Thank you for reading my short story, I hope that you enjoy it. Love Mica xx, Yorkshire England.
All email comments good or critical welcomed. Please note that all email comments from an invalid email address will be deleted immediately and will not be read, so please take care when entering your email if you want a reply. Rude or abusive comments may result in blocking. Please note that I am a British female, and I write in British English and vernacular, so for me a fanny is the correct term for female genitalia, a pussy is a pet cat and the ass is a bum or arse.
We had a row, Mark and I, a humdinger, and it was just the latest of many. I had enough. That was it. In the morning when he went to work, I went through the flat and got all of my things, everything that was mine and piled it up by the front door. I stuffed everything into bags and cases and took it to my car, filling the boot, the back seat and the passenger seat. I sat down for a minute changing all of my passwords and pin numbers on all of my accounts and bank cards. I took the flat keys off my key ring and put them on the kitchen work surface, got up, pulled the front door shut behind me and left.
I sat in the car for a moment and took a deep breath. There was only one place to go now, back to the farm. I started the car and headed off, through Shipley, past Bingley, skirting Keighley and then another thirty minutes and I was on the small single-track road that ended at the farm, and pulled in.
"Kate," Dad said coming across as I got out of the car.
"Dad," I hugged him, "can I stay for a while?"
"Of course you can. I have to go and see to the cows, I'll catch up with you later, you know where everything is. You'll have to make your bed."
"Thanks Dad," I said and headed into the farmhouse.
It isn't a big farmhouse, two rooms and a bathroom upstairs, and a large kitchen and a sitting room come lounge downstairs. There was an outside loo downstairs near the main door, saves you coming into the house when you were busy working and needed to go; a number of small outhouses used for various things, one housing the diesel generator used in emergencies. To one side were the various barns, cowsheds, pig pens, milking sheds and the like. It wasn't a big farm, a few hundred acres, but Dad owned it, well, half of it, Mum had left me her half in her will, and so I was, I suppose, technically a farmer too.
Dad had dairy cows, some pigs and a few sheep. The sheep he tended to keep just for meat and barter. He might barter a lamb or two for some services from the other local farmers. A few fields were put aside for hay, and that provided the winter fodder. The necessary combine and bailer were borrowed from the co-operative, the pecking order changed by rota each year, sometimes you got it just in time, sometimes later.
Every year Dad killed a dairy cow that was coming to the end of its useful milking life, he processed it himself and the meat went into a freezer. All he had to do was fill in the forms and send them off to say that the cow was deceased and no longer on the farm.
I went up to what was to become my room once again. I flipped back the quilt on the bed and sniffed the sheets, they didn't smell, they would do for now. Back down to the car and I started ferrying my life's belongings upstairs to my room. It took a fair few trips and I was pretty tired at the end of it. I wandered over to the milking shed where Dad was just finishing milking.
"I am putting the kettle on, fancy a tea?"
"Yes, can you bring it out here?"
"Yes Dad."
I went back and made the teas and took them out to the milking shed and passed Dad a mug.
"Do you know where my old wellies are Dad?"
"Yes, they are in the barn, I will sort them out and bring them in. You might want to clean them out before you put a foot in."
"Yeah, good call."
"What happened? You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"It's okay Dad. Mark and I had a row, we were both at fault really, but it just showed me that we weren't meant to be together, so I moved out. I changed all my passwords and pin codes and stuff and that was that. It's over. Life moves on. I don't know what I am going to do."
"You can stay here of course; I could do with help around the farm. I was going to ask Joe Egan if his lad wanted to come and help, but, if you are here, then I won't have to do that."
It made sense, as I was going to be here anyway, and I am not the kind of person to sit around and do nothing, so yes, I would help around the farm. It would do me good to be honest, give me something to think about.
"Of course Dad, I will do whatever you need. You'll have to remind me of some stuff, and teach me a few others, but yeah, it'll be good."
"You can take over the cows, they take up most of my time, oh, and 363, she is the next one to go, her milk is drying up and she is too old for another calf. So, she is meat. You'll have to dig the pit, can you remember how to drive the back ho?"
When Dad culled an animal, all the non-edible bits were put in a pit, covered in lime, buried, and left. That would be my job when the time came. There used to be bags of lime at the back of the barn, I guessed they were still there, or he would have said.
"Probably Dad, I'll find out when I get in it, we'll see. Any idea when?"
"Saturday, so you need the pit ready by then. I'll cull and prep, you can help and bury."
"No problem."
"I'll put the hot water on Saturday, it can be a messy job, I only usually have hot water at the weekend, is that a problem to you?"
"No Dad, I can take a bath on a Sunday. I will use the electric shower in the week."
"Right. Tomorrow I will get you added to the insurances, you can drive the Land Rover on the roads then, useful if you need to go to Keighley to get supplies."
"Thanks Dad."
"There are potatoes in the outhouse next to the loo, can you do them for supper? Saves me doing it, I can clean the dairy then and makes sure that everything is ready for the milk lorry."
"Of course."
