dogs – Sam Russell

Farm and Family Life, Inspiration, Self-publishing, Writing Romance

Farmer by Day, Author by Night

My family farms 735 acres of arable land in North Essex. This isn’t the TOWIE incarnation of Essex that you see on the telly. It must be an hour’s journey to the nearest chic nightclub (farther if you measure in cultural miles). The pub is a goodly hike and you couldn’t throw a stone to strike the nearest retail outlet, not even if you had olympian capabilities and hurled in the direction the crow flies. This is rural Essex, agricultural Essex. It’s picturesque, and it’s home. In my part of the county, there are country lanes and ancient hamlets, Tudor farmhouses, feather-edged barns and land which unfurls with a lack of drama that is soft on the eye.I’m romanticising, of course, because that’s what I do when I’m not on a tractor or up to my elbows in nutrient-rich soil (read mud). I write rustic romance. I’m a rural authoress.

I’d like to call it a farm diversification but that wouldn’t be honest. A diversion from farming would be closer to the truth and I fear the husband and son might often have cause to wish I was less, er, diverted. But the writing has grown out of the land that raised me and a childhood which taught me to love the outdoors through the turning seasons and petulant weather. It’s inspired by friendships forged in drafty sheds; by harvest, family dogs, autumn bonfires and cider-fuelled, amorous escapades.I’m no longer youthful, but when my cheeks are wind-stung and the feet are numb, I’ve still got a romantic world to escape to. It might be winter in Draymere too, there may be mud or even snow, but the characters warm the story (and me) with a wealth of diverting antics. My mind can romp alongside them for hours. Be it out in the fields, on a dog walk or while I’m cooking the dinner, you’ll probably find me at Draymere. I’m seldom present in everyday life.

That’s escapism for you.

I blame Jilly Cooper. She introduced me to the possibilities of jodhpur-clad heroines’ who kicked off their wellies instead of slipping out of stilettoes. And that, my friends, was something of a hallelujah moment, back in the day when I lived in jodhpurs and rarely stepped out in anything other than waterproof boots.Be it town, village or farm, we all fall in love, and we’ve all experienced passion, heartbreak and unwise attraction. The emotions play out no matter where in the world you live. But I write it rural, earthy and rustic.

The books are raunchy; I should warn you of that. But, hey, it’s nothing that nature isn’t doing outside my window as I type and, trust me, the countryside is as sexy as hell.

Not convinced? Just spend a weekend at Draymere…

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life, Inspiration

April fools on the farm

March 31, 2017March 31, 2017by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

We’re running around like April fools now that spring has arrived on the farm. The men are loading lorries, dispatching the last of the corn which is still in the barns, and when the barns are empty they’ll have to be cleaned and readied for this year’s harvest. The lorries arrive at random times and often with little warning. Sometimes our early wake-up call is from a driver who needs ‘talking in’ from whatever situation his sat nav has landed him in: “I followed the postcode, but it’s taken me to a pub/tree/housing estate…” Much like our internet connection and mobile signal, it seems satellite navigation can only be relied on in cities.

This year’s crop is still green in the fields and, as the earth warms up, needs tending with nutrients and never-ending pest control. The autumn drought in the east of England, followed by an onslaught of pigeons and deer, has hammered our oilseed rape this year. We’re nurturing it, and trying to remain optimistic. There are hopeful buds on the plants, and only time will tell if they come to abundant fruition.

Back at the farmhouse, it’s also the end of the tax year, so alongside tidying barns we’re tidying paperwork too. Filling in forms while the hedgerows bud, scabbling data together on rainy days when the land is too wet to run on and the lorries aren’t queuing up.

Thrown into the mix of April madness there’s Easter, and work on our barn conversion scheduled to start any minute. Preparations which require thinking ahead, another barn to be cleared, foundations to be excavated and a row of hideously overgrown Leylandii (planted to shield the stable from a westerly wind) which have to be taken down before we can get going.

