James Rebanks
@herdyshepherd1
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New book out October THE PLACE OF TIDES. Also, I made a Lemon Drizzle cake once and Nigella said it looked ‘perfect’.
Lake District, England
Joined January 2012
Busy winter on this site we manage and graze - a young man planting 12,000 trees for us, with a little help to guard them, thanks to inspired and supportive landowners. And conservation grazing that’s been carefully planned and timed
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Spent the last hour judging the online sheep show . And I have to tell you that the young handlers under 8 class was the cutest thing I have ever seen
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Highlight of last week was going to a remote island in Norway . A farmer there asked where I was from. He said he’d read a book from where I lived. He’d loved it, was like talking to a brother, he said. I said, that’s my book. And he hugged me and looked like he was gonna cry.
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U.S. Passport checking guy. “What do you do?”.“I’m a writer”.“You haven’t come to write bad stuff about our president have you?”. Long silence whilst I worked out if he was actually serious . Stony official stare from him until I said . “No”. Then waved in to USA
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HM Government just ran a TV advert telling me to get ready for BREXIT . Kindly mentioned farmers should get ready. can I please ask what I am supposed to do to get ready (in the next 2 weeks) for my business becoming structurally disadvantaged and excluded from its main markets?.
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Wonderful photo.
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Lost Tan today. Heartbroken. Was an amazing dog. RIP mate - hope where you’ve gone you get to play ball and stick and there are no grumpy farmers. (I won’t be on social media for a while)
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When sheepdog pups wake up. Who?.What?.Where?.When?.How?
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Our cows eat only grass. They never live inside. They get no medicines. They eat no corn/soy/crap. They go nowhere. The farm is carbon ‘positive’. We are restoring lots of habitats.
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I’ve never seen anyone command a sheep with ‘STAND’ . The sheep’s face is priceless.
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My son's sheep lambed. They are old friends. He bottle fed it last year. It hasn't forgotten.
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Tom Rebanks .Born today 8lb 1oz. Feel like the luckiest man alive .So proud of my wife
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Thanks @Cambridge_Uni for banning my grass-fed beef - how about addressing the primary causes of climate change, divesting your investment portfolio of fossil fuel burning activities, & changing your 17,000 hectares of fairly sterile arable land?.These are my fields.Show me yours
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This farm has never looked better or been more biodiverse… two pairs of curlews with chicks, barn owls, otters, pied flycatchers, stoats, weasels, peregrine falcons, roe and red deer, cuckoos, hobbies, kestrels, sparrow hawks, buzzards, herons, etc etc and 200+ plant species
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Had a cheeky year off Twitter. Refreshed. Thanks. Quick update for you on the last year.
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“Dad, I’ve been up the field and Sidney my sheep has lambed and her Lamb is full of milk”. #shepherdboy
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Tonight at Kirkby Stephen mart a farmer put up a sheep for sale for charity for the hospital that treated him for cancer a few years ago. The buyer then put it back up for sale for the charity, and it was in turn bought and given back for resale by all the buyers round the ring.
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Two sets of twins and a single at daybreak - we are up and running
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I’m tweeting a lot today, but F it, I’m high on life and love this place.
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WEIRDEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE SO FAR - has someone lost a PARROT?
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Feeling a little proud of this winter’s efforts. we have rewiggled 2 streams, created multiple ponds, laid a mile of hedge, planted another of new hedge, and c. 12,000 trees, planted 6500 wildflower plugs, and created another 5 acres for wilder stuff, & 4 acres of wood pasture
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Gonna mostly drop out of this for a while… I can only cope with humans in small doses . Tried to share lambing time - catch you later x
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This little superstar just barked for me at 2am - let him out, he did a widdle and then back to sleep inside . Love a dog that has brains early
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You guys stay alive and take care of each other - I’ll supply the trivial and not very helpful pastoral scenes for a minor bit of distraction x
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Dear Rest of the World. This massive cock-womble is nothing to do with most of us. We will get back to normal someday and you will see the best of us again. Yours sincerely . The despairing inhabitants of Britain . #BorisJohnson.
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6000 trees planted this last week in this little valley - and about another 10,000 to go in on our land in the New Year - no impact on productivity, as all at margins, in low productivity bits and in dykes - more than made up for with better grazing management
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7.8 million people viewed this tweet. the wonderful Barley and Ethel.
Spent the last hour judging the online sheep show . And I have to tell you that the young handlers under 8 class was the cutest thing I have ever seen
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River rewiggling - a nerdy wet day update . If you hate this kind of thing you’ll hate this - go dredging instead . This is a little upland floodplain on a very wet day - doing what floodplains are meant to do - flood
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It has been an epic 2 years of effort but our farm is being transformed . Pink - new/restored hedge.Brown - flood plain restored/new riparian habitat .Yellow - traditional hay meadows restored .Orangey-brown - new wood pasture created .Green - restored woodland .Blue - ponds (HR)
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Society:.‘Produce cheap food’. Farmers:.‘But what about. ’. Society:.‘No buts. just do it’. FF 40 yrs. Society.‘You’ve fucked the environment, and are nasty’. Farmers:.‘Yeh, but you. ’. Society:.‘No buts, we are done with you and want to eat synthetic food now’. Farmers:.🤷🏼♂️.
