again.

Better late than never...

I’ve been planning to write a piece about the coming of Spring for the last month, thinking about it in my head, but never getting round to it. The problem, is that it’s extremely time sensitive. The idea being to talk about the early arrivals, those green shoots of joy, and who says ‘hello’ first. 

It’s mid March, still cold, the beastly wind, irritates me, when I know that warmth is nearby, but as I wrote last year, this is the problem with March, you feel like you are almost there, but then sometime you think it’s really still winter!!

But it’s the usual buds that come out first, literally and metaphorically. Snowdrops are first to grace the coming season, but not far behind the spikes of daffodils, are pushing their way up through the ground. Even as early as February the yellow trumpet graces our fields, down below the Nap in particular, so much so that the fields of Holland would doff their caps! It’s then a race between a number of equally charming friends, the primrose, carpeting the lane up to the farm, with the occasional crocus doing its best to assert its independence amongst the cohorts of prims. There seems a lull then. Nothing to note for a few weeks, but for me, it’s the arrival of the celandine, a yellow flower as bright as a butter cup in the road verges, that really makes you think, ‘No, we’re here now, we’re off, Spring is truly well on the way’

I will never forget the celandine, a comment almost as pompous as one of Uncle Monty’s in Withnail and I. “ I find the carrot, infinitely more beautiful than the rose’ 

I digress, celandine, yep, I remember this one, because I have a vivid memory of walking up a steep hill from Loe Beach up to Feock in Cornwall, with my Mother and her commenting on the arrival of the celandine. It was joyous moment against a backdrop of such sadness as my poor Grandma, lay in hospital in Truro after a dreadful stroke, that she would never really recover from. 

 She would have liked this post. She had a delightful garden full of an amazing array of un-pronounceable plants. Grandma loved her garden. 

 And back in the room….soon after the celandine, you notice, the hawthorn in hedges along sheltered combes and valleys, the elderberry, and now, the wonder of wild garlic, no flowers yet, but the abundance of thick green sheen leaves, in shaded dappled damp verges. What a treat, Pesto with walnuts here we come. 

 It’s all good, and I haven’t even mentioned the bird song, raucous, even now, but it’s such a familiar sound, that it’s easy to not even notice it. Like living next to a busy road, the mind soon blanks it out, such is its ubiquity. But what wonderous ubiquity it is. The birds not the traffic. 

Tomorrow morning, I shall go out, sit on the wall by the farmhouse and listen. Just listen. 

Marvellous. Writing is good for the soul, and on a day, reflective of the past year, time to remind ourselves of how lucky we are to enjoy such beauty.

Nice article...12 Magical cabins…

Not really a blog post, just blatant, flagrant PR innit. But, you’ve got to do it these days, and to be honest, I’m really proud that we get into these sorts of reviews. thanks Kip Hideaways. Last year we were also top 20 cabins in the UK on both Canopy and Stars and Coolstays. Hopefully the link works and it will improve Mr and Mrs SEO, the panacea of all things Digital.

The blackberry

I salute you sir. You give light and sugar sweet joy as the summer bows out. You give hope in the winter, fresh from the freezer, stew, and on to the plate alongside a fine Greek yoghurt. 

I love everything about Blackberry season. The pretty humble pink flowers, a cushion of comfort over the thorny heart. The host plant is merely seen as a weed and yet grows where nobody else wants to grow. Even the picking is an occasion. 

When I was a boy, when homelife seemed somewhat fraught and full of friction, my Mother and I used to wander off into the fields, chat, pick, get pricked, stung, but conversation was so easy and we wandered from hedge to hedge, on our return we had colanders full and brains untangled. 

Even last week, we, Mother and son, 30 years later ventured across the fields of Langabridge, the crop was still in its infancy, but our fingers soon became deep purple and our arms scratched and stung, fizzing with the experience, but buzzing with the catch.  What is also so enriching is that the hunt takes you to parts of the field boundaries you would never normally think of going to, little nooks and crannies, undulations, trees and shrubs you’ve never noticed before. 

There is that hunter gathering notion, that sense of bringing in the harvest before all is lost that is so satisfying. Like chopping and stacking wood, ready for the damp, dark days ahead, you feel you are ready to hunker down, come on Winter, we can take you on, we’re ready, we’ve got our supplies, like the squirrels have their nuts and the voles have their moss…

And then there is the eating, god, so many options: frozen berries in your yoghurt, keeps it chilled ready for lunch, or stewed with Bramleys, that deep purple pervading the very essense of the apple, served alongside ice cream, or in a bloody crumble, how good is that?, burnt and a bubblin’ around the dish as you bring the bad boy out of the Aga, oh lord, blackberry, you are the king; Raspberry, Strawberry, Mr Blackcurrant, the rueful rhubarb, you are all lovely but move along, as Mr B, you rock. 