And then there’s the biggest time consumer of them all: Barley the puppy, who’s got us all spinning like April fools.

Writing? No chance.

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life

A Tale of Two Dogs (Episode 4) Don’t read while eating your supper…

February 12, 2017by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

Oh, the gore!

The terriers followed the farmer into the grain barn. It was always one of their favourite places. There’s a tunnel which runs through the middle of the barn, and at the end of that tunnel, a massive, industrial fan. The job of the fan is to blow air up through slats in the wooden floor, to dry the tonnes of grain which (we hope) are heaped upon it after harvest.

So, quite a meaty fan then. This fan means business. It also comes into use when we’re cleaning the barns pre-harvest – blowing mice out of the channels which run beneath the floorboards. It blasts those poor little mites up and into the air! Great sport, I’m sure you can imagine, for two little pest-control terriers. The sound of that fan firing up was a siren call to work for them. Heads up, and they were off.

Now, I quite like mice. I can’t say the same about rats, but mice are pretty with their cute little faces and twitchy whiskers. I console myself with the thought that the mice who live beneath our barn have a pretty jammy life; making their nests and rearing their pups in the warm and dry, with more prime feed-wheat than they could ever eat dropping through the ceiling.

The ones the terriers catch get a swift and efficient end to their lives too. Not for them the slow decline of poisoning or the panic of being trapped. You’ll know this if you’ve ever watched a terrier working. One shake is all it takes. A toss of dead mouse over the shoulder, and on to the next (although Nutty Meg was inclined to hover behind Russ and eat the dead ones that he threw back).

The dogs would return home knackered and proud. But, on one occasion, Russ didn’t come back at all. The Farmer went to find him, and I knew something was wrong from the tone of the Farmer’s voice when he carried Russ into the farmhouse. The poor little man was in a terrible state (the dog, not the Farmer, although he wasn’t doing so well either). The blood and froth spraying from Russ’s face propelled us all into the truck for an emergency trip to the vets.

He’d followed the Farmer into that tunnel, and when the door was shut behind him he’d tried to find another way out. When an industrial fan spins at several thousand rpm it gives the illusion of disappearing into thin air, and Russ tried to jump through it. The thought still makes me wince.

We thought he was a goner, but no. He lost about 4 mm off the end of his nose, and I spent three weeks delicately inserting a cotton bud into each of his nostrils (several times a day) and rotating it to stop them closing up.

The things we do for love, eh. He was right as rain in a few short weeks, but forever stumpy faced.

Chewing the Cud, Rustic Guests

Rustic Guest in the Farmhouse Kitchen

February 8, 2017by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

In the upcoming months, I’ll be hosting visitors in the rustic farmhouse kitchen and publishing posts which give a glimpse into my guests’ rural lives.

If you live, work, play or blog rural and you’d like to get involved, comment below or drop me a line and we’ll talk.

The guidelines are very simple:

Write a post of between 200 and 1000 words on a topic related to the countryside, your rural life or business
Include pictures if you want to (a picture of you is always nice)
Tell me something about yourself
Provide links to your blog, website or ‘buy’ site (if you have them) so readers can find out more

And that’s about it. Don’t be shy, I welcome approaches from all walks of rural life.

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life

A Tale of Two Dogs, episode 3 (my dog’s got no nose)

January 8, 2017January 8, 2017by Sam Russell1 Comment

How does he smell?
Awful!

Christmas casts my mind back to Hamgate (subtitled: The Year the Terriers got at the Ham).
Our lean-to doubles as a larder when the fridge is overloaded. The ham was jus’ chillin’ out there when my parents rose early and, being the thoughtful parents they are, let the dogs out for me…

Those dogs stripped that ham bone clean. It looked like a bleached carcass, after the hyenas, buzzards and ants have had their turn on it. Two terrier tummies were swinging like water-filled balloons. You could see they were going to blow. And blow they did.
Apparently, your sense of smell shuts down when you’re asleep, but I know it was the aroma that woke me. Suffice to say the clean-up demanded waders and a tea towel wrapped around my face, gallons of soapy water and frequent dashes outside to gulp fresh air.

