Moving Muck

One of the regular jobs that I quite enjoy doing is mucking out the goat shed. It may seem counterintuitive that this task, to shift a ton of goat manure mixed with straw from the shed to dung heap. is one that I don’t mind doing. But in all honesty, it has a lot going for it.

Firstly, the dung itself. Goat dung is formed in dry pellets and much easier to move than other dungs. Cow and pig dung is a lot wetter and harder to handle. It is also much less sticky and rolls rather than sticks so is again easier to move. Bird manure, especially duck, is terrible stuff – its adhesive properties would give superglue a run for its money. A final advantage is that it doesn’t stink. Many types of dung smell strongly, goat manure does not. There is a warm, goaty smell when working in the shed but it is not at all unpleasant.

Just helping

Secondly, the job itself has a number of advantages. It is physical but not excessively so. On a cold day the work will keep you warm and on a wet day a large part of the task is done indoors so it can be better than other, wetter and colder, jobs around the smallholding. You know where you are when you ae shifting dung; the whole job is alike a visual progress bar, each square meter of concrete floor that becomes visible tells you how much you have done, and you can easily see how much more there is to do. If you are lucky to have young kids about, they can also “help” by jumping on your barrow or running across your path.

Although the work demands physical labour it is not mentally taxing and this, allied with the gentle environment, makes it ideal for listening to the radio or a podcase. A good drama can make this task fly by, but recently I have found the treasure trove of David Cayley’s programmes for the Ideas series he made for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. These are excellent discussions and this time I had found one of the last interviews with the economist and philosopher Leopold Kohr. He had made this not long before his death. He was old and almost completely deaf by this time but his warmth and wit were still clearly evident. He is, rather than Schumacher, the author of the phrase “Small is beautiful” and it was interesting to hear how chance played such an important part in his life and to hear him describe his ideas on the importance of scale and size for human society.

One such lucky chance was that Gwynfor Evans, the leader of the Welsh Nationalist Plaid Cymru, party had read the excoriating review of Kohr’s book in the Observer. He felt that any book that an “English” newspaper hated this much must be worth reading and made contact with Kohr. This contact led to him being appointed to a Welsh University post, despite not speaking any Welsh, and living in Aberystwyth. Kohr and Schumacher’s ideas about the dangers of large-scale organisations has proven a valuable way to look at the nationalism of small countries such as Wales and Scotland. These ideas were important in their early political development. It is not a danger that these countries are too small to go it on their own, as is often proposed, it is precisely because they are small that they might succeed. Their smallness could help them become better places to live and trying to create better places to live is what should be at the heart of all political action.

When I lived in Scotland I latterly voted for the SNP and while in Wales I have looked to vote for Plaid Cymru. I have to admit that some of this was purely opportunistic. While in Scotland, I was looking for some way to avoid the rampant individualism of Thatcherism and hoped that a smaller independent Scotland might tack to kinder more communitarian values. Similarly in Wales, I hoped that drawing back power from a remote political bureaucracy would make it closer to the people and more responsive and engaging. I saw this as a way to reduce scale and, as a consequence, counter the ever increasing alienation of the populace from the government.

Unfortunately, it seems that many in Plaid Cymru and the SNP have not read, or have forgotten, Leopold Kohr’s work. Or possibly now many are just being opportunistic, like I was, but in a different manner. I fear many now vote for these parties as a way to undo the effects of Brexit. They see break away from the United Kingdom, not as a way to create small independent states, but as an escape route back into the bosom of the large European Union. This may suit those in these parties as they see it as an easily usable fault line in the British body politic, and those politicians will have as much, if not more, power in the European setting. It will not reduce things down to a more human scale, it will not promote more local cultures, and will not bring power closer to the citizen either geographically or in terms of accountability.

Listening to the podcast and realising that the UK nationalist parties have thrown away their Raison d’Être in the pursuit of power suddenly everything seemed to gel. Politics at the moment – It really is all a pile of manure!

Ovine Chiropody

I should hopefully sleep better tonight. The last two nights have been rather fretful as I knew a challenging task was looming. I knew that I was about to meet the consequences of having broken our first law of smallholding. Our primary rule was ‘Never keep an animal you can’t beat in a fair fight’ and we were now going to discover why this was important.

Never keep an animal you can’t beat in a fair fight.

Rule1

Our ram had gone lame over the past two days. He was limping and keeping his back right leg raised off the ground. At first, we’d prayed and hoped that it might fix itself (sometimes it does) but after the second day it was clear that we’d have to intervene. Now, catching the sheep, turning them over and trimming their feet is no walk in the park but the ram is a different matter entirely.

