I moved into my caravan with only a tiny fraction of my belongings yet somehow I had filled the cubbyholes within half hour of unpacking. Tuesday was my first working day and I eat a hearty Scrambled Eggs and Bacon Breakfast with the other Interns. There are 15 of us ranging with interests in horticulture, Butchery to all round farm activities and Business experience.
First task of the day was to feed the piggies that would later, at some point, possibly be our breakfast bacon. My guide and livestock know-it-all for the week was lovely Leanne. An Astro-Physics Grad. who, nauturally, after graduating wanted to gain experience in animal husbandry to enventually run her own small-holding.
Leanne introduced me to the techniques I would need if surviving the livestock day and how to get to know the piglets. To feed pigs one baisicly has to walk fast, give feed, and escape stampeeding trotters. This was easier said than done when piggies had been doing there job of ploughing field into mud pit and I, being painfully un-prepared, had not brought wellies. On one occasion Leanne did have to come to my rescue to haul me out of the mud as I had well and truly got myself stuck.
Other daily tasks included walking pig fence lines to check for defects, feeding cows which is taken in turns as its done before breakfast and deemed an early rise task. We also tended the sheep.
A highlight of the livestock week for me was scanning the sheep for pregnancies. For this I and Dave, the Farm Sheep Whisper, helped Tim, Leanne and other Intern, Luke round up sheep into pen then let them through sheep filing system while very mobile Vet and Ultrasound equipment scanned for little lambs. My role was number identifier as sheep filtered through which was as fast paced, highly pressurised and exciting as any media job in London. But perhaps in very different ways.
The days rushed by that week with grateful re-fueling at lunchtime and socialising dinners. At the end of the week a fellow intern asked me how it had all been. I detailed my surprise at how working outside seemed to make the day go so quickly, how great it was to get to know the animals that I would see being sold for meat, the adjustment my body was going through at such physical labour and how I was looking forward to it all getting a little easier. I was more than a little worried when they simply replied, knowing something I didn't and with a wry smile; “Welcome to Church Farm”.
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