Small steps

I feel able to write now and finally breathe out.

The Farmer had indeed suffered a heart attack but is now fully on the mend after surgery.

I drove to Dundee to see him yesterday and he looked so tired and bare, somehow. It was a scare and even scarier is the prospect of completely changing the way we work, eat, live, worry and everything.
My husband does not smoke, very rarely drinks, walks every day and is as strong as an ox yet the Fates dealt their maverick card just when it was least expected.

The main thing now is that he is ok.

Eldest son and I ("helped" by the little one and Pie) tried to carry on where The Farmer had left off. I realise that my organisational skills and farming knowledge are akin to those of, say, Keith Richards or Kermit the Frog.

We had to figure out which plug went where when trying to work out how a plough went on to the back of a tractor without falling off or the signs of a cow thinking about going into labour, that sort of thing.
I had a tiny weep behind the little shed after pretending to go to look for Pie.

There seemed so much to deal with - strangers arrived wanting scrap, some men wanted permission for a huge bike run through our land, a chap turned up to tell me how to test the soil and where to order barley seed from, the little one found a nest of new chicks....Things bleated and mooed, clucked and barked and sometimes a farm in the Middle of Nowhere is as noisy and busy as a town. Noisy at least.

The cows were kind in that they did not attack or trample me into the straw.

The last couple of days have finally caught up with me as I had fuelled up on tobacco and water, forgot to eat and was running about on adrenalin.

The Farmer just phoned a little while ago and is being transferred to a different ward and I will see him tomorrow (once I have taken the soil samples and handed them in to Perth first thing in the morning).

I am amazed at how much work and organisation my husband copes with as well as the knowledge of crop timing, calving, lambing and all the other things which have just about run us into the ground today.

My sons and I are now inside for the evening and are all doing the 10,000 mile stare. We all feel shattered and ready for bed but now I understand why my fit and seemingly healthy husband dropped like a stone the other morning.

In the words of Chairman Mao - "The journey of ten thousand miles begins with one step"

We will gently start the walk together.

Trying not to panic

The Farmer collapsed this morning.

We were up early and never got as far as outside when he slumped on to a chair in the kitchen then on to the floor.
His colour was ashen and he said his arms and chest were sore.

I phoned for an ambulance and it seemed to take ages to arrive but they bundled him up and took him away - miles away, to the huge hospital in Dundee.

Our little boy and I stood outside watching the ambulance disappear and I felt stunned at what had just happened and did not know what to do.

He was going to feed the cattle. We must go and feed the cattle.

I got the little one dressed and muffled up (it is cold, wet and quite raw outside) but I forgot to wrap up warmly myself. We met with my eldest son and told him what happened then we all fell silent for a bit trying to make sense of things and get our heads into working mode.

We got the silage into the cattle without spearing any of them or being attacked. No calfs yet.

We then went to the sheep 'nursery' and checked on Bramble's new twin lambs who were born yesterday. They are lovely.

Once the work was done, I felt rising panic. The farm did not seem right without The Farmer there.

We returned home to try and make a plan to delegate the work he would have been doing. There is so much happening just now and we have been working steadily, fields ploughed, fencer booked, etc but there are fields to be sown, limed, reseeded and everything in a very short space of time.
Trying to surf with the seasons, catching the wave.

I phoned the ward and they let me speak to him - he sounded so tired.

I will go down to Dundee tonight and bring him fresh clothes, his glasses, toothbrush and things. My eldest son is going to look after the littlie for the evening.

We miss The Farmer terribly and just want him home and well but I suspect our lives have taken a radical change of direction as from today.

And I am trying not to panic.

Bonnie

The lambing has not started well at all.

My beautiful first sheep, Bonnie, was lying asleep in her little pen when we checked her today. We thought she was asleep and I am so upset because she had died through the night. Her unborn twin lambs had died as well.

We had tried all we could to help her and the vet said that we had to hope that she would pick up....

Many, many farmers know how we feel right now as they have been there too. You go out in all weathers, offer the best feed, lug fresh water, sit half the night with a poorly animal and always hope for the best but expect the worst.

I have seen the look on my husband's face when he has stayed up all night in the cow shed then admitted defeat and called for the vet to come and help.
Both Farmer and vet emerging exhausted hours later, having tried their best with a struggling cow. Sometimes the effort is worthwhile and a tiny calf lies protected by it's mother. Sometimes the travail is futile and an air of silence befalls the farm and the men.
We understand but feel sad and respect the silence.

I have worked at many different jobs in my life, have studied medicine and horticulture, trained as an illustrator and welder but my dream job was to be a shepherd. My father would not allow it - he felt it was a man's job.....

Dad and I often spent a day or evening discussing the various merits of such and such a breed of sheep and he would launch into all the things which could (and do) happen to sheep. He knew his stuff having spent almost all of his life working with domestic animals.
He never saw my tiny flock - Bonnie was my husband's present to me for producing our son....

I tried to remember all that Dad had taught me and with The Farmer's help, managed to increase the flock and rear lovely, healthy sheep.

Bonnie was a character, a little spoiled, very spirited but an excellent mother.

I just feel so sad today but know that we gave her the best care we could.

The other sheep are due to lamb very soon - they are the third generation from Bonnie and may well have her characteristics and good nature.

Life goes on but what passes is not forgotten.

Spring has sprung.

It has been very busy on the farm.

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, sort of.

My Precious First Sheep, Bonnie prolapsed and I have been alternating between fretting and pushing the entire mass back in.
We tried stitching it but that did not seem to work so we have placed a prolapse harness on her and hope that this works. She is back in the little shed in a pen of her own.

