Two mornings after the night before.

Happy belated Christmas!

Today is that floaty time when all the fuss and preparation of Christmas is over, you are not entirely sure which day it is as it feels like a Sunday yet the time holds in limbo until the New Year is over.

We feel a little like these sleepy creatures, today.

Our barley was collected from the farm on Christmas Eve, so it was both exciting and a relief to see it go.
Christmas Eve is also our eldest son's birthday so we celebrated the beginning of a new year with him as well as the end of the harvest for us.

When I look back to this time last year, I am thankful for the very mild weather we are having now and pray that it stays like this. Yes, the wind has artfully rearranged the garden and even moved the shed but the mild weather ensures that the taps have not frozen and moving around is so much easier.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas.

Our Christmas was quiet and I admit to crying a lot this year because I missed my Mum and Dad even although they have been gone a long time.
I cried with overwhelming emotion at the kindness of the strangers who sent us gifts, so many beautiful things... so much thought and consideration from people who remained anonymous yet who sent love with every present.

Thank you so much.

It was as if my Mum was there as I unwrapped my presents. The same love and thought, the same choice of lovely scents, the warm mittens and scarf to protect against the winter winds...

The gift of Love.

We are nearing the end of a very difficult year and I know that our family will have an almighty fight on our hands next year - how I long for all these fights to end.

Life is bittersweet - the love and support of strangers and the battle against...well, you know...

I hope the strong winds blow away the negative and blow in the positive. May it sweep away all the blights and stains and the ferocity die down to a gentle breeze.

And may it carry Love and Peace to you.

A toast

We sort of missed St Andrew's Day yesterday.

There was a lot of research to do, sheds to prepare for the cattle coming in for winter, rough weather to contend with. It was really rough yesterday, icy cold wind and sleet plus a driech grey light which could be used as a new Farrow & Ball paint colour on posh parlour walls.

It was late in the evening once The Farmer and I sat down. Our little boy was asleep in bed so we could relax a little.

I could not relax at all and felt frozen. Yesterday was a bit full on and the sleet had chilled me to the bone.

The Farmer brought me a hot toddy and a woolly blanket. The toddy was thick with honey, boiling hot and the strong smell of whisky told me there was a generous measure.

I don't like whisky, truth be told and am not a drinker but a hot toddy is different as it warms you like no other substance.

So here is a belated toast to all Scots, their kith and kin and to those abroad.

Here is to the future of our country, where we can pride ourselves on equality, where we can dilute our dram with clean water, where those without homes can be housed in some of the thousands of empty houses.

Here is to progress in land reform and all those who work tirelessly to campaign for our land to be freed from those who do not look after it properly and exploit land and Man.
Here is to the proper death of feudalism. Freedom of land and people.

Let us drink to the prospect of citizens able to provide their families with food grown from their own piece of land and a weaning from the dross sold in the large supermarkets.
To city children enjoying the countryside and learning new skills.
To the farmers of the present and the future. To all those who need our produce and support us.

Take a large drink to the toppling of the grotesque statue which dominates Golspie and which symbolises the very source of the wounds which never heal. People do not need a daily reminder, it is history. It is etched on their souls. Time to bury that entire vulgar episode and all those who were and still are responsible for clearing people from their land, plant rowan trees on top and move on.

I am toasting to a very different Scotland than the one I see now. I am drinking to the one that Wendy Wood told me to fight for. She told me it was worth fighting for and never give up the fight, regardless of the dangers.
It might benefit some of our government to reread her work as they appear to have selective memories regarding the people of Scotland and the land.
It would be wise of them to read Andy Wightman's "The Poor had no Lawyers" and consider making it part of the National Curriculum. To listen what the man has to say and implement his proposals.

The toddy went down in one followed by a small shiver from the effect it had on my frozen body.

If only something could act so well on our frozen land. Defrost it from the stasis it is in.

"Wha is like us"?

Wha indeed.

Water update

Firstly, our son has recovered but has lost a lot of weight. He is quite a skinny little boy so did not have much excess weight to lose in the first place.

Secondly, today we received a bill for water charges concerning the farm cottage. £164.27.

Here is the tank which holds the water to three separate houses. The holding tank had just been cleaned.

This is a view of the water coming in straight from the hill.

That picture shows the area once it was 'done up'. Just out of shot and to the left were pheasant pens.... to the right was the corpse of a sheep (not one of ours) which was in an advanced state of decay and which had fallen in the burn. The burn which feeds the water supply.

This entire glen is fed by private water.

Environmental Health will sometimes offer a grant towards filtration systems so a lot of public money paying for private water which is not fit for purpose yet the bill for £164.27 has arrived today. Payable to the Estate.
We are charged £5 per annum rent for the water pipe we supplied to the cottage and which runs through our field. The pipe is a proper plastic water pipe.
We supplied a filter system to the cottage once we realised the extent of the water pollution after consulting independent water testing companies.
Sadly, it was too late for my father who lived there and who died of renal failure. Or the visitor who contracted cryptosporidium.