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Tom made a leaf hedgehog and he wants you all to know
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I think I can safely assume to speak on behalf of the vast majority of British people when I say . F**k right off with this.
NEW REPORT reveals US pushing to weaken UK #pesticide standards. If UK Government gives way there will be larger amounts of more toxic chemicals in our food & environmentally-damaging pesticides could be reauthorised. Take action against #toxictrade at
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Nightmare - when you new sheepdog pulls your trousers down
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I used to think farming was all about the sheep, and then I got really in to land and soil, and ecology, and cows, and hell even the economics of it, and these days I know it’s all those things… yup… but above all it’s about the people . I love my family so much
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That’s football sorted, can we now sort out our food and farming system - which is dominated by greedy corporations with narrow self interest, too much control and lack of accountability causing untold damage . 76% of the U.K. food market is controlled by 5 companies.
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Daughter No1 aged 14 is starting an honesty box cake business from the bottom of Great Mell Fell lane from tomorrow . For hungry walkers
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And God said let there be Herdwick lambs with little wrinkles on their noses. and there was, and it was good
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Set of twins this morning - prepare for a lot of lamb pics this week
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Floss has retired (mostly) and lives in the farmhouse
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Finest woman I’ve ever met and I got to spend my whole life with her - how lucky is that
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Being a farmer in Britain right now is like being trapped in the back of stolen car driven at high speed by a driver who’s high on drugs and oblivious to the obstacles ahead… and all the time shouting absolute gibberish at you from the front seats.
Remarkable comments from @theresecoffey that £2.4bn is sufficient to the scale of govt’s environmental ambitions via ELM & that there is no food market failure - despite food shortages currently making the front pages. Accuses farmers of stirring public hysteria on food #NFU23
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I camped with Tom (aged 3) last night. At midnight we heard 2 barn owls.At 1am we heard a strange noise like corncrakes passing over, high above.At 3am we heard a fox calling her cubs .At 4am we heard meadow pipits.At 5am we heard the geese honking.At 6am we heard the swallows.
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Too windy for a live broadcast - but a glorious warm windy morning in the fields . (Take care everyone - and I will try and share what many of you unfortunately can’t see for yourselves)
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This so the greatest pup I have ever known. I may be a little soft on her but she is up for life. She’s called Bess / keeper
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People are awesome. Someday this will be a bushy old hedgerow with oaks every 30-40ft
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I’m not sure I ever want a farm without pigs on it ever again
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WOW - over one million people viewed this tweet in four hours . What a fantastic ambassador little Barley is (and Ethel) for British farming . Well done to her mum @Caitlin86622282 . (And to all the other young handlers - as many of them were awesome too).
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Highlight of 2020 - about 8 million people watched this little lady and her marvellous sheep.
Spent the last hour judging the online sheep show . And I have to tell you that the young handlers under 8 class was the cutest thing I have ever seen
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Wainwright prize for nature writing goes to James Rebanks for English Pastoral | Science and nature books | The Guardian
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As world descends in to chaos. I'm going to tweet distracting pretty pastoral pictures of Matterdale. You're welcome.
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PARROT ISSUE SORTED . Belongs a bloke up the hill and is well looked after. Proper funny shock.
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‘Dash’ is the first to leave the nest. off to live on a croft in Aberdeenshire with a kind farming family
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Our cattle are part of a smoothly organised professional system with complete control
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"Yes, I am the first prize sheepdog in this district, thanks for asking, and my name is Tan"
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I texted my dad in hospital a few years ago when he was dying with a picture of a lamb like this and he texted back and said ‘Christ what a belter. we’ve hit the jackpot’. Trying to breed good stuff is an absolute thrill and obsession (when it goes well)
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Yeh I'm biased as hell. but isn't my boy handsome :-)
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I really really like #MeghanMarkle. I’ve yet to see a damn thing she’s done that justifies 1% of the bile she generates in haters . This shit is a circus - always has been, it has almost nothing to do with reality . Leave them alone.
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‘Yeh, the red deer came, and there was about 30 of them, and they were all huge and aggressive, and I told them to do one, and they squared up, but I was like I’m a Herdwick and be gone, and they jumped the fence and left’
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I love today. Blizzard and all. Sheep safe and fed. Life goes on. I love every day. If you aren’t dead you are winning.
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Floss looking very old - but it’s the light (she says)
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Have a nice picture of a cow. I’m stepping out for a while… Twitter is an angry angsty place these days, I can only stomach so much of it and then need to get on with real life . Take care good people x
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New pup coming soon - male. Needs a great sheepdog name . Short and sharp, and starting with another sound that Floss, Bess or Meg . (Photo L Weir)
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We are an all female sheepdog team now. and everyone just took a promotion . We will miss Tan, but life goes on, and the youngsters will take on more responsibility . Thank you for your kind comments
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And when I left he hugged me .Said we were brothers . And invited me back to gather sheep.And drink whisky . And you know what, I may just do it someday when I’m not so busy.
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