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queenluaGoing into this book, I knew nothing about the Lake District, or sheep-herding in general, and I'm not sure what drove me to pick up this Gen Xer shepherd's memoir n years ago, beyond general curiosity.
The book's opening is a stunning piece of nature writing, detailing the annual ritual of "going to the fells"—basically, there's sheep that spend their summer grazing on the scraggly, high, mountainous fells, and when the time's right, all the shepherds in the area go together to round them up and bring them back to their respective farms for autumn.
While the author hikes through the predawn light, as sheepdogs bay all around him, we get the history of this place, and this ritual (one that's been done annually for centuries and centuries), and the nuances of how to identify and train a good sheepdog, and the personalities of the other shepherds with him, and the beauty of the sheep and the hills and... it's all story, thrilling and beautiful. I adored it. I wanted to be on that fell.
The rest of the book never quite reaches that same high, though it's still solid nature/vocation-writing, in the vein of, say, a lesser H is for Hawk (whose author blurbed this enthusiastically, and having finished reading—yeah, that tracks). The memoir-y bits get a little long-winded but certainly not as syrupy or tedious as the median nature book, and the details of farm work remain fascinating throughout.
The economic story behind the scenes is what really piqued my interest, however.
See, there's a paradox I noticed in high school, without really understanding it: even though Future Farmers of America was our largest club by far, most the kids in the club weren't farmers. At least not farmers in the sense that matched my intuition, i.e. "the family makes most of their income from farming." These students would maybe live out in the country, or have a lot of land, or even a couple horses / chickens / sheep / etc, but these were dubiously-reliable side incomes at best, and often just a hobby. So you'd have kids driving to school in souped-up trucks that were lifted so far as to be impractical, with frilly decals that betrayed the fact that they'd never been used for actual farm work... The most authentic "farm girl" I knew, whose parents made their living as farriers and horseback riding instructors, very quietly got herself a full ride to college and went into nursing. She liked the land and the horses but liked a reliable income more, I think.
(I would encounter the real money in farming later on, when I met the heir to the state's largest pig farm at one of my brother's fraternity parties. Dude was barely literate but richer than God. Once, at a bar, he got pissed when the bartender refused to serve a "round of shots for everybody" because the bartender didn't think the dude could afford it, so the guy proceeded to take out a hundred-dollar bill and eat it in front of the bartender. Uh, my brother has the weirdest college stories, lol.)
Anyway, a similar tension emerges here, between farming-as-a-culture (alive and well in the Lake District) and farming-as-an-income (dubious; fraught). The opening section focuses mostly on the author's childhood, learning the dos and don'ts of sheep-herding from his grandfather. When he becomes a young man, however, the actual economic realities come into focus: most people can't afford to own a farm, and they're lucky if they make enough to rent one. If they can't afford to rent, they work odd jobs for other farmers until maybe they save up enough to rent. The author ends up leaving the Lake District to do college for a few years, not because he's particularly interested in education, but because he's just taking up too much space on his father's farm and it's a way to get out of the dude's hair for a few years. And after graduation, the author is able to get himself a farm—but that's mostly because he's subsidizing it with his day job at UNESCO, working mostly-remote so he can maximize his time with his sheep.
So the economic picture comes into closer focus—this work seems more like a (very!) time-consuming avocation than actual income—but there's never quite as many details as I'd like. The author's a clear anomaly, with his fancy Oxbridge-educated remote job; how the hell are all these other farmers making ends meet? Particularly since most of the author's focus is (1) winning prizes at contests and (2) selling particularly fine sheep to other shepherds—the sheep produce wool, and get sold for meat sometimes (I think?), but the author mentions so little about that aspect of farm life that, like... is making money not the point? is this the kind of hobby where it's just all other hobbyists swapping money with each other?
(This would probably all pair entertainingly with Dr. Taber's agriculture podcast, which is excellent and also is the source of most of what little I do know about agriculture/food production, lol.)
