Bog Myrtle & Peat

For all I’ve been hoping that the turnips would come good, I was forced to face an uncomfortable truth last week. Several drills have come up totally bare, and there’s an odd inconsistency between the biggest seedlings and the smallest. Something wasn’t right, and it took a visit from straight-talking neighbours to show me the… Continue reading

Everybody loves belted galloways; that’s a truth universally acknowledged. Children coo at belties, and tourists buy postcards of black and white cattle until I begin to worry that any word of criticism will be shouted down and trampled upon by an outraged mob. These beasts have made such a mark in Galloway’s identity that it… Continue reading

Down in the halflight to the deep grass where the water’s ranting. Here’s a good track for roe deer, and they wend along these paths by the river like ghosts in the rising reeds. I see them walking in the dawn when the mist has pooled and flooded onto the low ground and their heads swim… Continue reading

We pulled the calves from their mothers and sold them. I drew the wagon away from the gathering pens and the cattle began to moan in protest. Some of these calves are almost a year old, but they were still sucking at times; a fright would send them cartwheeling home to the safety of their… Continue reading

It’s hard to ignore the discovery of “yellow rattle” in the hayfield. I felt like I’d seen this increasingly rare wildflower in the hay crop last year when the grass was dry, but it took a special visit to double check and confirm at the weekend. Sure enough, there it was in a carpet of… Continue reading

Onto the moss in the evening, with the stir and hack of cattle around me. Maybe you don’t remember it, but our bull fell and twisted his knee in August. I wailed with despair, but there was nothing I could do. We had to bring him in to rest, so now the calving has fallen… Continue reading

Rain at every hour of the day and night, churning and pooling like a busted vein until the grass is thick and the ditches gurgle. What a thing it is to have rain like this after weeks of crumbling powder; what a thing to be soaked to the bare back and cradle your fag-end in… Continue reading

We sowed the turnips and I trusted the seed drill to work for me. It was a matter of blind faith, and a cavernous leap of ignorance. I found the first seedlings coming through after a week. Things looked promising, but over the subsequent days I began to worry. Success seemed horribly patchy and threadbare.… Continue reading

It was announced overnight that Langholm Moor will soon be up for sale. The news is already being spun in a thousand directions to suit numerous narratives, but it’s left me cold. I’ve spent many happy hours working (and playing) at Langholm, overseeing a heather beetle project and stalking goats as part of a woodland… Continue reading

Rain after long, dry weeks. It pools on the mud and sogs in the fallen bracken like a thickness. I was out at dawn last week and heard the undergrowth crackling to the tune of fox cubs. They played in silence, but the dryness made it noisy. Now it’s damp and I’ll have no sound… Continue reading