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March

sheep
Jacobs and Whiteface
Some hope things would warm up as we enter March and move towards spring! Freezing rain hammers on the windows as I write. Dogs curl up round my feet turning their noses from the door and donkeys stand dejectedly in their stable dreaming (well maybe they dream!) of sugary grass and warm breezes.

The sheep are coming in at night now as lambing time approaches. Every evening they’re queuing at the gate eager for tea. The ewes become so quiet and gentle before they lamb. It always puzzles me to hear people refer to sheep as stupid. Compared to whom or what, I wonder? They are such caring careful mothers, each ewe recognizing her own lambs’ call and each lamb recognizing its’ mother. They know their job as we know ours.

We still have six wethers left to go from last years lambs. The White Face Dartmoors and Jacobs mature later than commercial breeds. They’re smaller too. We sell them as hogget rather than lamb. Deliciously tender but a little more robust than early lamb, without that strong flavour of mutton we’ve all turned away from. New EEC regulations requiring butchers to have an EU Cutting License mean I have had to sadly leave my old butcher and search for a new one with the required papers if I am to continue to supply my loyal little band of customers with meat.

Since the foot and mouth epidemic we have reduced our numbers drastically, so now , in semi retirement we only supply a very few people. Never again do we want to have ewes about to lamb trapped on barren fields away from home, unable to be moved without a licence. Helicopters flying over head to make sure we all comply with the panic regulations. Never again do we want to go through the daily terror of maybe losing our healthy sheep to the contiguous cull. And we were some of the lucky ones. Other shepherds suffered unbearably losing all their beloved stock and generations of skilled breeding . So sheep are our hobby and our love now. How fortunate we are.

And soon it will really be spring and the cycle will start all over again.

March 04, 2004 |

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Categories

Books

  • The Whitefaced Drift of Dartmoor’s Prapper Sheep: A Story as Olde as Them Hills, Colin Pearse
    A history of the White Face Dartmoor sheep. Published by Short Run Press Ltd.
  • The Preserving Book, Oded Schwartz
    My favourite store cupboard book. Published by Dorling Kingersley
  • Les Clafoutis de Christophe, Christophe Felder
    A rustic dessert originating in the Limousin, clafoutis is prepared with black cherries on which one pours a rather thick pancake batter. Christophe Felder, one of the best French pastrycooks, describes some 80 variations on clafoutis, sweet and savoury. Clafoutis with bilberries and fennel-flower, clafoutis with wild strawberries, clafoutis with broccoli and Gruyere....
  • Particular Delights, Nathalie Hambro
    "This book is about the art of eating, a rather wider notion than the art of cooking. Whereas cooking can merely be a mechanical execution of the instructions in a cookery book, eating invloves the use of all the senses. Life can be enhanced by the sensual elements in our surroundings. Forgotten memories are evoked by smell throughout life, and what can compare with the everyday smells of freshly roasted coffee and of bread as it is baked, or the delicate ratafia of plum or cherry jam as it cooks?"
  • Jane Grigson's Fruit Book
    The Fruit Book and it's partner Vegetable Book were the last two books Jane Grigson wrote, and both won the Glenfiddich Writer of the Year Award. She was one of the leading cookery writers of her generation, and as well as her many books she wrote for the Observer Colour Magazine for more than 20 years.
  • A Modern Herbal, Maude Grieve
    Mrs. Grieve's Modern Herbal, first published in 1931, is still in print, and you can also read it online at www.botanical.com.
  • Modern Cookery for Private Families, Eliza Acton
    Unsuccessful as a poet, Eliza Acton found fame with her cookery books. Modern Cookery, first published in 1845, is one of the first cookery books written specifically for housewives.
  • The Cooking of South West France, Paula Wolfert
    Confits and Cassoulets - the 'cuisine de terroir' of South West France. The recipes make use of ingredients which the region has in abundance, such as wild mushrooms, truffles, duck, walnuts, chestnuts, hams, cheeses and wines.
  • Food In England, Dorothy Hartley
    Published in 1954, the best of all books on English Food. Dorothy Hartley described Food In England as being like "an old-fashioned kitchen, not impressive, but a warm and friendly place, where one can come in at any time and have a chat with the cook".

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