Farmhouse tour

The holidays sort of begin now.

I say 'sort of' as none of us seem to remember how to down tools and just do nothing at all.

The extreme heat helps; it slows our movements right down and we end up sashaying slowly in a treackly effort to get from A to B.

The garden has been very neglected and despite efforts to mow grass and find a non nettle patch to put up the swing and slide, nature appears fuelled on anabolic steroids and the wild plants grow to monster proportions.

We are slowly emptying the house. It is too dangerous to go into some of the rooms now and a thick green mould grows on some of the walls.
We are impotent to do much as the way the law lies is stacked against agricultural tenants. We cannot dry out the walls until the roof is fixed and the landowner refuses to fix it. He will not let us buy our own home nor will he mend it so we are left in a difficult situation.

If we were to put on a new roof, we could be sued by the landowner. I cannot get my head around that one.
We have tried every route possible to get him to fulfil his legal obligation, to no avail.

We open the doors and windows to air the house.

Here is the living room.

The little square bit in the wood is for keeping salt dry. The floors are stone slabs from the local quarry.

The hall upstairs. The bucket is to catch the rain as it pours in through the roof. The walls are very patchy with damp and mould.

The rain comes in and used to run through the electricity source. The landowner cut the power five years ago for 'safety reasons'. We were billed for the £300 it cost to do this.

The bothy.

Three men who worked on the farm lived here.
Bothies played a big part in Scottish rural life. Men and women would attend annual 'feein' markets' which determined the farm they would move onto and work at. There are many songs about the farms which were less than ideal or mean; 'The Barren Yards of Delgatty' captures the despair of being fee'd to a miserable farm.

The men who lived in our bothy were there for thirty years and thankfully our farm never had a mention in the top ten of the despairing bothy ballads.

Inside is a mess. It has been used as a store room since the men retired in the late seventies and has never been cleared out since then. The little table in the centre of the picture was used for butter making.

I am going in to clear it out today but the ceiling gives me The Fear.

There is an upstairs! The photo is shaky as it was taken very swiftly from up a ladder as the roof is held up by cobwebs and luck.

We have a dilemma.
If we do not repair the roofs then another hard winter will see irreparable damage to the inside of the house. If we do it, then the landowner could exercise his right to sue us as it is his remit, his duty.

Tenant farmers have to ask the landowner if they may repair their own houses, using their own money and are scuppered if the permission is withheld.

21st Century Scotland.

The greatest little feudal country in the world.

I think there may be a bit to do before tools are laid down and the holiday proper begins.

Danse Macabre in Blair Atholl

We managed to squash the children, PieDog, food, toys and us into the car and headed for Blair Atholl.

Now a word of warning.

Firstly, never buy anything which is preceded with the word 'Braveheart'.
I have it on good authority that the difference between a burger and a 'Braveheart' from the burger vans in remote beauty spots is £2.50. Just saying.

The Farmer decided to try the 'Braveheart Special' at the local hostelry. After a bit of a wait (agonising as the dining room was massive, full yet oddly silent) four pieces of meat arrived ON A SWORD, I kid you not.
We died a little.
I died a bit trying to stifle hysterical laughter, made worse as the place was so quiet. The Farmer died a bit when he burned his hand on the sword and said bugger. Loudly.

Secondly, don't try to find out what the time is in Blair Atholl. There are no clocks to be seen.
None of our family wear watches and although there is a clock in the kitchen, it is hidden behind mail To Be Dealt With or the motley collection of herbs and spices. It is either morning, afternoon or evening.
Anyhow, we knew the evening was about to start as people arrived in dribs and drabs then headed towards the bowling green.

Past the nest of watching haggis.

Everything seemed to be happening all at once; fire engines, pipe band, clowns, horses, stalls and a bouncy castle. There appeared to be nothing here an hour before apart from the watching haggis.

An elderly and very elegant gentleman had a collection of tools which were to be identified. A crowd huddled around the stall, held the objects up to the light and discussed what they were. Answers were put onto a proper postcard and a bottle of red wine for the best entry.