The estimate for a system robust enough to clean our supply has come in around £3,500 plus a recommendation that the filters are changed once a year. We find that they need changing once a month otherwise the filter becomes so clogged with solids that the flow stops.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/11/26113042/5

We discovered that last winter, when we were without water for 39 days (at the temporary accommodation) that due to the total population being less than 50, we were not eligible for help or emergency water.

Shameful.

Water, water everywhere...

...nor any drop to drink.

My apologies to The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Samuel Taylor Coleridge but I could not think of any phrase more appropriate.

The Farmer is beginning to despair. The wet weather has made the harvest impossible to gather so the remaining crop of oats, partially harvested, now stands in a sodden isolation, a little island in a sea of waterlogged soil.
The Farmer must try to reduce the moisture content of the grain from a harvest high of around 40% to 16%. This entails cranking up the old grain dryer which is run on a combination of diesel and electric, a giant tumble drier, if you like, albeit one which is eye wateringly expensive to run. (No pun was intended there, I can assure you.)

That is, if it runs. The wretched thing broke down but given that it is only slightly younger than me, these things happen.

I cannot help The Farmer just now as I am at home with our little boy. Our son developed an alarmingly high temperature, upset stomach and vomiting which lasted two days. We are keeping him from nursery even although he is over the worst now. We do not want to risk infecting the other children.

The thing is, our little boy drank some water from the tap in the kitchen in the farmhouse at the weekend.

He did so because he was thirsty and at the age of four, is independent enough to turn on a tap and pour himself a drink. He was thirsty and it only took less than a minute.
He had not asked me to open the bottle of water beside the sink because he wanted water *immediately* with all the impatience of a thirsty four year old.

Here are the latest water test results:

These tests were taken on 1st October 2011 and show unacceptably high readings of presumptive coliforms, presumptive E coli, presumptive Enterococci and very high levels of manganese.

The water supply which feeds the farm comes from a cast iron pipe which was interred through the farm fields in 1895 or thereabouts. Forgive me if I am inaccurate by a couple of years before or after.

There was an agreement between the landowner and a large public school that the school would have access to the water supply on the condition that the farm would be given 'free' water'.

The school bifurcated the pipe and laid a new one through our fields. We asked if we could have access to their clean water and were refused so we are still fed by the decaying cast iron pipe. The one that the school rejected.....

I was led to believe that everyone had a right to clean water.

I am no scientist unless you include a Ph.D in Cleaning Up Sick. I am, however, a mother who recognises the needs of a very distressed child who has 'picked up a bug'. I also recognise that the most likely source of this 'bug' was from the kitchen tap given we were at the farm trying to dry the grain and did not leave the farm.

The water was not tested for cryptosporidium as it costs approx. £250- 350 per test. This is why Environmental Health do not test for crypto.
Ditto Legionella, too costly to test for but someone must have as we received a 'Boil water' notice in July to safeguard against Legionella. The entire community received such a notice yet, to my knowledge, no further mention was given that the issue was resolved.

Our son was very apologetic and tearful when I asked him if he had eaten or drank anything he ought not.

"I drank the water from the tap although I am not supposed to".

A four year old boy who recognises that he is forbidden from taking a drink of water when he is thirsty yet thirst overcame the forbidden.

I will remind anyone who is reading that the landowners fitted a water filter to the farmhouse tap then disconnected the electricity supply, thus rendering the system useless. The filter then shattered when the temperature inside the farmhouse kitchen fell below minus 16 last winter.

It is patently clear that this government, in Scotland, are ignoring a fundamental right to clean water. An entire community are ignored, yet, alarmingly, there are plans to build new houses which will be fed by the private water supply. (n.b. full water rates are paid to the landowner by the community).

Why is this allowed to happen in Scotland, in 2011?

One would almost believe that the rule of pheasant over peasant was being exercised despite the Abolution of Feudal Tenure Scotland circa 2000. Profit over health.

We are asking for your help.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Why do we continue to farm?

Given the hostility of the landowner, the factors, the erratic and polluted water, the wet weather which is detrimental to crop ripening, the mud, social and geographical remoteness. The absence of a wind and watertight farmhouse.

Why do we plod on amid such adversity?

Sometimes it is easier to see what you do have, what you have achieved, what you intend to aim for in the future.
You fight so that your children are spared a fight.

Regardless of religious beliefs, the land belongs to Nature and we are merely the custodians. Our job is to ensure all life is given a chance to thrive, the land is worked properly and if we do our work well, the reward is tenfold in the abundance of Nature.

It is not in our ethos to bully and kill, to exclude other people in favour of elitist 'sport'. We want to welcome people here to share in the peace and stunning scenery. We want those who do not have lots of disposable income to enjoy the countryside. It is their right too.

We are a strong family who are not afraid of work or anything life throws at us. Our family work hard and live quietly.