At least the mess was sorted in time for our traditional Christmas jolly to the theatre. We went with the in-laws (best clothes and best behaviour, you know how it is). Eleven of us in a mini-bus and that god-awful smell still lingering.

Oh, the mortification. My smartly turned-out little family were all wearing coats infused with Eau de dog-diarrhea.

So my dog really does smell awful, and he’s really got no nose. But that’s a whole other story, which I might share in episode four.

Farm and Family Life, Inspiration

A Tale of Two Dogs, episode 2 (Partners in Crime)

December 2, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

As an only child, Russ was an itinerant, a bolter. We have far too many feral temptations on the farm: The hedgehog in the paddock, the muntjac in the woods, deer that will run for miles when there’s a dog (and me) chasing them. And the postman’s red van, although our postman isn’t feral. He carries dog biscuits.

*He’s thinking of going here – note the firm grip.*

We hoped that having a friend would encourage him to stay home. Oh, the sweet naivety of that idea. We were about to encounter the full force of Border terrier itinerancy.

What had been solo, forty-minute forays became twenty-four hours of canine sortie when they were hunting as a pack. And Meg was fast. No point in me running now (phew), all I could see was two brindle specks on the far, distant horizon.

They never learnt recall. The best you might get was a contemptuous stare, and that was only if you were lucky enough to be within staring distance.

2015-05-27-13-59-36 — *You try getting both of them in shot*

I’ve spent many hours on torchlight hunts, untangled leads wrapped around branches, apologised to too many neighbours (and to the security men at the nearby science park, who caught them on CCTV. They were chasing the swans).

I’ve retrieved those dogs from three different counties, but they usually turned up on the doormat after I’d spent the night sleepless with worry. Knackered, bloodied and bruised (that was them, I was just knackered), wearing mud-heavy clogs, their coats matted with our very own super-bonding clay, and frequently infested.

Have you met seed ticks? The veterinary nurse at our practice hadn’t, she thought I was being hysterical. ‘Bring them in, we can sort that out.’ And she came at them armed with tweezers.

Now seed ticks are not just your common or garden tick (I’ve tweezered off plenty of those little buggers. I recall that my best [or should that be worst] count was thirty-six ticks. Removed from a single dog, In one session).

She can’t say I didn’t warn her, that nurse. Her face was a treat, and I can’t deny the thrill of satisfaction that gave me. We were, at last, united in hysteria. Hundreds, nay thousands, of miniscule black ticks. Like poppy seeds, but evil.

The nurse put her tweezers away and sent me home with some Napalm.

Tune in next time for episode three (My Dog’s Got no Nose).

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life, Inspiration

A Tale of Two Dogs, espisode 1 (Game is Right)

November 5, 2016December 2, 2016by Sam Russell1 Comment

The Kennel Club standard describes Border Terriers as ‘active and game’ and ‘essentially a working terrier, capable of following a horse.’

Game is right.

My little big man (Russ) arrived in our life in 1998, and he was game from day one: Tripping over my heels as I trudged to the stables, ready and willing to grapple with a 17 hand horse that didn’t want to share its breakfast. Plucky little chap, it was love at first sight. I was smitten, and I basked in the satisfaction of being his leader, protector and mistress.

For a few precious weeks, until puberty struck and he underwent a werewolf-like transformation, morphing almost overnight from mild-mannered pup to canine rebel commando.

Never nasty, nary a growl or a grumble at any human, but Lord have mercy on the rest of the animal kingdom. If it moved he wanted to kill it, and if he couldn’t do that his job was to tell us it was there, outside the window. He could tell us all night if need be. The word ‘dogged’ could have been coined for my little big man.

But I must be game too, because in 1999 I went back and bought his half-sister.

