Amy & Lan by Sadie Jones

Author:Sadie Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

11

Scything

LAN

The weather is dry and hot. We have to help Finbar with the vegetables – all us kids and everyone – to get them in before they all go mushy. In the early morning when me and Amy come out from the kitchen, everything is wet with dew. We can see all the tracks from what the animals were doing during the night, when nobody was watching – the badgers, and the foxes, creeping around the henhouses. The chickens all wait in line to come out every morning, like kids in the lunch queue, and if Mum hasn’t already, me and Amy let them out. Or me and Eden, if Amy’s asleep. She’s started sleeping later than me some days. We slide the doors up and they come down their ramp, all busy and fluffing themselves up, pecking about for grubs and chick feed in the Orchard grass. Magic and Molly look completely different now. They were all baldy when they came, and we were scared they’d die. Now they’re enormous, compared to Mum’s little bantams, and their feathers are red-brown and glossy. Harriet’s goats are all together by the electric in the morning sunshine, with Gabriella in the middle, with her pretty white face.

Colin gave Josh a pair of lambs at Easter. He named them Rose and Lily. He loves them so much, he’s easy to tease (especially since he named Lily for Lily Robinson, because he loves her). The lambs have collars Em crocheted for them, and they follow him everywhere. Even up to his room. Now they’re six months, they’re getting big. Luckily their poo is more like a goat’s than Gabriella’s. The grown-ups are always saying –

Joshua had two little lambs,

Their fleeces white as snow,

And everywhere that Joshua went,

The lambs were sure to go

– and Josh did take Rose and Lily to school, into assembly and everything. The teachers said once was enough.

Apart from Rose and Lily, who are pets, Frith is more and more like a proper farm. There’s the hens to do, and the goats, and pigs. It’s our third year with weaners. We’ve got four. They came in the Easter holidays from the pig-farmer man. They were tiny, and black, with smiling mouths. You can hardly see their eyes behind their flopping-down ears. The smallholder book calls pigs ploughs with legs. Harriet says our weaners are the happiest pigs in the world. The book says the pig used to be called the gentleman who pays the rent in the olden days, because you can sell the meat. Harriet and Rani want a proper herd, so we can sell pork and people will stop buying factory-farmed, but my mum doesn’t want so much farm work to do, and nor does Adam.

Having weaners is the same as Vita and Virginia, you get them when they’re small, and eat them later in the year. It feels like cheating. Especially because they’re so sweet when they come, and playful. All the animals at the farm have got characters, from the dogs to the bantams, but the pigs are smart, too.

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