OPINION: Bobbi Mothersdale pities the frozen ducks

The foldyard gleamed with freshly laid straw as John cleaned out the yards prior to the start of calving.
You could sense the air of contentment. The cows were snuggled into their clean bedding all ready to get on with their imminent production task. I always enjoy walking round the yard at night when John looks in to make a final check on the herd before we shut the farm gate.
The sight of those peaceful, serene mums makes a great start to the new year. Within a few weeks it will be bedlam. Enjoy the calm before the storm, girls.
It was ideal weather for mucking out the foldyard. With the ground hard from an overnight frost, John could run onto the grass field across the road and heap up the muck without any danger of poaching the ground, or the tractor sinking in and creating deep wheelings that would hold water for the rest of the winter. Now the heap stands gently steaming. No doubt making a hole in the ozone layer.
Our next task to move the lambs for a fresh bite on clean pasture in January requires precise logistical planning as we need to drive the flock along our lane. “You just go in front,” John always encourages me. “Lead them out of the field. Don’t worry. They’ll follow you. Keep shaking that bag of feed at them. They can’t resist it.”
But as they don’t speak our language, and are desperate for more than just a few nibbles of sheep pellets, they don’t follow instructions. The lambs aim is to race past me having the distinct advantage of four fit legs to my two unfit ones and usually all I can do is turn round, stamp my feet at them, wave my hands to try to stop their progress, scream and jump up and down.
Apart from vastly amusing passing cyclists and cars, it does no good at all. I end up accelerating from a leisurely walk to an undignified race to keep ahead of the lambs and stop them bowling me over completely.
A risk assessment I have forgotten to complete in the past still presents a minor problem to village householders in early January. Tasty, festive garlands that are still on doorways. I try to make sure that garden gates are shut en route from one end of the village to the other. But there is one hazard I cannot compensate for. Two barn conversions have large, plate glass windows close to the road, with no fence in between.
During their installation, a gap was left in the walls for the windows to be fitted later. Whenever we took the sheep by it was a wonderful opportunity for them to meander in and inspect the bricklaying. Once fitted, the sheep were most taken aback. “Who are those strange sheep facing us. Let’s have a nosy up and snuffle on the window and rub alongside it.” They still need to be pushed on past those interesting reflections.
At home, a hatching of mallard ducks that we raised in the summer to put down on our big pond have adopted a peripatetic lifestyle. Reared in the farm yard, they gained a taste for spilt barley from the bull pens.
Life on the pond during summer and autumn brought the ducklings the pleasure of dabbling in amongst the weed, but they still like to fly home despite feeding them corn on a daily basis in a vain attempt to persuade them to stay in one place and hopefully attract in a few wild ducks. For purely altruistic purposes you understand. No thought of the possibility of a January evening’s duck shoot.
So our ducks are a regular sight in the village flying back and forth from pond to farmyard for a substantial snack. But, for the first time in this very mild winter, the ducks are having to learn to live with the result of a frozen pond. Their landing techniques still lack any degree of excellence and the novel experience of landing on ice meets with some slip-sliding duck extravaganzas.
I suppose from a ducks’ eye view, the surface of the pond must look the same frozen as it does unfrozen. The pond ice does not look cloudy, it still appears to be clear water. The ducks make several passes over the surface of the pond and, then abandoning any semblance of grace or style, throttle back legs akimbo, and drop onto the water. Or in this case ice.
A rising decibel of indignant quacks traces an ignominious catapult across the skating rink into the bank. A landing of some sort accomplished, the ducks set off on a comical uncoordinated waddle over the surface of the pond. Enquiring jabs with their bills on the unforgiving ice elicit even more incensed quacks. A crescendo of indignant mallards.
Just as they are getting used to this new set of circumstances, and probably thinking of flying back to that nice warm foldyard at Lowther Farm, one of the flock will fall through a thin section of ice into the water. Hyper quacks.
The rest of the ducks then slither and slide across the ice to the water to dive into the small area available for a swim – before hauling themselves back out onto the ice for another uncontrolled scramble around the pond.
It’s a very frustrating affair.
Bobbi Mothersdale on decorations, retail therapy and chocnapping