Bog Myrtle & Peat

Whitsun’s parents were riggit galloway cattle from a well-known farm in the Glenkens. His father was red and his mother was black, and in different ways they conformed to the standards of an often-irregular breed. But Whitsun was born white with red ears, and I liked him immediately. He had a sense of breadth and heaviness in his bearing, and his forehead was round and bulky as Ailsa Craig. Unlike other calves of his age which mince and shiver under scrutiny, Whitsun would ooze a gently hostile sense of indifference to the world. He didn’t care what I thought of him, and even that was endearing. Beneath the whiteness of his coat, the ground-colour of his skin was a strain of apricot which darkened to terracotta in the rain. I could hardly imagine a finer-looking beast to work with.

I already had an excellent working bull at the time, but when the chance arose to swap old for the new, I leapt at it. It was a leap of faith to bring him in, but I was curious to see how a new bloodline would work with my cattle, and the experiment was repaid in May and June when his first cohort of calves arrived. Two thirds of them were white with black ears, several were black riggit calves and one outlier was completely black. I like this kind of variety, but it’s only in these last few days that I’ve begun to see the real benefit of these new genetics. After all, colours are only skin-deep, and nobody much cares for the kind of markings I like anyway. It’s more sensible to focus on body shape and conformation, and that’s where Whitsun’s calves have really begun to shine. They’re stocky and fatter than anything I’ve ever bred before, and the head that I liked so much on the bull has been reproduced on every single one of his calves. 

If I had any criticism of the old bull, it’s that his forehead was rather too narrow and his face too long. That’s a subjective quibble, and other people admired the shape of his face – but it’s ironic that every single one of his calves had the same drawback stamped upon them. Whitsun has eliminated those longer, narrow heads – his offspring are like clones of the man himself, and one bull calf in particular has turned out to be a fantastic creature. He’s white with a black muzzle and ears, but he also has a smattering of black flecks which run from his shoulder down to the end of his ribs. In shape, he’s like a Victorian bathtub; short-legged and impressively broad across the breast. He watches me from the corner of his eye – and when he runs, the fat ripples back and forth in a fluid swell from the roots of his ears to the base of his tail. 

Of course I’m devoted to riggit galloways, but whites are damn close to second-best for me. And at this time of year as the days fade into autumn, it’s like the gloves are coming off at last – the red, roasting sun of summer has given way to a scalding and embittered blue light. That’s when white galloways are shown to best advantage, searing brightly against the fruity blue sky and the distant rush of rain.