Our first ram was a docile creature who did his work well but was always well behaved. He also had the endearing habit of being slightly worried of handguns. If you pointed at him with index and forefinger outstretched, and made pitchow pitchow noises, he feared you had a pistol and kept his distance which made him easier to corral. Our present ram has obviously less experience with weaponry and is not so easily fooled. Therefore, at nights, I have been dreading trying to round up 15 stones of grumpy, muscular ram, flip him on his back and attack his feet with knives – I know he wouldn’t be keen on this plan and would not cooperate.

Come the day, however, it went better than we expected. He did try and decline the pedicure and a couple of times he nearly had me on my back (rather than the other way around) But although he is stronger, meaner and faster than us, we are slightly smarter and using a couple of hurdles, joined with rope, we were able to construct a temporary crush to hold him. We then found he had an injury between his hooves which we were able to clean and dress with biocidal sprays. The spraying was perhaps less accurate that it should have been as he didn’t like the sound of the aerosol, this caused him to struggle and my shaky aim meant we shared the violet spray about equally between him and myself.

Having managed this the result was almost instantaneous and very gratifying. He walked off with no limp whatsoever, but with no thanks either. Hopefully, it will be a long time until we need to do this again and, in the interim, we can look for a ram who is more cooperative or docile. Although I fear that those are not words that are in either the job descriptions, or characters, of rams.

Do I look as if I am going to cooperate?

Daw eto haul ar fryn.

There is a saying in Wales which has been pressed into service a lot over the past year during the pandemic: Daw eto haul ar fryn. It is a call for optimism and hope and roughly translates as ‘the sun will come over the hill again’ or good times will return. Today I have felt in sympathy with this motto at both the beginning and the end of the day.

This morning I actually watched the sun coming over the hill. For the last year or so I have had easy mornings as we retired our elderly milking nanny goat. She is now over 12 years old she deserves a long service medal. Her niece has taken her place but this meant a period of some months (while we got a billy goat to get her niece pregnant) that we were not milking every day. I had started to get used to the civilised later starts to teh day. Without the need to do the milking the animals would happily wait until 7:30am before demanding I got up to see to their needs. But this morning milking restarted so we had an unaccustomed 4:45am start.

Getting up at this time is surprisingly pleasant. The crepuscular light casts all the farm in a different glow and for some strange reason things look cleaner and fresher than they normally do. The dawn chorus is also welcome. The wild birds settling down for the night as dusk are noisy but their sounds are deeper, more tired and slightly angry. In the morning the birds are much louder, but higher pitched and the song has a positive, optimistic tone which suits the start of a new day.

Daphne surprised that there is any milk left

Milking went well and Mindy took to the milking stall and procedure without any hitch. Her kids, Donny and Daphne, had obviously been up much earlier than me. I entered the barn to find them playing ‘king of the castle’ on top of the rotavator. They were not too pesky and watched the milking with interest, though I also think with the knowledge that they had been there before me and had already drunk their fill. I am probably going to have to separate them overnight if this system is going to work.

After looking in the polytunnel some of the French and runner beans have not started to break through the surface and should be ready to plant out next month. So, in the spirit of optimism and in the belief that things will get better I finished the day by starting to erect the bean frames. The great pleasure of the smallholding life is the living by routine and rhythms. Both the short cycle routines like milking which delineate the day and give structure to it and also the long cycle routines which help us plan through the year. But more importantly, the seasonal work reminds us that even if we have no evidence that good things are coming, experience tells us they will, and through work, with no immediate reward, give us hope.

Getting ready although not a leaf is visible yet.

The Road to Somewhere by David Goodhart

This book is one the most important to have been published in the last decade. Anyone who was shocked or surprised by the results of the Brexit referendum or the election of Donald Trump would be advised to read it: they may not agree with his prescriptions for change, but they will find his analysis of the fault lines that run deep through Europe and North America’s societies interesting and helpful.

“This book, conceived at the beginning of 2016, was originally intended to, among other things, warn against the coming backlash against the political status quo—and in particular against the ‘double liberalism’, both economic and social, that has dominated politics, particularly in Britain and America, for more than a generation.“

The Road to Somewhere

In essence he proposes that two groupings can be used to broadly define the current political tribes. The “somewheres” are the larger group and comprise the poorer people, often working class, who hold more traditional beliefs and who support (and benefit from) ideas of the nation, community, and society. The smaller group of “anywheres” are a more mobile, better educated group comprised of those who benefit from globalisation and thus tend to support individualism over communitarianism. The anywheres hold the reins of power and consequently, over the past few decades, anywhere priorities have driven the political agenda, often at the expense of those in the somewhere group.

