Bog Myrtle & Peat

The bull comes to life for an hour at dusk. He rears up from the shadows like a ghoul, and he foams himself into the twilight. Lashed and clarty with mud, he begins to moan and the ground trembles at the horror of it. It’s a deep, seismic humm which rings in the yard and… Continue reading

There’s a warm, cosy smell on the moss. It comes up where the water pools and the grass bows to the ditches. Slight sun and a steady breeze, then a day of bruisy clouds above the may blossom. There are cuckoos calling in the stuffiness, and the dykes are rimed with linnets; each one with… Continue reading

  I’ve been looking forward to growing turnips for almost a decade. Fuelled by old tales of  partridges and hares in the turnip fields, I swore that one day I would try and recreate some of that magic for myself. Old and faithful readers of this blog will remember my dabbling with stubble turnips in… Continue reading

Spring is gathering pace, but for all the grass is rising and the soil’s warm, I find a backlog of chores growing behind me. There’s a turnip drill to fettle, and the tractor’s leaking again. I’ve sold the calves from last summer, but the transaction hangs on my ability to gather and load them into… Continue reading

We came to tag the new calf and ran against an obstacle. The applicator was jammed and the cow’s patience wore thin. She’d borne my intrusion with quiet resignation, but speed is crucial at a time like this. Seconds drove by, and I was fumbling at an adjustable pin in a broken plastic tool. The… Continue reading

The Galloway Hills lie like a fallen dyke below the setting sun. I look to them across fifteen miles of open moorland. They’re rough and round and boulder blue. Despite their name, half of these hills lie in Ayrshire. It hardly matters where the county line’s drawn because there’s nothing to administrate or record in… Continue reading

Imagine the darkness before dawn, and the slosh of cool rain after a dry month. A curlew is calling, and the rushes dance to the patter of falling water. There are violets and celandines at the dyke foot; the knowes are crowded with wood anemones and bluebells. It’s fast becoming day, and the glen is… Continue reading

It’s hard to face the sudden appearance of squirrel pox in this part of Galloway. We stood above the rising tide of grey squirrels for so long that I’d begun to think they’d never come. Red squirrels ran chirping through the trees, and I took them for granted because I never knew the trees without… Continue reading

We borrowed a boar in December. His name was Percy and he stayed with our sows for seven weeks. We watched for signs of progress, but Percy was vast and idle and he seemed to do little more than sleep for the entire duration of his visit. Not knowing any better, we began to worry… Continue reading

We saw a swallow on the third of April. The dark shape flew from east to west across the horizon, and then it was gone. We always mark the swallow’s arrival as a time of joy, but it was hard to find pleasure in those silent, flickering wings. Others came in following days, but the… Continue reading