March 2001

The cows speak, FMD comes closer, the rats nest dilemma and the gift of chickens

Whilst there is much that has been going on here, foot & mouth disease is holding our attention. We have been in touch with the homoeopathic pharmacy and are using Borax as a nosode in the drinking trough. There was an outbreak this month just five miles as the crow flies from our farm. We continue to help our neighbours, they are finding it hard to keep going with the concern of it all, words of encouragement seem empty... all we can do it hope. It seems likely that if we get it, they will too and vice versa.

There must be something to learn from all this disease and destruction and Lorraine found herself asking the cows, this is their answer.

"Man has been living out of balance and out of touch with universal spirit. with dishonour and disregard for "his" place in the circle of life and has been using and abusing brother and sister animals and plants, and mother earth, taking without giving back and wasting what has been freely given. "Foot and mouth disease is just one of many opportunities offered to man to bring "him" back to the sacred walk of life. To live, talk, walk and eat with integrity and honour. "Everything is connected and the way food is grown, bought, prepared and eaten is significant. "Acting in all things with honour and integrity can end disease, war and even world hunger."

From being with the cows we have learned that they are gracious beings who give consciously and freely of their milk and meat. They are completely non-judgemental and offer themselves as teachers to whoever wishes to be with them. They have no sense of "right or wrong" as we humans understand it, or of living and dying, only of their place, moment by moment, in the continuous whole that is universal spirit.

During this month we also got into some clearing up and in doing so uncovered a nest of baby rats. Now what do you do? We have an environmental and legal responsibility to control vermin on our farm. We have had many a moral and spiritual discussion about "killing" since our decision to move here and take on the animals, none of which helped in this situation. Should we just recover it and pretend we hadn't seen it, then we can just let the dog get the rats when they're bigger... or perhaps they'll take some of the poison we put down for them. It's so much easier to deal with death when you don't have to witness or it's kept at arms length or behind closed doors. Sick as we still feel about it, we made the decision to kill them. The next question was how? How do you kill with the least distress or suffering for that being? Having read something of the humane slaughtering of farm animals, it seemed that the only approach was to hit them hard on the head. It was a most unpleasant and sickening task that left both of us shaken for a good while.

We continue to search for a way to communicate with the rats such that their numbers here are managed and balance is maintained "naturally" and they and we can live in peace.

At the end of March, the energy on the farm was turned upside down by the arrival of ten hens "rescued" from a local battery egg unit. We used the old garage doors from our previous house and built a chicken house in one corner of the feeding barn, to the great interest of the cows. (Yes, we did bring those doors with us... Lorraine always said they'd make a good chicken house... she was right!). We brought the chucks home in big cardboard egg packing boxes and turned them into the hen house. Well, what delight! It took a couple of days for them to settle in, but soon they were laying eggs and happily chattering away with something to say about everything. We were very sure that we wanted them to be as free range as possible... a bit scary for these little feathered ones who hadn't wandered very far before and a definite challenge for the cows who were very inquisitive (as usual) and would have liked the hens to stand still long enough to get the measure of them. (The chickens had a lot to say about that too!).

Lorraine has been eyeing up a large section of the garden with a view to creating a veggie patch and with high hopes for getting some manure laid down in the next few weeks, she's got trays of seeds lined up on the windows of the conservatory (don't tell Mark!)

The end of this month finds us more settled although concerned about what to do with our cows, we are trusting that things will unfold in perfection (as they usually do in spite of our plans).

Slurry spreading - now that smells like country!