A fissure splits the groups on a number of issues central to today’s political debates, primarily immigration, the family, the welfare state globalisation, work and education. Each of these areas are considered in depth and his analysis clearly shows the gap which has developed between the two groups who no longer seem to understand each other.

“Some of those core Remainers reported waking up the day after the Brexit vote feeling, at least briefly, that they were living in a foreign country. If that was, indeed, the case they were merely experiencing, in political reverse, what a majority of people apparently feel every day.”

The Road to Somewhere

When this divide coincides with other divides the results can be explosive. The conflict between nation and community, versus globalisation and economic growth, which underpinned the Brexit debate coincided with the divide between somewhere and anywhere viewpoints and caused the upset that still reverberates though British politics today (I write this as Labour has just lost Hartlepool to the Conservatives). In America Donald Trump’s cynical positioning on issues of immigration and remote elite power meant he too straddled this divide in a way that he, a millionaire TV star, could be seen as a man of the people, an outsider, who would tackle the problems of the elite.

The book is lucidly written but well supported with detailed data; statements are not glibly made but supported by detailed data and its sources. I fear, however, that despite this, some will not even approach this book as discussion of some issues is now considered off-limits. It can be difficult to discuss the issue of immigration as it has become inextricably linked to issues of prejudice and racism. Similarly attempting to consider aspects of family life can lead one into a minefield; trying to avoid upsetting the modern intelligentsia and their shibboleths which limits any constructive discussion about parent roles, work-life balance and the needs of children.

“Food manufacturing, for example, is Britain’s biggest manufacturing sector, employing around 400,000 people, and more than one third of production staff are foreign born, mainly from eastern Europe, up from almost zero in 2005. “

The road to somewhere

Many of us on the left have found these areas difficult to address. Cultural issues, such as these, do not fit easily into an model based purely on economic or class factors. For many on the left they do not fit into a Marxist analysis without bending logic by evoking false consciousness or other similar tricks to square the circle. This has meant that the left does not have the ability to learn from these changes and thus cannot respond to them. In the UK this leads to the growing gap between the Labour Party (now largely a party of the middle-class) and the working class (who now vote in larger proportions for the Conservatives). A similar dismantling of class loyalties in Democratic/Republican politics seems to be evident in America.

If we do not learn from these changes then the backlash may be more dangerous than we presently appreciate. If there is no room for a “decent populist party” then indecent actors from the right-wing might fill the void to all our costs. Towards the end of the book he reminds us that this strife and danger need not be our future and recalls Isiah Berlin:

“The philosopher Isaiah Berlin said that people generally want many of the same things: security, recognition, love, meaningful work, sufficient wealth and freedom to live a good life in the many ways that can be conceived. And to achieve those things for the greatest number of people requires politics to be informed by aspects of both Anywhere freedom and Somewhere rootedness. They are always in tension but have recently got out of balance in Britain. “

Perhaps it is too late for the Labour Party and we need a new campaigning party, I personally would suggest the Social Democratic Party, but anyone considering these issues would be well served by reading this book.

A vote of thanks.

This week’s elections in Great Britain have been interesting. Although the usual enjoyment of voting, then sitting up late watching the pundits into the small hours has been lost. This has been another victim to the pandemic, as now counting of results has been spread over three days. This takes the power out of the revelation; instead of a sudden burst of results with either accompanying shock or glee we now have a slow, trickling, drip-drip of results which makes it hard to see the overall pattern.

However, there is one clear trend which has emerged even at this half-way point in the counting. In each of the countries voting in the elections the party in power has maintained its base. There are other factors at play but, in general, people in power have been given a vote of thanks. Thus, in England, despite being mired in stories of sleaze and misdoing, the Conservatives have performed well. Similarly mired in sleaze, and with a growing reputation for incompetence, the SNP have held on to power in Scotland. In Wales, despite mismanaging the public services and economy for decades Mark Drakeford has emerged from his cocoon of obscurity to lead Labour to its best result ever.

It is no coincidence that for the past year these politicians have been on out TV screen almost daily telling us of the threats we face and the steps we must take. It is no surprise that in a time of great fear and threat, such as the pandemic, that there is a return to the flag in the search for safety. This makes these results interesting but, hopefully, impermanent. Even though it sometimes seems unlikely, the coronavirus pandemic, will not last forever. It is not permanent shield to protect these leaders and their parties form their incompetence. There will be a day of reckoning, change will come, it has just been postponed.