The colour green.

Rain at last. Sitting on the sofa as I write, I gaze out of the cabin windows as Milo draws the scene below for an art project. Spring is in overdrive, 4 weeks of beautiful weather has warmed the soil up, the daffodils have made way for the celandines who in turn have made way for the rose campions. The wild garlic is in profusion down by the river, a thick fug of perfume rises up as you run along the road as we did as a family yesterday. The cow parsley growing by day, lolling in the wind on the verges. Down in the woods, the purple haze of bluebells is high above the rustling floor of leaves from another time.  There is a wondrous irony that the moment we went into lockdown, the sun came out, and stayed, shinning above us, a beacon of light and hope against dark times. Perhaps Nature is making its point. 

Down by the farm, carrots seeds long thought as dead to the world are saying hello to the world, bristling and jostling for attention beside spring onions, bent and confused. The tomatoes and peppers are now transplanted into their final resting places, burgeoning and ready to put in a shift in. Orchids grow in the woods, now vacated by our piggy wigs. Alas gone to feed the nation. 

The cows have fled the sheds, now ensconced up on the hills above the Taw. Wrapping the grass round their tongues and tearing it in to their mouths with aplomb. The 20 odd lambs are growing up, tails gone with strong hind quarters,  less needy on their exhausted mothers, the focus, gone from jumping and frivolity to the hard graft of eating the spring flush grass. Even Parsnip the pet lamb has joined the crew, uncertain at first but now growing in confidence with big burly boys and girls he looks up to. 

Spring has everything, it’s a chance to make amends and new beginnings. But to me it’s also about colour, that green of a fresh leaf is intoxicating. It represents hope. And yet, if you took that colour, presented it against a Pantone chart and then asked for that colour for wall paint, it would look disgusting. I just can’t work that out. How is that possible? Or is colour, not just about urr, gradations of light and dark, but also about context, where you see that colour? I guess it’s a similar relationship to the type of glass you use when drinking a fine IPA or a deep Spanish red. Hmm, nice. 

A chance to reboot?

The fire is lit. Milo sits beside me on the beanbag reading ‘House of Secrets’ He is reading a rather dark period of the book and has requested ‘dark’ music.

Portishead plays, after ‘Me against I’ by Massive Attack. Even darker!

Next to Milo, on the other bean bag, lies, urr, Baggle (Zippy), next to her is Sparkles, both look wonderfully content. I sit, in a louche manner on the sofa. The view is of the hills of Elstone and Kings Nympton. The light is starting to go, its 8.10pm. I can feel the fire from here, it’s blasting. We had a bit of rain yesterday, about 2mm, but nothing to shout about. The ground is tinder dry. The grass is struggling to grow now that the soil has warmed up, due to lack of water. The cattle are in the main, still in the shed. Poor buggers. There since November. That’s 6 months. Oh lord how excited those bovines are going to be when they head out in to the field, skipping, hoofs a kickin’, running the perimeter, first, then into the centre to start the munch. This year, we’ve had a very calm housing period. We’ve had loads of haylage, good quality and quite dry so the animals don’t need a lot of straw bedding either. Down in the woods, the two Iggle Piggles are released beyond the electric, snuffling, grunting, ears a flappin’, galloping across the virgin woodland, over blue bells and primroses a sproutin’. The ground is tilled to perfection, but then mixed up with broken roots, annihilated blue bells, chewed and spat out across the rampage. 

This is the third weekend we have spent up at our holiday home. Lockdown means no guests, no income but our bonus is the wonder of staying here ourselves. It is of course also a wonderful fact finding mission. We learn truly what it’s like to be our guests. We can see the beauty of the views, the comfort of the Nap, but at the same time we can see why we need a toaster, why we need to convert the compost toilet to a flushing loo, all those little things you don’t necessarily think about as an owner. 

One thing I do know, is that this place is bloody wonderful. It is utterly serene and calming. Truly a place to inhale and exhale, listen to Michael Kiwanuka, write, gaze, drink and play Yaahtzee. But above all it’s a place to get away from reality and be what you want to be. Reset, reboot, take stock, re-evaluate. It’s what Covid 19 just might do, if we’re really lucky. If we as a world can make such radical changes in 8 weeks the like we have not seen since WW2 for a virus, then it is clear that if the desire is there, we can easily prevent environmental meltdown as well . The world should learn from this and never go back to where we were before. This is the time to truly change. Nature is teaching us a lesson. Will we ever get another chance to reboot?

The Joy of the Cabin

They said don’t do it. You’ll hate people on your land. GET ORFFF. They said it would ruin the whole premise of this secret island. You dream of sanctuary and then once you get it, you are going to have loads of people, dropping litter, not shutting gates, dogs chasing sheep…yep, I have to say, it worried me too.