We fervently believe that Land Reform will happen in Scotland - it has to! Scotland can no longer bury it's head in the sand and ignore what is happening to the land or the people...it has done this for hundreds of years and the very fact that our family are still legally bound to an 'agreement' which is 120 years old is one testament to the land reform stasis which exists.
If ever a country was suffering from social constipation, it is ours. Time for the 'Ballachulish Bagpipe', Scotland. Roll over. Clear the system.

There are thousands of acres of land locked up. Much of this land is used for 'sport' for those who can afford it but to the exclusion of those who cannot.

How many people like ourselves who just want to provide for their family without being greedy? How many homeless people need a decent home? How many empty houses are there in the country, houses left to decay for Goodness knows what reason?

Our family are supposed to feel oppressed by the harassment, we are supposed to become so worn down by everything that we submit the farm and move elsewhere.

Are those responsible unaware that rather than become worn down, we are fuelled with energy to continue which is given breath and oxygen by those who lived before us? Just because we were forbidden Scottish history at school does not mean we did not learn a thing or two.
One day, I hope to see this country hit by a change so radical, the sting of a thousand 'fual' tubs will enable the most blinkered to see.

This is why we continue. It is not for the money, it is for the passion. It is not for self but for others.

"Give us our daily bread
And deliver us from Evil
But keep an eye on Article 1 of the Human Rights Act, Dude."

We will continue to do what our family have done for more than one hundred years, our children will continue and their children. D.V.

We are all Jock Tamson's bairns and equal.

Nobody mentioned eff for feudal ....

Imagine if you had a landowner who came in and took your ground. Just took it, never thought to mention it, continued to charge you rent for it, did not compensate you for it, ignored you, prevented you from accessing your land which you pay full rent. Good land. In fact, the best land.

Imagine too that in order to recompense your loss in income through crop yield becoming reduced, you want to diversify in another area but this is also 'out of bounds' and you only discovered this a few days ago, much to your gobsmackedification.
If you were successful with your plans to diversify, you would have to pay the landowner a percentage of your income. You do the work, you make the investment, landowner gets the money *if* you get his permission to diversify in the first place. I may have mentioned this before but lest we forget.
Lest we forget to doff cap.

Now imagine, and I know this is a far stretch of the imagination, but just imagine they did this *because they can*!

Imagine too, that because of an 'agreement' written in the late Nineteenth century, you and the generations who follow you are still bound to this agreement, regardless of social change, human rights or progress.

Cures for disease may have evolved, men may have been to the moon, women may get the vote and equal pay, tolerance and equality begin to surface but somewhere in a little part of the world, there is a time warp .

And here is the best bit.

Imagine the same agreement states that "yearly and free of charge five days work of any kind by one pair of horses and one man by suitable carts to the aforementioned Station (said station was closed during the Beeching cuts but what the heck)...." and you are legally bound to such a demand in 2011 !

Imagine that this is not the rule of some wayward despot in a far away country but closer to home......uncomfortably closer to home.

Just saying.

Planets and the harvest

Yesterday was one of those days whereby the weather changed it's mind hourly.

We awoke to a very hard frost, iced puddles and lace etched windows so quickly threw on layers of warm clothes and went out to see what work could be done.

Mid morning, the sun came out, The Farmer vanished only to reappear with the combine and we (the farm hands!) realised that we would we would be harvesting.

Our small convoy headed down to the field of oats, combine, tractor and trailer, me.

The sun shone on the oats and using it's special alchemy, turned each oat into tiny droplets of gold and we may as well have been harvesting gold as this crop is important to us.

We are fairly high up and saw the mist snake in from the south. It was strange to watch as it lay low ,moved quickly and bit with wet venom. The mist felt damp and diffused the sunlight to such an extent that the surroundings became quite surreal.

The combine loomed out of the mist, dramatically and if ever an orchestra was required to play Holst's 'Mars', it was then. Two wet farmhands belting out 'DAN DAN DAN DAN DARAN DAN DARAN don't quite carry out the finesse of the London Symphony Orchestra but the sentiment was there.

Eldest son left to follow the combine with the wuffler and I hung around in case anything went wrong and lifts were needed back to the farm.

The neighbouring ploughed field had been transformed by mist droplets on a myriad of cobwebs and I fancied that it now looked like the surface of a distant planet.

There is a wonderful moment after the first cut when the grain spills from the combine into the trailer. It is the result of all the work and worries that go into making a crop and we cheered as the grain began to trickle then pour into the trailer.

I left the field late afternoon and went to collect Youngest son from nursery and from the other side of the glen, the farm looked as if it had been wrapped by a smokey ribbon of mist.

The Farmer and Eldest son worked until the light began to fade and the ground became too damp. They were unable to collect all the oats (and it is raining today so we will have to wait a while before the ground firms up enough to take the weight of machinery) but at least it is a start.

Evening gifted us with an intimate embrace between lace trees and the setting sun, the damp breath of the mist lingering gently like a lover's kiss.

The big, matron Moon watched over us, smiling benignly over crops, the trees, the glen, Perthshire and the World.

It had been a wonderful day.