Bog Myrtle & Peat

Out in the slush and downpour, pared by a bitter wind. Here’s a foretaste of the winter coming – darkling day; the crunch and split of turnips in the teeth of cattle. And boring jobs which roll inevitably into my hands. Muck out the sty and cart the old straw to the midden. Split sticks ‘n’… Continue reading

The calves have done well this summer, but now they come to the autumn as underdogs. Their mothers are hungry and pregnant again, so the youngsters are hurled to one side when I arrive to feed them. It’s grand to slit the summer bales and smell the grass which dried and set like flakes of… Continue reading

Two good days on the trot, and a chance to revisit the silage field at the moment of its healing. I asked a friend to lift the bales and haul them home. His tractor’s bigger than mine, and he has the endless advantage of a front-end loader. So he piled the black bales high on… Continue reading

I watch two foxes on a clear and bitter morning. They’re waiting for the sun to rise and warm them. One is shady and spacious in the base of a crab apple tree. The other is rude and lairy, rolling in the ice and kicking his black stockings like a pup. They rush and bolt… Continue reading

It’s been ten years since I started out on this path. A decade of working and thinking and trying to make sense of nature in Galloway. This blog began in January 2010, but I had been sketching down ideas for weeks before the first article was published and Working for Grouse was born. I can… Continue reading

Silage was postponed by a fortnight. The weather turned and shifted like a fever, and no two days were alike. When a run of clear sunshine presented itself, I rushed to mount the mower and make a start. I’ve often wailed with discomfort at the difficulty of late season silage – I’m sorry to cover… Continue reading

The pigs are giving me a headache. It’s been fun to produce our own pork over the last few years, but there’s an inherent problem with pigs which takes a little chewing. Pigs grow best when they’re fattened on a commercial pellet, and this stuff comes with a mucky footprint. The pellet I buy takes… Continue reading

Down to the shore in a westering sun, and what a weight of birds awaited. Curlews stood in every creek and glistening vein of the shore; oystercatchers and godwits and pintail in the marshes where the samphire glowed almost coral pink. It’s some place, this – wild and far-flung in the horns of an old… Continue reading

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… Continue reading

The same old impossible thing happened last night. A hundred thousand woodcock came across the North Sea by the light of a tall and doughty moon. It happens every year, but it never ceases to astonish me. More will come tonight and in the next few months until a million woodcock have found their way… Continue reading