They are such a worry, sheep.

The others are out in the small field and due to lamb any day. Thankfully, the weather has been warm and dry and we hope it stays like that before the cattle are turned out soon.

The grass grows very slowly here, probably because we are quite high up and very exposed. It is also a relatively short growing season.

The toads are back. I wonder where they go in winter?
We rescued a few which were on the main road and put them in the bog/stream next to the house. There were several there already, each ignoring their neighbour.

The hares have been boxing each other in the fields and they are fascinating to watch. They circle and ignore one another then let rip with a right hook.

There are newly hatched chickens in the hay shed. It really does feel as if that long winter was a dreadful nightmare which has now passed.

The fields have been ploughed and will soon be ready for the crops. Barley, probably plus some potatoes.
The willow have taken very well so that will make a sturdy hedge in a few years time.

Our little boy has taken to not sleeping very well through the night. He was up at 3.30 am this morning, singing and fancying a chat. Sadly, his parents were less communicative, bordering on zombie and did not join in. We are finding these nocturnal concerts rather soul destroying and have resorted to bribery to encourage more sleep.

Everything is bursting full of energy and vitality.

Everything except the Farmer and I.

Grouse

When I think of grouse, three definitions spring to mind.

The first is the wild bird, the second, the verb to grouse and the third is a brand of whisky.

These past few days have drawn me to the verb version after the snow returned and the cold wind slapped at your face like a cold, dead fish.
Back to being wrapped up in anything which would keep the cold out and mutterations under breath (which became visible to all.)

The words of Robert Burns rang in my ear -

"We don't think of the long Scots miles,
The marshes, waters, steps and stiles,
That lie between us and our home,
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame (wife),
Gathering her brows like a gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath, to keep it warm."

This winter was now a joke. It had long outstayed it's welcome and there were Things to Do, for heavens sake. It was turning me into a hag from a Brothers' Grimm tale.

Then a strange thing happened.
Not the end of winter, unfortunately.

No.

We were crossing the moor in a mini blizzard and came across an entire flock of black grouse. It was such an extraordinary sight as they are fairly rare. It is unusual to see one or two, yet I counted roughly twenty three. They were just mooching about and quite unperturbed at our stopping to stare.
They are much larger than I imagined - about the size of a big, sturdy hen but fatter. (I think they had puffed up their feathers to keep warm).

"It's a sign, isn't it?" I asked The Farmer.
"It's a sign that I am seeing what I am turning into - a grouse collective".

Diplomatically, he said nothing but I knew he smiled wryly without my having to look at him.

We were only a couple of miles from home and I took a photo of the road and all our neighbours.

Except, there are no neighbours. Only the grouse.

I will invite them over and we can all grouse about the winter together.

A chill in the wind.

There has been a lot of fresh snow - enough to stop the postman coming near the farm.

A chill wind blows and so much needs done yet I cannot concentrate on our work just now given the awful disasters in Japan.

The scale of the disaster is incomprehensible, the scenes are surreal, the suffering is palpable.

We sit here on the other side of the world, inconvenienced a little by some snow but safe.

I hope that those affected find healing and security.

Words are futile and difficult yet the emotion is raw and real.

God help them.

The bright lights

I felt that there was very little to write about in the last few days.

The Spring work has begun and there has been a flurry of maintenance. The annual hope that a thick layer of paint will keep things from falling completely to bits.

Potholes have been filled, burst tyres patched up, horizontal fences made vertical, ditches reopened, rhones cleaned out. That sort of thing.

Evenings which see you incapable of coherent speech through tiredness and even the 10,000 yard stare becomes an effort.

Tonight, we had to go to the wild metropolis which is Cupar Angus. It is in the bottom right corner of Perthshire and a bit of a hike. We were going to collect some willow in order to plant in a very marshy part of the farm road. It would solve lots of problems, namely, cope with the perpetual wet bit, offer shelter, wood for the fire and everything.

I sort of misheard the length and when the rendezvous was made, there were 100 pieces of willow almost three metres long.
We wove them around the car as best as then went for something to eat.

After we had all eaten more food in an hour than was necessary, we came outside to a weird site - town lights. Ok, so it was Cupar Angus and not New York but after being so used to pitch darkness and silence, the traffic and neon were quite disorientating.
The Christmas fairy lights were still up and the New Moon lay idly on it's back surveying the world below with a laconic eye. Perhaps the Cupar Angussians were still celebrating.

We left Cupar Angus and travelled through places offering exotic names - Strelitz and Wolfhill, Burrelton and Balbeggie.

Perth looked magical at night with the tiny lights of the town reflected in the Tay.

We hit the A9 north and eventually arrived home. It was dark and quiet.

There is an energy and buzz from travelling through towns at night. I had seen into other people's lives as we sped past houses with undrawn curtains and a microscopic snapshot of what people did in their homes.
One family had lots of streamers and balloons decorating their living room.
One chap was lying on a brown leather sofa and was raised on one elbow trying to change the channel with a remote control.
A group of students sat round a table in the new college accommodation buildings. They sat ramrod straight - my Granny would have approved.

Actually, Granny would have totally disapproved of my peeping into other people's living rooms but it could not be avoided.

Just a glimpse of people who I would never know nor would they know that I had seen them. Ships in the night.

We are back here in our groove. Things that needed fed and settled have been.

I feel quite invigorated by our trip and God knows, will need the extra energy for

planting all that willow tomorrow.

City energy.
Rural pace.