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.