Bog Myrtle & Peat

Nobody can remember a summer like this. Old folk draw comparisons with dry summers they knew in their youth, but none can match this rough, dusting decline which has run for weeks in Galloway. We have had three showers and one wet night since the oats went in at the end of April. It is often dry in the summer, but this heat comes without precedent. Clipping sheep, I felt the skin scorching off my shoulders and blowing away like a burnt amaretti wrapper. My nose is crimson, and I have a deep brown vee above my collarbones.

I had confidence in the oats for several weeks, but now I find the heads are starting to blow empty and white like spider legs. The thick leaves are shrinking back, and the smooth green ribbons are curling up like orange crepe paper. I was glad for the dryness because I hoped it would slow down the crop’s growth and redress the error I made when I sowed the seed too thickly. Now I wonder how the growth can proceed at all. Small, sagging patches have emerged where the stems are drooping. They widen every day and the dancing heads feel hollow and thin.

Now the ground is powder. The grass lies dead for miles around and the greens have become golden. I notice trees beginning to die; birches turning yellow as if October had come early. Hedges are hung with brown streamers like ticker tape; these are the desiccated remains of new shoots which began the year so well in April and May. My new hedging plants have been decimated – the tall hazel whips are brown and brittle; promising life has become scaffolding for spiders.

There have been winners and losers; now I find broods of wild pheasants at every stage of growth and development. These birds are unimaginable in a normal year, and their success is almost dreamy in the half light of dusk and dawn. The burn is bubbling with ducklings of all sizes – teal and mallard in the shade of the willows; both love the warm, shallow pools below the bridge. Demoiselles and damselflies flutter like puppets above trailing beards of dry, crackling crowfoot. Trout stir the limpid broth with their fan tails and gape in the heat. A heron measures his depth by the scum on his shins.

It remains to be seen how the grouse will fare, but there are some tiny chicks on the hill behind the house. Some of the broods are no more than a week old; tiny bees in a world of dry moss and cotton. Perhaps the early broods were wiped out when it was cold and insects were sparse. The birds will hunt the wheezing peat for flies and spiders, aware that a second failure hangs in the balance.

Before I showed interest in farming, I would often treat the weather as a backdrop. I never thought to challenge the weatherman when he proudly foresaw “beautiful sunshine”. Now I see how subjective beauty is; perfect for sun tans and beer gardens, but nightmarish for some who depend on the summer’s growth. My hay is in, but three hundred small bales will not feed my animals. I was depending upon a second cut for silage in August – ten big bales would see me home, but the grass is just as brown as it was when I cut it a month ago. I may have to buy silage to fill the gap, but who will have any to spare?

We need rain.