There's lots of interesting little tidbits thrown around, stuff that would make cool worldbuilding details; a couple off the top of my head:
* Herdwick sheep are "hefted," which means they stick to a particular area of the fells each summer, taught by their mothers roughly where their "territory" is. This is a thing that's been bred/taught to the sheep stretching back centuries, and is considered super-valuable when you're selling them to other shepherds; it means you're tending the next flock that'll carry on that tradition.
* It's lambing time. You have one lamb that was stillborn, and another lamb whose mother is rejecting it. A trick that apparently works is, skin the dead lamb, wrap that wool around the rejected lamb, and then hand the rejected lamb to the mother of the stillborn. She'll be confused and suspicious, but apparently the smell from the wool is generally enough to convince her that this lamb is her own, and she'll raise it that way.
* Dear god are herd animals vulnerable to all kinds of diseases. The way the author needs to be able to tell, at a glance, whether the lamb needs an antibiotic or a calcium injection or whatever-the-hell-else, and needs to do it fast, when he first notices the lamb walking a little funny... I learned all kinds of diseases I was previously unaware of. Really drives home why factory farming is such a troubling nexus for antibiotic resistance, in a way that didn't click fully for me before.
Also, glancing at Goodreads, I'm amused how many reviewers rankled at the author's "reverse snobbery." Which like, yes, the author definitely has a chip on his shoulder about formal education, particularly when writing about his teenage years, and he's very proud of the specific wisdom and skills that the barely-literate shepherds around him have. But, like... the teachers in his primary/secondary school do sound like condescending snobs? I'd be pissed too if someone told me my family's profession is for unambitious losers? It reminds me of the side essay I need to write some time about how often people shout "anti-intellectualism" when really what they mean is "these dumb yokels who should know their place won't automatically genuflect to my clear superiority and I'm mad about it," lol. (Anti-intellectualism exists! and is a problem! It's just not what's happening here; the dude works for UNESCO ffs; saying he prefers the Lake District shouldn't make you insecure about your fancy London job lmao)
The book's opening is a stunning piece of nature writing, detailing the annual ritual of "going to the fells"—basically, there's sheep that spend their summer grazing on the scraggly, high, mountainous fells, and when the time's right, all the shepherds in the area go together to round them up and bring them back to their respective farms for autumn.
While the author hikes through the predawn light, as sheepdogs bay all around him, we get the history of this place, and this ritual (one that's been done annually for centuries and centuries), and the nuances of how to identify and train a good sheepdog, and the personalities of the other shepherds with him, and the beauty of the sheep and the hills and... it's all story, thrilling and beautiful. I adored it. I wanted to be on that fell.
The rest of the book never quite reaches that same high, though it's still solid nature/vocation-writing, in the vein of, say, a lesser H is for Hawk (whose author blurbed this enthusiastically, and having finished reading—yeah, that tracks). The memoir-y bits get a little long-winded but certainly not as syrupy or tedious as the median nature book, and the details of farm work remain fascinating throughout.
The economic story behind the scenes is what really piqued my interest, however.
See, there's a paradox I noticed in high school, without really understanding it: even though Future Farmers of America was our largest club by far, most the kids in the club weren't farmers. At least not farmers in the sense that matched my intuition, i.e. "the family makes most of their income from farming." These students would maybe live out in the country, or have a lot of land, or even a couple horses / chickens / sheep / etc, but these were dubiously-reliable side incomes at best, and often just a hobby. So you'd have kids driving to school in souped-up trucks that were lifted so far as to be impractical, with frilly decals that betrayed the fact that they'd never been used for actual farm work... The most authentic "farm girl" I knew, whose parents made their living as farriers and horseback riding instructors, very quietly got herself a full ride to college and went into nursing. She liked the land and the horses but liked a reliable income more, I think.
(I would encounter the real money in farming later on, when I met the heir to the state's largest pig farm at one of my brother's fraternity parties. Dude was barely literate but richer than God. Once, at a bar, he got pissed when the bartender refused to serve a "round of shots for everybody" because the bartender didn't think the dude could afford it, so the guy proceeded to take out a hundred-dollar bill and eat it in front of the bartender. Uh, my brother has the weirdest college stories, lol.)
