Meltdown

Monday 20 April

I receive news that there's a cage-trap at the top of the hill behind the house. These catch live birds and animals and are legal up to a point (the rules are complicated). It’s inside an electric fence next to a large chicken farm near where a friend and I have both seen a fox recently. Foxes are so rare in the countryside these days and I’m riven with concern for the beautiful creature.

The fox that lives nearby. Photograph by Trish Currie

This picture (taken from the internet) shows a trap similar to the one near the chicken farm but much smaller

The trap is big enough to enclose a large child as well as most wild animals. When it was set last year and baited with dead chickens, I found a live buzzard in it one day. Luckily, because the trap was unprotected at that time, I was able to release the buzzard and shut the trap afterwards. Someone else found a buzzard too and released it and between us after that we monitored the trap and tried to keep it shut at all times.

    The farmer is obviously wise to what was going on, hence the new protection.

    In fact, the whole complex is like a concentration camp, with at least three strands of electrified wire several feet high, and I wonder if the farmer really has that much trouble with predation. I think of the Greek islands we've visited and the chickens there happily scratching through woods.

Greek chickens

Could the farmer not spare the odd chicken, and give wildlife a chance? Certainly, when I spoke to Devon Wildlife Trust about the trap they were horrified and urged me to contact the police. (I did but they never got back to me and I didn’t pursue it.)

I have a dread of electric fences, having received too many shocks from them as a child. I’m not too keen on angry farmers either, but I resolve to walk up and see if there’s anything I can do. When Frog offers to come with me, I’m much relieved. We go armed with a wooden broom handle in case we need to push live wires out of the way.

    It’s a hot morning and Frog struggles up the track behind me. I’m used to the climb as I do it nearly every day but Frog tends to muscle rather than puff. As we cross the field before the chicken farm we hear a large vehicle and notice that the ground is covered in white pellets. Something is spreading fertiliser.

    We’re nearly at the trap when a tractor appears. In true collie fashion Ellie dances round its front wheels, barking. I want to disappear, but instead wave a greeting. It’s my usual strategy in such situations and luckily the farmer doesn’t question our presence, instead waving back and driving into the chicken farm. There’s no doubt now that he would see us if we approached the trap, so we retreat, leaping through a hedge into the land of a different farmer.

    We recover over lunch and I decide to talk to a retired farmer friend who rang the chicken farmer for me last year and persuaded him to stop using the trap. Luckily the farmer friend is a bird enthusiast and didn’t like the sound of  buzzards being caught. I hope he’ll help this time too. Farmers are something of a Mafia. They listen to each other but not to anyone else.

We have another potentially stressful errand in the afternoon: a visit to Sainsbury's. Frog hasn’t food-shopped yet during lockdown as he was laid low five weeks ago with a three-day temperature and has only recently returned to full strength. (Yes, we wonder now too. We didn’t question it at the time.) Last time I went, the queue stretched the whole way round the carpark so we go equipped with hats and I sling my camera over my shoulder, planning to take photographs.

    To our relief there's no queue at all but I take a trolley from the wrong place so it’s unsanitised and then I can’t work out what to do with the trolley, how to transfer my bags with my polluted hands, which are the sanitised trolleys, and how, when and where to clean my hands. All the while the two guards (?) are shouting instructions at me. I have a meltdown. ‘Look,’ I shout. ‘I’m trying to do the right thing.’ They back down immediately and explain to me slowly and gently what they want me to do. The female guard tries to spray my hands – at a safe distance – with dribbly sanitiser. At last, I’m allowed in. It's a good start. I don’t feel in the least bit guilty about my meltdown.

    Inside, there’s the usual cast of zombies. No one smiles and wherever I stand I’m too close to someone. I think it’s part of my makeup. I never could get the hang of team games like netball, or jumping into moving skipping ropes, and now I can’t cope with driving in the middle lane of a motorway. My spatial awareness is basic. Nevertheless I have Frog with me today, albeit with a separate trolley as per the rules, and that's a comfort. I’ve divided the shopping list into two and we meet at intervals to compare notes.

    Job done, we wander back to the car together and discuss whether Frog should come on his own next time. ‘I don’t worry too much about anyone else,’ he says. ‘I just do my shopping and try to keep out of people's way.’ That’s the difference, I think, between men and women.
    I’ve completely forgotten to take any photographs.