May is the greenest month and this year has been no exception, given how high the water table was after such a wet start to last winter. There’s a lush depth to the valley, with the hawthorn – which blossomed early and abundantly – creating a chequered green and white idyll.
But it flatters to deceive. Like recent thunder, there’s rumbling concern on farms here where sunlight bounces off concrete yards and there’s only one conversation – “when are we going to get some rain?”
Data is exchanged like gossip: “Only 28mm since February”; “Just 17mm the other night and it mostly ran off”; “We’ll be out of grass this time next week”; “Our barley’s coming into head, it could be harvested this month, in May!”
The first cuts of silage have been taken already because the grass simply stopped growing, resulting in poor-quality, low yields. And the fields, now mown or already grazed down, have the balding look of Centre Court in the second week of Wimbledon. Farming is often collateral. What’s happening now has a knock-on effect – provision of winter forage, viable stocking densities and, potentially, the price of beef.
The cattle are unconcerned. The crossbreed calves are dozing in a separate group this morning as I seek out my favourite. The last to be born, he’s a jet-black, long‑legged Angus, but with a stout pair of North Devon knees.
It’s not uncommon for a cow beginning labour to fixate on another calf and decide it must be hers, which is what his mother did. Notwithstanding my eventual success in getting her calved and mothering, in the preceding chaos she hurdled a fence and lacerated her teats. For weeks he suckled the one undamaged teat, but had to be supplemented by me.
I made sure to feed him beside her, giving enough to keep him going but still keeping him hungry, so he would continue to look to her. Eventually, as her teats healed and he became more tenacious, I was able to wind down our jobshare. With Pavlovian response, whenever he sees me he still gives a jerk of his head, but he no longer gets up. Unlike the ground on which he lies, he at least no longer thirsts.
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