![\"20150612_287\"](\"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/20150612_2871.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWe usually wind up our English tours at the tip of Cornwall…not only because of the cows and the scenery but because this is where our search for pure traditional English Devon first began five years ago.\u00a0 I used to say this was “Doc Martin country”…but now I guess I should say “Poldark country”.\u00a0 And the lovely thing is the people aren’t much changed from those times.<\/p>\n
My mate, Ivan Rowe of Goldings herd, is a case One of the days we were there a TV crew showed up to record our ramblings about traditional English Devon and why we were so interested.\u00a0 Ivan has been “doing” Devon for 35 years and dairy cows for many years before that.<\/p>\n Within a few minutes of arrival, we always make a bee-line for wherever Falcon is staying.\u00a0 Full name:\u00a0 Ashott Barton Millennium Falcon<\/em>, the anchor of Traditional Devon America\u2122<\/em> and still\u00a0Ivan’s herd bull at the age of eight.<\/p>\n Normally Ivan keeps a bull only three years, like most English\u00a0 And our first look at Falcon<\/em> always makes every trip to Cornwall worthwhile.\u00a0 He certainly isn’t showing his age.\u00a0 And we were delighted to learn that Ivan’s farm will be on the World Devon Tour next year so you’ll have a chance to make up your own mind.\u00a0 (or you can just visit Thistle Hill and see his sons and daughters.) But these are Falcon’s<\/em> daughters in England.\u00a0 Ivan made a buyer wait for about 20 of his heifers until after we had seen them.\u00a0 Pounds are never mentioned but I would guess the sale made a nice impact on Ivan’s retirement plan….except he’ll never retire.<\/p>\n It was this stop in particular that we wanted our grandson, Church, to experience.\u00a0 The kind of people, the kind of cows, the kind of farming you\u00a0find there won’t last much longer.\u00a0 It’s our vision for Thistle Hill! <\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0in point.\u00a0 But all the attention we’ve paid him has made Ivan something of a celebrity.<\/p>\n<\/a>He’s also been a senior judge of many breeds of cattle and\u00a0so a visit to Goldings is something of a post-graduate course.\u00a0 Still even Ivan considers Wooz something of a “fanatic” for the way she vacuums up every piece of information.<\/p>\nbreeders, but you don’t let a bull like Falcon<\/em> get away.\u00a0 It’s been worth it to Ivan to change his normal pasture assignments.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\n
![\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"….and if this won’t do it, you need a new one. We usually wind up our English tours at the tip of Cornwall…not only because of the cows and the scenery but because this is where our search for pure traditional English Devon first began five years ago.\u00a0 I used to say this was “Doc Martin country”…but now I guess I should say “Poldark country”.\u00a0 And the lovely thing is the people aren’t much changed from those times. My mate, Ivan Rowe of Goldings herd, is a case\u00a0in point.\u00a0 But all the attention we’ve paid him has made Ivan something of a celebrity. One of the days we were there a TV crew showed up to record our ramblings about traditional English Devon and why we were so interested.\u00a0 Ivan has been “doing” Devon for 35 years and dairy cows for many years before that. He’s also been a senior judge of many breeds of cattle and\u00a0so a visit to Goldings is something of a post-graduate course.\u00a0 Still even Ivan considers Wooz something of a “fanatic” for the way she vacuums up every piece of information. Within a few minutes of arrival, we always make a bee-line for wherever Falcon is staying.\u00a0 Full name:\u00a0 Ashott Barton Millennium Falcon, the anchor of Traditional Devon America\u2122 and still\u00a0Ivan’s herd bull at the age of eight. Normally Ivan keeps a bull only three years, like most English\u00a0 breeders, but you don’t let a bull like Falcon get away.\u00a0 It’s been worth it to Ivan to change his normal pasture assignments. And our first look at Falcon always makes every trip to Cornwall worthwhile.\u00a0 He certainly isn’t showing his age.\u00a0 And we were delighted to learn that Ivan’s farm will be on the World Devon Tour next year so you’ll have a chance to make up your own mind.\u00a0 (or you can just visit Thistle Hill and see his sons and daughters.) But these are Falcon’s daughters in England.\u00a0 Ivan made a buyer wait for about 20 of his heifers until after we had seen them.\u00a0 Pounds are never mentioned but I would guess the sale made a nice impact on Ivan’s retirement plan….except he’ll never retire. It was this stop in particular that we wanted our grandson, Church, to experience.\u00a0 The kind of people, the kind of cows, the kind of farming you\u00a0find there won’t last much longer.\u00a0 It’s our vision for Thistle Hill! \u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,83,74,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-england","category-falcon","category-rowe","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4388"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4401,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4388\/revisions\/4401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/20150612_441.jpg\"){kind=link}