Bog Myrtle & Peat

It was after two when the bull rubbed a hole in his enclosure. I heard the rails fall away and knew that he was seconds from escape. Into the swirling snow I went, barelegged in wellies with the ice like a vest below my jacket. It was enough to set teeth on edge as I… Continue reading

I lie with my newborn son in the room where an old shepherd died. Light and night pass over the window; gulls ride out to sea. This was the shepherd’s room for ninety years before we came to lie in it. How that time must’ve flown for him in a rush of business; he was… Continue reading

Twenty years have passed since I killed my first wigeon on a hill pond above the Breoch. That was a watershed for me, and I mark my days before and after. It was the last night of a cold season, and I went to stand with my father and his friends as the darkness came… Continue reading

  A fox is easily seen on a bright summer’s day. His redness cracks like a flag in the sunshine, and I begin to think that his coat is a vanity – something saucy and provocative. If he suffers for being seen, then he was asking for it. A red coat is striking to me… Continue reading

We burn our bridges as we go, as if nothing we used to get here will ever be used again. So we shatter the scythes and feed horses to the dogs, knowing for a certainty that life will never call for them again. Christ, there’s something to fear in that. – My next step is a… Continue reading

I’m a huge believer in hedgerows. Regular readers will recall the work I’ve put in to plant new hedges over the past decade, and I can hardly overstate the value of this labour when it comes to wildlife. A good hedge can be a world of its own, and hedgerow creation is a worthy job,… Continue reading

Plough on through the darkness, knowing that winter days are numbered. Besides, there are song thrushes now, and if that’s not hope then I’m stumped. In a rush of sleet and bitter wind, the days begin to peel back and reveal themselves a little more with every passing night. I hear a thousand geese in… Continue reading

In response to a recent post about rats, the following poem was left as a comment by John Fortune, who blended my words and those of my friend Audrey Campbell to make something new and fine which deserves a post of its own – thanks John… . We’re yet to imagine The perfect death for… Continue reading

So it came to pass that darkness fell and the night crept in like a sigh. I worked alone and lifted neeps in the lee of a love-lost moon. It was hard to believe that this same field had rung to the din of a skylark in the sunshine a few hours before; the first… Continue reading

Now I have rats. I go to the sheds and find them sleek and fat as publicans, perched on the pallets like pints of stout. They rut and reel in the granary, rubbing their tails like crayons on the lintel steps. Pigs lie insensible as the straw boils around them; rats shriek and fray and… Continue reading