Nutty Meg spent her first night with us suspended over the wooden rail between the legs of a kitchen chair. I would like to stress that this was very much her choice, not mine. I wondered what the hell I’d bought into the house, and employed every method of persuasion that I had in my arsenal. None of them worked. The puppy bed and hot water bottle were rejected in favour of a wooden hammock.

Nutty Meg trembled a lot, a combination of attitude and several neuroses. Little big man found her existence beyond annoying, but he took it well. The mildest of profanities when she hung off his ears and attacked him in his bed. He told her off once, when she got over-frenzied playing tug-of-war with Youngest Daughter’s sock. That was the first and last time she listened to him. Or to anyone, come to that.

Nutty Meg wasn’t scared of any living thing, but she was phobic of crossing the kitchen floor, hated water but laid down in muddy puddles. She took on the farm truck (and lived to tell the tale), slept with the cat and washed little big man’s ears. Wouldn’t eat her food, but was ferocious if anyone tried to remove it. Would rather be carried than go for a walk, but could outrun a gazelle (if need be).

And I can confirm that Border Terriers are capable of following a horse… If they want to, and if the horse is going the way they’re intending to go.

A neurotic lap-dog/feral bitch and a canine rebel commando.

Two Border Terriers, about to gang up, and the adventure only just starting. Tune in next time for A Tale of Two Dogs, episode 2 (Partners in Crime)

Chewing the Cud, Farm and Family Life

A shaggy dog story to start your week

June 13, 2016June 13, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

So, we went to the coast this weekend, with two of our oldest friends (the Bridesmaid and the Best Man actually, although that was thirty-plus years ago). Bear with me, the story gets funnier. We girls (I reserve the right to calls us girls, despite having given away the fact that, if I married thirty-plus years ago, I’m actually anything but) went potter-shopping. You know, the sort that men hate, when we wander in to every shop, not intending to purchase, and end up with quite a lot of shit which we didn’t really want. The Bridesmaid got a new handbag, and some decoupage paper. I bought two, very luxurious, beds for my ancient dogs, and a clingy top (which I made unclingy by buying two sizes too large). It’s nice, I’m wearing it now. And the dogs have managed to find their new beds, without too much confusion. So, all in all, a surprisingly good result for a potter-shopping trip. My apologies to the charity shop (although I doubt they’ll have to wait donkey’s years to get their hands on those pet beds…)

Anyway, let me back up a bit. We sent the boys (ditto, above) off to find their own fun, and they decided to hunt the coast for old military defences. (I’m not making this up, and you’ll get no comment from me, because at least their choice was less costly than potter-shopping was. Venus and Mars and all that…)

They had a successful trip; after a bit of a drive and a bit of a hike, they managed to track down a WWII Emergency Coastal Battery (I only know it’s called that because ‘we’ Googled it later.) Here’s some blurb that I’ve lifted from the Norfolk Heritage Explorer (link here, for those of you [men] who might be interested).

A World War Two emergency coast defence battery survives largely intact together with two ancillary structures on the cliff top … It is also visible on aerial photographs; the latter indicate that it was constructed between 30 July 1941 and 4 January 1943. It consists of two gun emplacements which held ex-Naval 6-inch guns, projecting off an integral, semi-subterranean accommodation and storage block. Three ancillary buildings (two of which survive, one as a garden shed)

Phew! (I do like the bit about the shed though) here’s a pic:

Very…symmetrical, isn’t it. Alas, you can’t get inside. Our boys peered through the teeny-tiny gap in the structure (if you look at the picture closely, you can see the mini spy-hole by the corner on the left-hand wall). Too dark inside to see anything, though. Undaunted, The Farmer and the Best Man took a snap through the hole.

Now, I really enjoyed my potter-shop, but I’d have laughed until I peed if I’d witnessed their reactions when they looked at the picture they’d taken:

Scroll down and take a peek if you dare