Will’s World: Canoe do it better than the Wrexham cowboy?
Will Evans © Richard Stanton “For God’s sake don’t fall in and drown. Your mother would kill me,” said the old man, as we pushed the canoe away from the shore and I leapt aboard, throwing my boots in beside me.
“I’ll be fine,” I shouted over my shoulder as I began to paddle downstream. “I’ll call you when I find them.”
Thus began another chapter of the Evans family’s farming misadventures.
See more: Will’s World – food, fighting and the field of farming endeavours
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The day had started like any other, with no hint of the drama that was to unfold.
We’d moved a group of six-month-old calves down to the bottom field next to the river, the sun was shining, and we were busy sorting finished cattle for market, when suddenly the bucolic scene was shattered.
Pilot scheme
The RAF have taken to using the skies above the farm for training, and they were back.
As much as I respect the brave Air Force men and women and the job they do, and as spectacular as it is to see two jets doing repeated loop-the-loops and snaking around each other at high speed, the noise is deafening, it upsets the dogs and, frankly, I wish they’d bugger off and practice elsewhere.
Anyway, it was a few hours later that we received a frantic phone call from our neighbour: “Your calves are all in the river. You’d better come quick!”
Now, we’ve never had a problem with this particular stretch in almost 75 years of our family farming here. It’s deep and fast-flowing in several places, but the most that ever happens is that they’ll venture out a few metres to have a drink.
Until today, that is. The RAF had managed to spook them so much that all 55 of them ended up swimming along with the current, like something out of a Western.
Fortunately, we were able to get 42 of them turned back and into the field relatively quickly, but the other 13 just kept swimming.
Not for the first time this year, as I sprinted along the field beside the river, gasping for air and stumbling down the bank through shoulder-high thistles and nettles every time I found a gap in the trees, I questioned every life decision that had got me to this point.
Bank transfer
About half a mile downstream, through a combination of shouting, swearing and splashing, we managed to convince a further 10 of them to head up the opposite bank, shivering and shaking with exhaustion, to safety with some other cattle of ours; so that left just three missing.
If there’s a force on earth more powerful and motivated than a farmer whose livestock are threatened with imminent danger, I’m yet to hear of it.
I realised with perfect clarity and focus that my moment had come: it was time for the canoe.
The thing is, though, it was a drunken eBay purchase.
After more than a few glasses of wine one Saturday night a few years back, I’d thought it was a great idea to buy a very large two-seater Canadian canoe.
“I’ll use it all the time in the summer,” I confidently stated.
It’s been in the shed ever since, and the present Mrs Evans has been nagging me to get rid of it.
Imagine my joy and relief, then, when not only did I find the three errant calves and manage to herd them to safety, but I also got to call my darling wife and inform her that my “total waste of money” canoe had gloriously saved the day.
I’m honestly not sure which made me happier.