Anyway, a similar tension emerges here, between farming-as-a-culture (alive and well in the Lake District) and farming-as-an-income (dubious; fraught). The opening section focuses mostly on the author's childhood, learning the dos and don'ts of sheep-herding from his grandfather. When he becomes a young man, however, the actual economic realities come into focus: most people can't afford to own a farm, and they're lucky if they make enough to rent one. If they can't afford to rent, they work odd jobs for other farmers until maybe they save up enough to rent. The author ends up leaving the Lake District to do college for a few years, not because he's particularly interested in education, but because he's just taking up too much space on his father's farm and it's a way to get out of the dude's hair for a few years. And after graduation, the author is able to get himself a farm—but that's mostly because he's subsidizing it with his day job at UNESCO, working mostly-remote so he can maximize his time with his sheep.
So the economic picture comes into closer focus—this work seems more like a (very!) time-consuming avocation than actual income—but there's never quite as many details as I'd like. The author's a clear anomaly, with his fancy Oxbridge-educated remote job; how the hell are all these other farmers making ends meet? Particularly since most of the author's focus is (1) winning prizes at contests and (2) selling particularly fine sheep to other shepherds—the sheep produce wool, and get sold for meat sometimes (I think?), but the author mentions so little about that aspect of farm life that, like... is making money not the point? is this the kind of hobby where it's just all other hobbyists swapping money with each other?
(This would probably all pair entertainingly with Dr. Taber's agriculture podcast, which is excellent and also is the source of most of what little I do know about agriculture/food production, lol.)
There's lots of interesting little tidbits thrown around, stuff that would make cool worldbuilding details; a couple off the top of my head:
* Herdwick sheep are "hefted," which means they stick to a particular area of the fells each summer, taught by their mothers roughly where their "territory" is. This is a thing that's been bred/taught to the sheep stretching back centuries, and is considered super-valuable when you're selling them to other shepherds; it means you're tending the next flock that'll carry on that tradition.
* It's lambing time. You have one lamb that was stillborn, and another lamb whose mother is rejecting it. A trick that apparently works is, skin the dead lamb, wrap that wool around the rejected lamb, and then hand the rejected lamb to the mother of the stillborn. She'll be confused and suspicious, but apparently the smell from the wool is generally enough to convince her that this lamb is her own, and she'll raise it that way.
* Dear god are herd animals vulnerable to all kinds of diseases. The way the author needs to be able to tell, at a glance, whether the lamb needs an antibiotic or a calcium injection or whatever-the-hell-else, and needs to do it fast, when he first notices the lamb walking a little funny... I learned all kinds of diseases I was previously unaware of. Really drives home why factory farming is such a troubling nexus for antibiotic resistance, in a way that didn't click fully for me before.
Also, glancing at Goodreads, I'm amused how many reviewers rankled at the author's "reverse snobbery." Which like, yes, the author definitely has a chip on his shoulder about formal education, particularly when writing about his teenage years, and he's very proud of the specific wisdom and skills that the barely-literate shepherds around him have. But, like... the teachers in his primary/secondary school do sound like condescending snobs? I'd be pissed too if someone told me my family's profession is for unambitious losers? It reminds me of the side essay I need to write some time about how often people shout "anti-intellectualism" when really what they mean is "these dumb yokels who should know their place won't automatically genuflect to my clear superiority and I'm mad about it," lol. (Anti-intellectualism exists! and is a problem! It's just not what's happening here; the dude works for UNESCO ffs; saying he prefers the Lake District shouldn't make you insecure about your fancy London job lmao)
no subject
Date: 2021-06-22 08:33 pm (UTC)A friend of mine is a goat farmer with about 20 goats (and a day job working from home for the government) and . . . yes, "the kind of hobby where it's just all other hobbyists swapping money with each other" pretty much tracks.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2021-06-22 11:30 pm (UTC)(and oh man can't wait for the future essay your last paragraph hinted at, it really is enraging - i still interact pretty often in adjacent circles with a lot of salt-of-the-earth/small-town folks and boyyy is it palpable at times from city people.)
no subject
Date: 2021-06-24 06:35 am (UTC)I too am curious now as to how other farmers make ends meet. It seems like its less that one profits rather than the goal may be just to break even!
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