There was a stall selling tea - the best cup of tea ever plus a huge slab of home made fruit loaf.

There were tombolas and sales of work - all in aid of the Folk Museum.

The Pipe Band made a circle and played 'Highland Cathedral'. I stood and wept as it was such a beautiful rendition of a beautiful tune. I thought of my dad.

A clown held the attention of the children in the palm of his hand.

A wonderful group of ladies sang waulking songs as they worked a length of Harris tweed.

Young lads tossing the caber, trying to throw it into a 12 o'clock position.

A sheep shearer gave a demonstration of shearing a very reluctant ewe. He had probably shorn hundreds of them and this was the last one. Shearer and sheep scowled at each other.The shearer's bunnet fell off.
It took him about a minute and a half and anyone watching the pipe band or dog show missed the shearing.
The sheep was led into a little trailer. It looked very miffed after it's moment in the limelight had gone so quickly.


The bairns all clambered up onto a trailer and went for a hurl around the grounds (the only concession to Health & Safety was the big bloke saying "I've got my eye on you" to some of the more 'spirited' children. Everyone waved to them as they went past.

All too soon it was time for the raffle and the answers to 'guess the tools' which were all done simultaneously.

"Number one tool was a detonator crimper and green number forty two, green forty two for a nice tin of talc'.

We had guessed wrongly at the leather workers being castrators but did get the loaf sugar cutters correct. The Farmer won a bottle of T Cut.
No one was sure what tool number six was, including the owner but Mrs McKenzie waved her raffle ticket and was given a small box wrapped in pink paper. Everyone clapped and cheered.

Then it happened.

A twitch or two in the crowd then a slap. People started to do their own personal Highland Fling. They were slapping their own heads and arms, bunnets were flapped and slapped back on the head with force. Dogs scratched and bairns howled.
It ended up like a colourful Danse Macabre, everyone twitching and flailing and loupin' about.
The culprit being the dreaded Highland midge or thousands of them.

The raffle came to a swift end, stalls put away in record time and all too soon the park was empty again. The whole evening had been very Highland and magical, like Brigadoon; the home made fruit loaf now a lingering taste and a hankering for more.

They are a lovely community in Blair Atholl and the Glens, welcoming and kind.

But beware the Blair Atholl midge.

Hay ho!

We began to harvest the hay early yesterday and worked right through until the last (the maiden bale) was made at shortly before 10pm.

It was a gloriously hot day and after a final couple of wuffles, we managed to make excellent hay.

Above is the small, rather old wuffler. We use it on the Davy Brown but the heat was so strong and the clegs so bad that open air work on the cabless tractor was out of the question.

The bigger, more modern wuffler was repaired and the hay turned a final time before 'rowing'. (Gathering the hay into lines for bailing).

Then hours and hours of driving up and down the field collecting hay into the bailer.

Inevitably, something goes wrong with the bailer, this time the mechanism which goes from cab to bailer so the machine stopped wrapping. In an ideal world, you press a button, deftly, and all goes to plan. In the real world, I had to push the damn thing with both thumbs and all my weight only to watch the wrapping mechanism sulk.
The Farmer managed ok as he has thumbs the size of mushrooms but he got it going again with a scoosh of WD40 and a bash with a hammer.

The last field was the scary one, the one on a steep hill. This photo does not do the steepness of the slope any justice but the horizon line is the angle which is true.

Prayers and swears were made in profusion.
Even worse was a monster mole heap right on the bad bit which meant an unexpected jolt just to give you even More Fear, if that was possible.

By 10pm and the last bale, the Maiden (a tradition which is dying out but one we keep) was bailed with care and placed to the side of the field entrance. Time to go home, hot baths, painkillers (I was starting to feel every mole hill and bump), filthy clothes to gather and wash.

The children had played on the bales all day under the watchful eye of their big brother. PieDog had chased rabbits and found all sorts of things to roll in.

We tidied up the toys and I thought this was so sweet:

Our youngest son had been 'practicing' wuffling and said that he would do it next year....

