Elizabeth Elder: Blackface tup selection – and now for something completely different…
We are now in the midst of the Blackface tup sale season. For Jake, this is normally preceded by a series of visits to tup-breeders to view potential purchases in their natural habitat. The tup-viewing trail takes in Alston, the Roman Wall, the North Tyne, Redesdale and Coquetdale.
Jake and a car-load of friends take this research very seriously, only having to stop for refreshments a few times during their visits.
After exhaustive tup viewing, Jake will arrive at a shortlist of three or four, with one particular favourite that he is determined to buy. Strangely, however, on the sale day, he always comes home having bought something entirely different. “I just didn’t like the look of it when it came into the ring,” he says.
Over the years, I have formed the suspicion that the tup-viewing expeditions are one big jolly with no practical purpose.
We’re trying to produce the optimal Blackface sheep for our ground, which is somewhere between a Lanark type (small) and a Hexham type (big).
We’ve used Hexham tups for several years and are reverting back to Lanark this year, to “tighten up” the size of the lambs.
Several farmers round here produce tups for the sale at Lanark. It is amazing how all the Northumbrians trail all the way up to Lanark, buy a sheep from their next-door neighbour and then trail all the way back.
Once the new tups are bought, we will have a few weeks of Jake playing fantasy tup teams. This involves making lists of which tups will be used on each cut of ewes. This seems to be a throwback to his childhood love of compiling lists such as best British Lions XV ever or his own desert island discs.
October is also the season for official visits – we have just had our annual organic and FABBL farm assuarnce inspection. Unfortunately, it had to be conducted with mood lighting in the office (a lamp) as the strip light had just given up the ghost. Happily, all went well and the inspector commented that Jake could reward himself with a glass of wine. This he resolved to do.
The Army Training Area Commander is also coming on his annual goodwill tour of the range farms at the end of the month. The themes of these visits are normally a) There is going to be a lot of firing and b) Defence Estates don’t have any money.
In turn, we will state that we don’t have any money either.
A friendlier sight in the skies are the flocks of geese flying south for the winter recently. Our border terrier, Bramble, has also been trying to migrate.
She first tried to run away to the next door farm. Then, yesterday, she tried to join the Royal Artillery, who are encamped in our wood. We are grateful they didn’t put her down the barrel of a gun and fire her off towards the Impact Area. It must have been tempting.
I’ve just been watching a bit of the Commonwealth Games featuring a triumphant Scottish boxer with an accent more Lincolnshire than Lanark. I presume he must have qualified under the “Scotch Egg convention”, ie, after making the following pledge: “I am not technically Scottish, but I have consumed a number of Scotch Eggs/Pies in my time and I am totally up for singing both verses of Flower of Scotland in the unlikely event that I win a gold medal and/or get invited to a Burns supper.”
There is quite a lot of pro-Scots sympathy round here. Indeed, it seems there must be an entire wing of the BGH (Borders General Hospital) set aside for North Northumbrians who wish their offspring to be born in Scotland. This qualifies them for various benefits including eligibility for Murrayfield at a future date.
I say this recognising research that the Scottish Borderers and the Northumbrians are genetically the same following many centuries of cross-border inter-breeding, by fair means or foul.
Indeed, Borderers and Northumbrians may feel they have more in common with each other than they do with Edinburgh or London respectively.
My own highlight of the month has been my great trip to the Farmers Weekly Awards in London, where I met some very interesting and inspiring people.
There was also a very warm and thoughtful video message from the Prince of Wales, finishing with a good quote from Thomas Jefferson. “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it’s liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.”
I have always felt that the farming community was the salt of the earth. After what seems like decades of farmer-bashing, it was rather refreshing to hear this sort of message.
The only problem with my visit was that I am so used to complete silence at night, with our 18-inch thick walls, double glazing and absence of air conditioning, that I now find it virtually impossible to sleep if I have to stay at a hotel.
Thus, the next day I sat in a zonked state in the Kings Cross passenger lounge sleepily contemplating the sign to its one facility – an “accessible toilet”. Where is the inaccessible toilet?, I mused. Probably on the roof.