 But my burning ambition to build something significant, something that had a design ethos, grew stronger, so strong that it overcame the logic of my friends and that little voice chirping in my head. 

 18 months on, building the Nap and now having a holiday business is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. 

 You see it’s more than money, it’s that sense of achievement of doing something totally out of your comfort zone. Having the confidence to back yourself. Against all odds. My god, those winter afternoons up the roof, painstakingly putting each cedar shingle on, as the hale spat at my raw face and the spirit level shot off the roof always landing in the deepest, biggest slodge of mud puddle. 

 I find after we have cleaned and prepared the Nap for our next set of guests, that huge sense of pride, it always look so welcoming, the lighting a warm glow of cosy, the fire flickering, the copper kitchen twinkling, the deep sofa cosseting. I am left just wanting to stay, crack open a beer and turn on some banging tunes. 

 But no, off I trot down the hill, to welcome our next set of guests. And now we come on to the most surprising bit of all. Our guests. I can honestly say we love having you, you get what it is we’re trying to do. You want calm, peace, a double dose of serenity, as you gaze over the Taw Valley, fine Tempranillo in hand, birds twittering as the sun sets…you appreciate it, you come away reset and rebooted, so thank you, for making it better than we could have dreamt of. 

Darkness falls across the land....

The midnight hour is close to hand. Similar but different. 

 Wandering through the glowering gloom. Catham Wood. Me, Tarka, Zippy. 5pm.

Hopelessly late to check the cows. But off we go. Across the fields of squelch and squish, streams babbling down the road, a dark sky, somewhat foreboding but a little light in the far west to give hope. Off we trot. Across Martyn’s desolate rape seed field, nothing left now but hard stalks that make the dogs wince as they bound. I cut across diagonally, in fear of being left in the woods in deep black. Half way across I lose Zippy, she is off on a pheasant hunt no doubt.

Endless calling, getting slightly annoyed. Becoming shouty. Oh, she knows her way home, come on Tarks, lets head on. The skies are bruised. 

 Martyn Heyne ‘Carry’ plays. The oak is burning in the grate. Heat, wine, warmth and chilled tunes. The ingredients for some country melodrama. 

 We step over the make shift style and down into the steep woods. Can’t quite make out where I am stepping. Twigs and deadwood brush stroke my face, we dive deep. No sign of Zippy. Crack, twist, shift of leaves, on we step, over fallen trees, covered in a blanket of soaked moss, over a stream, at least that’s it what it felt like. Down, deeper, then a sudden rush of black, bang, wallop, silver collar, it’s the Baggle, alias Zippy, huffing, panting, smiling but slightly apologetic. At least that’s what I imagine as I can only see her collar. Her body has merged with the gloom. 

On we go, deeper, until a rise and we’re on the flat, I can see lights twinkling in the distance, a noise of rush and woe, the commuters are streaking home. 

Suddenly we’re on the lane and we shoot over it and we can make out some dark shapes, huddled in the distance. The bullocks. The electric fence is flashing, I can just make out the fence, 12 cows, yep they’re all here. Yep, they have water. 

The cows barely register my existence. The dogs duck the electric and we’re back in the wood. It seems so much darker now. 

No it is dark. 

Bonobo – Ibrik – plays, cracking soulful chill. 

I had a Chunk pie from Mole Valley today. So, I realise my walk back needs to be high energy. Burn them calories baby. 

We march, we strut, the dogs suddenly gone and I hear barking, a badger, Monsieur Reynard? A roe dear, a white tale a bouncing, flashing by. 

I stop. My glasses have steamed up, I’m hot. My flat hat is off. I can barely make out anything apart from some light at the top. Feint silhouettes of trees, keep going, bracken brushes my legs, I stumble in rabbit holes, back over the fallen blanket moss tree, speed walking, its so wonderful, I don’t care if I fall, the soft damp leaves will comfort me, dead branches brush my shoulders, brambles scratch my face. Then we’re back at the top, I can see headlights way in the distance.  Down the steep hill from Chittlehamholt on to the A377. 

The sensible decision would be to head back over the fields. But its more fun to walk along the top of the wood, we bash on. I literally can’t see anything, scrape, pull, tangle, trudge. Simple things. So wonderful. My vision so retarded. Makes it so much more interesting. Like being in a new world. Gloomy dusk does the same thing to the environment as snow does to sound. Finally we’re at the road. We jump over the broken wire and I can make out the Nap in the distance. Lights a twinkling. Happy guests drinking wine beside the woodburner, the world beneath them. 

#nap@langabridge

The walk was a thriller. My neighbourhood isn’t paralysed, it’s just dark and stormy. Maybe more Hot Chip than Micheal.