Over the Farmer's Gate by Roger Evans

difficult calving recently that left her a bit wobbly on her back legs. We put her out in what we call the stack yard where she could lie under cover should she wish and where there were several patches of fresh grass to nibble. Most importantly she was off the concrete and on natural ground where she could find her feet at all times and recover. I was working up there all afternoon and twice she made her way 30 yards or so to the water trough, ate some of the silage we had put out for her and then, each time, returned to a cosy spot in the corner under the hedge to lie down. Because of the work we were doing, there were no gates to keep her in but given her condition and her obvious contentment with where she was, I was not particularly concerned.
    During the night she became more adventurous and she wandered further afield. She declined the opportunity to go into our garden, by two different gateways, as she did the gardens of our two immediate neighbours. She rejected the chance to go into my son’s garden through the small wicket gate, but decided instead to try to enter his garden over his cattle grid where she spent most of the night with her legs firmly stuck between the bars.
    Fortunately, we have the kit on farms these days to lift cows out of situations like this without too much trouble. Her back legs, which were a problem after the calving, are fine now, but one of her front legs is now badly swollen.
    We’ve only ever had a cow stuck in a grid once before. That was on a Sunday afternoon and the incident occurred on some land we were renting about a mile away. A passer-by came on the cow in the grid and telephoned 999. You might have spottedby now that we live in a very rural area populated by very rural people, most of whom have a very good idea of what goes on and how things all ‘work’.
    The local volunteer firemen ‘scrambled’ to the call. They knew immediately where the field was, and whose cattle were in the field. They also knew which pub my son was in so they drove there first of all, blue lights and sirens busy, collected my son, took him in the fire engine to help them extricate the cow, which they soon did, and then, at a more leisurely pace, returned him to the pub and his pint.

    YOU MUST have 40 to 50 hares up on your top ground,’ the keeper told me during one of our Saturday morning chats. He calls them ‘my hares’ because he knows I love to see them about.
    I knew there were a lot of hares about, but had no idea there were that many. He has a much better idea than me, because he’s been lamping for foxes lately and the hares sit still there in the spotlight for him to count.
    If there are that many, and he’s rarely wrong, I take great pride in it.
    I’ve often been told that hares are a good barometer of the wellbeing of the countryside, so using that criteria, all’s looking quite well. And they’re not just any old hares; they all look fat and well.
    I often come across four or five playing together, oblivious to the approaching Land Rover, so full of themselves that they will often look you right in the eye before they slope off. A neighbouring tenant has a different view on hares and phones the landlord’s agent on a regular basis complaining about hare numbers. It takes all sorts!
    Quite what damage they do to mature arable crops I don’tknow, they are more likely to be grazing the short grasses on the field margins. But ‘my’ hares could be getting too numerous for their own good.
    I drove around the stock and the fields on Saturday morning. It is one of my favourite jobs and it suited my plans the next day, the Sunday morning, to go around before breakfast. It had rained hard in the night and as soon as I went off the hard road onto the track and the field margins I could see the tracks of a four-wheel drive vehicle that had travelled there since I had the previous evening. I was able to follow its marks all around my land and it was quite a tour. I’m good at reading