We had an unsettled sleep; it was so hot that we switched the fan on and threw off the covers (very daring during a Scottish summer). My body felt as if I had stepped off a boat then fallen on to concrete with clegs on it.

It rained heavily early this morning.

The Farmer is delighted that we managed to gather the hay when we did and he shyly gave me some roses and lilies as a thank you.

We are hoping to go to a wool evening tonight, in Blair Atholl. There will be shearing demonstrations as well as spinning and 'waulking' - the practice of curing spun tweed by women who sing special Gaelic waulking songs. I want the children to see how wool is processed and how wool had such a strong place in the community.

Anyway, it will be good to have a night off.

Making hay while the sun shines.

Hay making continues today; more wuffling.

I refuse to wuffle, due to the fact that the wuffler is attached to the Davy Brown tractor (circa 19 oatcake) and has no cab, just a cast iron seat with a folded feedbag for comfort. Industrial strength insect repellant and sun block are a must.

There is a knack to driving and operating it plus the requirement of leg muscles like fully grown marrows. Green stripes optional.
Oh and arms like a Russian wrestler are imperative for the gear changes.

The chances of a complete novice falling off after an abrupt acceleration and thus falling into the wuffler are high so, no, I will not wuffle.

It is nice to watch The Farmer and eldest son fly at the hay and throw it high into the air, the air smells sweet with a faint afterwhiff of diesel. Seagulls appear from nowhere to catch mice which have hidden in the long grass. The buzzards and kite wheel overhead.

There are lots of other things to do while the wuffling is happening but I would like to go for a walk with the children and PieDog. Pie has to be kept well away from the fields just now as he runs after rabbits or chases the tractor and cannot be trusted to run under the wheels. He cannot hear my whistle over the noise of the engines so he is safer staying near us.

Bailing tomorrow :)

Hit the ground running.

The past fortnight can only be described as being difficult and I am glad to see the back of it.

The sun came out on Saturday and the long term forecast looks promising so the decision was made to get the hay gathered.

The hay fields were all cut on Saturday, my son and I took turns to keep going until the cutting was finished. We stopped at around 11 pm and fell out of the cab sideways, legs trying to find their equilibrium. We appear to have upset the horsefly community (they are called clegs in Scotland) and they angrily land on any bare skin available then depart silently, leaving angry large bites as a calling card.

I had been reluctant to cut the horrible field - the one where the slope is so steep that you end up perched on one buttock in the extreme right of the cab with eyes closed. Eldest son 'mysteriously' found another job to do at that point so muggins did it With The Fear for company.

Sunday was devoted to wuffling. You fly at the rows of cut grass and a machine throws the grass into the air and turns the damp side to the sun. Wuffling has to be done several times until the grass is absolutely dry.

Tuesday will be the day that the bailing begins, if all goes well.

We have managed a partial shearing at the same time but have the rest of the flock to do. We have taken the sheep into the big shed so their fleece does not become contaminated with thistles and dockens plus they like being out of the hot sun. It also gives us a chance to inspect hooves, mouths, eyes, ears and bits, to worm and dose them against anything they may catch plus a good look at their overall condition and weight.

The springborn lambs are sturdy and seem to be thriving.

This blog entry is a bit rushed. I have an hour or so until The Farmer returns from town. The wuffler broke and needs to be fixed. It is nice just to enjoy the sun.

There is a strong smell of myrtle oil in the air; everyone is slathered in sun block and myrtle oil (which is supposed to deter midges and clegs but the jury is out on that one).

The dust from the ground sticks to our begreased bodies and we quickly become filthy.

Hopefully, a thick enough barrier to deter the clegs but not so bad as we terrify the postie.

Must go.

Oh, that was random.

Yesterday afternoon turned out to be random. Unusual things happened for No Reason At All.

Late afternoon, we took the children to the park at Aberfeldy. As usual, we took the long way round and as usual we were stopped by the police as the road was closed while the wind turbines were moved.
Except the policeman moonwalked to the car to tell us. Expertly.

