Another New Badger Sett

I was in two minds about going off exploring into Hexham yesterday, but the weather forecast made it likely that I would get a soaking, so I adjusted my plans and decided that I would do my supermarket shop instead. While I was waiting for the bus, one of the local farmers came by with his tractor and trailer. I thought that he was going to offer me a lift when he stopped and as he was carrying manure I was glad that he just wanted a quick word. Would I come down to the farm?

I agreed to that and as he was busy too I could still get the shopping done. As I was waiting a woman came along with her child in a buggy. She asked me about the bus times, as the route into Consett has just changed, I was able to help. We fell into conversation and chewed the fat as it were, while we waited for our separate buses. She seemed really disappointed that we were not going the same way, when my bus came along first. As the supermarket provides a free bus from many of the outlying villages, it was that I was catching, I was left wondering if I had been chatted up? From the conversation we had had I knew that she had only recently moved to the village, so I am left wondering.

When the bus arrived it was very full, but not with shoppers but children. Half the bus was filled with some less than well behaved kids. Oh well it is the school holidays, but as this was a large extended family, I did wonder why one or two of the adults didn't look after the children so the rest of the adults could do the shopping in peace. Additionally with eight or ten children there too, the journey back becomes very cramped and uncomfortable as there was little room for all the bags of shopping as well.

If it had not been for the cat, her food and litter, I could have left it until next week. But as she wont get her own shopping I have to do it.

One thing that I have been meaning to say here, Tesco's have recently installed a wind turbine at the store. Now while I can and will be in the future critical of Tesco's, I do applaurd them for doing this. As every little effort that any organisation carries out to help reduce fossil fuel energy consumption needs to be encouraged. Further as the store is located on a very windy site wind generation will be effective there.

When I had finished my shopping, the heavy rain that was forecast had started. Had I gone to Hexham I would have got drenched, I am already starting to evolve webbed feet. I want to go there to film down by the river and get some establishing shots, and to seek out some good locations where I can film the salmon run next year. I have seen the salmon leaping the wears there, and there is work going on there to make it easier for the salmon to get up river to the reds to spawn.

Getting back home I had some lunch, I do like the Polish cheese and the rye bread I got the other day. I then telephoned the Farmer, his wife told me that he really did want me to come down as there was something unusual going on with the old abandoned badger sett on the farm. This intrigued me, the sett I had spotted when I was first exploring the areas around the village, and that had been how I first got to know this farmer. However, that sett had been unused for years.

Therefore I done my wet weather gear, snorkel flippers, I exaggerate but it has felt like that at times.

When I got down there, I could see that a Badger had been digging out the old tunnels. It only happened a couple of days ago, but a badger or badgers had moved in. The farmer though was worried as he has cattle and wanted to know what he could do to prevent TB in his cattle. For this he was getting an advisor in but he also wondered if I wanted to meet this person too. So once the appointment is confirmed, if I can be free I will get to talk with a real badger expert. Also, he wants me, if I can fit it in, to have a watch to see if any of the badgers are from the local populations I have been watching.

I have done that tonight, hence my posting in the wee small hours, and one of the females is one from a larger sett. I think that she is about three years old, the other may be a two year old cousin but the male is new to the area. That makes two new males establishing setts in recent weeks. This is making me think that a sett somewhere else may have been disturbed. It may just be that we have a healthy and growing population though.

When the farmer and I had looked at the digging at the sett, we went inside for a cup of tea and some excellent ginger cake that was so well spiced that it dried my socks out instantly. Once we had finished talking about the Badgers, he told me that he had read my “diary thing” meaning this. I was ready for him to criticise me, as while I have had a lot of support, I have been critiqued for talking about such issues as racism in a public way. Anyway, he started out saying just how sorry he was to hear that a few ignorant people were causing me problems. We had a long chat about what had been going on, and he told me that, while the village has always had its eccentric and radicals, they were predominantly druggie drop outs, or people that fitted into the selfish take all they can attitude that predominates in the village. Also, I made the active choice of moving here and did so for a reason, the woods and the wildlife. That gave me a purpose for being here, while even many of the indignations folks were only living in the village because hats where they were born, not because they loved or even liked the place. Now I did think that he was being a bit harsh but I understood what he meant.

He reminded me of a story that I had told him, where because of my non North East accent I was told that I don't belong round here. I have always taken it to just be a poor use of English when people meant to say that I was not from the local area. But he thinks that it is really that they don't want anyone who is not local around. That has even meant someone from the next village, so someone like me who was born outside the region, even though my farther was originally from the local area, is seen with prejudice. He then went on to tell me that he too had witnessed racial abuse of the people in the Chinese Takeaway and the Indian Takeaway on separate occasions. As apart from the chip shop they are the only fast food outlets in the village, I would have thought that abusing the owners or staff in these eateries was foolish. Perhaps if I had been a regular customer in these places rather than very occasional buyer, I would have realised the racism sooner.

I was astounded to hear someone who was born and breed here talk so candidly about the local people. But as his son married a black woman, their family are fully aware just how racist some people are.

He then told me that I had provided a welcome breath of fresh air in the village in a way that I had not realised. As my long term reader will know, not long after I first moved to the village there was a Murder that occurred two doors down from my house. I have now moved to a better part of the village, but I reported the incident to the police, and gave a full statement of what little I knew. Only now do I know that I was able to provide many missing pieces of that jigsaw puzzle. However, it was my example of talking to the police that enabled others to overcome the traditional fear, of the threats from the brutish elements in the community that were responsible for much of the crime, to start to be tackled. In addition when one of the failed laboratory experiments tried to set my hair on fire, I did not back down and the perpetrator of that incredibly stupid act was cautioned by the police. Again that sent out a clear signal that standing up to the bullies and thugs does work without resorting to violence.

In fact the Farmer and his wife both say that my example of standing up to the local idiots has also stopped the administering of rough justice. Where rather than going to the police people took the law into their own hands. This had the unfortunate effect that only wrong doers from outside the village were dealt with. The thieves, the drug dealers and other criminals that were born and breed in the village were effectively allowed to damage the community. But apparently more of these people have been dealt with through the criminal justice system and reduced significantly the problems in the community.

I am well aware that saying this does paint a rather bleak picture of the village, but Chopwell has for a long while had a bad reputation. Some of it is justified, but not all of it. There are many folks who are good decent people, and the place is a good location to live in. The only real trouble I have had is I have metamorphic trodden on a few toes, people with vested interests, people whose dealings are not always honourable and honest. As the farmer is also a justice of the peace (a magistrate) he is in the position to know more of what has been going on than I ever could have hoped to discover.

I hope now that I can concentrate on the wildlife, the environment and helping to conserve these rather than have to worry about what some bigoted failed laboratory experiments think. At least I know that badgers are not racist as they are black and white.