Bog Myrtle & Peat

The turnips are coming in, and I begin to see how the crop has gone.

Some of these roots have swollen into tyrants. They’re bigger than buoys and glossy with hard, purple hips. It’s a two-handed job to lift the best of them, and pounds of soil cling to their beards in a litter of worms and grit.

It’s my job to hook away their roots with a knife. A few brisk hacks will tidy them up, then off with their heads and the shaws fall wet and crispy as salad. Cleaned and cut, the summer plants are transformed into sweet, woody balls. There’s no way for the goodness to leave them now; no root or leaf to leak away the fuel inside. The plants are blind and disembodied; the trap has worked; heat and sugar stored for winter.

Turnips roll in the trailer like beachballs and the mound grows and the tractor taps and puffs in patience. They smell like food to me, and I conjure up a note of old school dinners in the pall of diesel smoke and the blare of mud. There must be a faster way of doing this work than by hand, but I’m happy to take them one-by-one and bring in tons at a time to the clamp I’ve made in the yard.

I was warned to be careful at this work. The knife is sharp and old men’s hands are covered in nicks and slits from the shawing blade. But I am too cautious and hold the knife in shaky cowardice; I end up striking a turnip with the point of my thumb. The nail peels off like a flake of tin; I see a glimpse of my own meat, the size of a first class stamp. Cushy undernail, then the covering flicks back and sprays me with blood. It’s sore, but how much more painful when I do it again a second later and extend the rip to the deepest pith of my nail bed. Hiss “Ooh, you bitch”; another nail dead. More scar tissue to mark the way.

And it’s strange to find deformities in the crop itself. Many of these turnips have split and riven themselves into weird disorder. There are hollow roots which have died from the inside; there are cracks and black mould on many which have grown too fast and burst themselves like bloated bellies. And there are those which have mouldered into a gel so that when you reach for them, your fingers slip into their bodies and the field reeks of flatulence. It’s a mixed bag, but most are true and they knock together, sound and clean.

The turnips go to the clamp, and I take the shaws to the cattle. They’d be wasted otherwise, and the cows bawl for something new as the grass recedes and their coats grow long for the winter. But they fail to recognize the leaves as food, and it takes a calf to make the connection. These cows have never seen shaws before, and they’re suspicious. But the calves have not seen anything before; they come to the leaves without baggage or cynicism.

One attracts another, and soon the calves are working through the leaves like locusts. The cows stand back and watch, and when they’re sure that there’s nothing to be lost, they bully the youngsters away and fill themselves. It’s grand to hear the crackling crunch of turnip tops in a beast’s mouth, and I listen as the days shorten and the wailing of geese comes clean and fresh from the sea.