The wind has an edge to it.
The grass has a squelch to it as it’s hey-ho for Autumn. In the hills.
Migrant summer visitors (both feathered and anorak-clad) have flown. Except the hardy folk holding a “Magic Mushroom Fair’. Camped near Capel-y-Finn in the lowering shadow of the Black Mountains, they pursue their peaceful quest for the liberty caps which flourish there on the upland pasture and offer escape from the problems of life.
But for the rest of us, Autumn is like the end of a party. The guests have gone home – leaving hosts to lock up and take care of things until it’s time for the next visit – maybe at Easter? It’s
a long bleak period from now until then. and dread visions of ‘Winters Past” return to haunt like Dickensian ghosts blown in with the chilly draughts round the kitchen door. Not that we nave a great deal of time to spare for potential worries – the immediate ones suffice. Our main focus now is ensuring that there’ll be plenty of white lamps frisking and tumbling in the meadows when visitors return next Spring.
Trade in ewes has been brisk this year. The Common Agricultural Policy, to CAP it all, has done wonders for lamb producers and a healthy spirit of confidence pervades Autumn sales. We returned from Market with a fine yearling pure-bred Suffolk ram, not quite fully grown but a ‘good looker’. The children named him Ben.
Then comes the mucky task of sorting and grading breeding ewes. Their feet get checked for foot-rot and they suffer the indignity of having wool shaved from around their tails to give the rams a fair chance. They’re assessed on a rough ‘frame score’ of condition. Fitter ewes give more pairs of lambs and are generally healthier and happier. So it’s a fine strong bunch of Radnor, Clun and Suffolk-cross ewes that eventually get turned out to ‘flush’ on the thick fresh grass of the Ox-pasture before they get to meet the rams.
The senior tups, Arthur and Angus are a pair of noble black-faced Suffolks. They’ve spent the past few months by themselves, grazing peacefully in a shady orchard while the ewes were in a flurry of maternal anxiety. Now the boys submit quietly to examination of their vital parts, before being closed in a large barn, with plenty of fodder and water, and introduced to Ben. They stand a
clear head taller than the newcomer, so he immediately accepted his place as third in the pecking order and the three of them settled down very happily together until that bright sunny afternoon, when they were let out to meet the ladies.
But did they set to and make whoopee? Not on your life. Once in the field with the heady scent of a hundred ewes in the air – Arthur and Angus turned apart, backed off a few yards, then charged head first at each other ramming their foreheads together with sickening thuds and crashes that could be heard several fields away. You’d have thought they were total strangers, not bosom pals for the last few months.
“Crash. Smash!” It went for 10 minutes until, with blood streaming from the tops of their heads, they withdrew to opposite ends of the field to recover. Ben was left to scent excitedly and unchallenged around the ewes.
All seemed peaceful.
An hour later, wandering back towards the pasture in the fading blue light of evening. I heard the same ‘Bang, thud’ of skull crashing against skull – the noise ringing out through the windless evening. I stepped onto the grassy verge which runs beside the lane. and grasping hold of the thorn hedge pulled myself until I could see over the top just in time to see Arthur and Ben meet in
headlong charge. A whiplash, CRACKING sound rent the air and Arthur staggered. As if in black-and white film played in slow- motion, his legs collapsed beneath him and his large woolly body sank into a crumpled heap on the grass. Dark eyes stared sightlessly from the black velvet-soft face. He had charged his impudent young opponent, but instead of meeting him forehead to forehead, the shorter ram’s skull hit Arthur on his chin and so the old lads neck was clean broken.
With never a backward glance, the young victor strode away to claims flock.