"Are you Robocop?" I asked then felt instantly uncool as I probably got the wrong character.
"No Ma'am, I am Daffy Duck".

The children were agog but laughed at Daffy Duck the policeman.

We were allowed through as the turbines had not yet arrived so Daffy Duck waved us off with a little dance. We instantly loved him.
His fellow officer drove ahead on his bike so we had a police escort and felt Terribly Important like princesses.

The park was lovely, and quite busy. A little girl had brought an army of teddies and had placed some of them on the grass. They waited patiently while the other teddies had a go on the swings. She was singing softly to them. I noticed that one of her pandas had a biscuit in it's paw.

I left the children with The Farmer and went up to the Water Mill to see the latest exhibition - this month it was a photographic exhibition by David Peat. There were lots of photos of couples kissing in Parisian alleyways, reminiscent of Robert Doisneau.
They get off with it in Paris, I thought. If I went and snogged The Farmer in Aberfeldy Square, it would raise an eyebrow or purse a lip.

There was a photograph of a person, possibly a man, who had covered his head with two knitted gloves. He had lost a shoe and was sitting in a puddle. The photograph reeked of despair.

A jolly party of Glaswegians bounced in at that point and joked loudly to one another about their afternoon and the intimacy of the moment was changed. I went back to join my family.

We went back across the bridge for something to eat. We sat outside in the sun and ignored the fog of midges then a helicopter landed in the field beside the hotel.

A fat red squirrel lurked in a birch tree.

I cut my lip on my pudding.
It was a heavenly creme brulee with a thick shell of browned sugar. A large shard sliced my top lip open just as Mine Host came to see if everything was ok.

"Shall I bring you a plaster ?" he asked, helpfully.
"Moomph", I replied from under a tissue.
"Duct tape?"
He was warming to the theme.
"Duct tape and a bin bag for your head?"
"Naw, you are fine thanks, son. I am trying to give all that up"

Ever the optimist, The Farmer pointed out that it was not everywhere that you got a pudding and free Paris Pout. "You have an Angelina Jolie lip now".
"I look like a bloody budgie and well you know it".

Lip, children, dog, Farmer and I headed home. It really had been a good afternoon.

We were almost a mile from home and came across two elderly ladies sitting at the side of the road. Their car driven up the bank.

We stopped to ask if they were ok.

"We have a flask and were watching the sun on the hills. It is lovely. We were visiting Betty's sister. She is in hospital, you know, but she is fine. We came the long road back, you know, by the back roads and if we had broken down we would be terribly pleased to see you as there is nothing here. Nobody."
This is an abridged copy of her conversation.

She said all this in about thirty seconds. I felt that I had full knowledge of her entire life, cat's name, shoe size and the contents of her bathroom cabinet.

Our new Best Friend, Betty, merely did a 'chin chin' gesture with her flask cup.

I loved them instantly.

I loved the dancing policeman, the helicopter, the fat squirrel, fat lip, the sun, the Farmer, Betty and her picnic, our exhausted children and our afternoon in Aberfeldy.

It was Random.

Rainbow

Despite all the wet weather we have had, I managed to find a flower of almost every colour of the rainbow.

The solitary tomato. I bring to tomato growing what Buckingham Palace brings to small garden sheds.
Every year I try and every year it is the same - one pathetically small tomato.
Oh they get fed, pampered, brushed with fake rabbit tails, everything.
The Farmer spied the tomato and said that he knew the secret. He even tapped his nose.
"Sheepie purlies in a sock"

I may covertly venture out to the field with a shovel, so desperate am I to grow a second tomato but it will be one of The Farmer's socks. I can never find mine.

Solitary, sulky courgette. It may get the sheep poo treatment with the other sock.

The fawn coloured squish round the greens are where our son 'helpfully' fed them with layers pellets for the hens.

The sun is half thinking about coming out today and I have fanciful notions of wafting with a trug whilst wearing a Panama hat. Alas, I own neither so will just have to waft.

A dung filled shed is staring me squarely in the eye as I write but I will ignore. Today's quest is for an infinitely finer class of poo.