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No, I’m not talking about a chocolate field or a marmite crop. But an area of agriculture that is pretty specialised-pregnancy in agriculture. Not the cows or ewes pregnancy, the vet can help in that and farmers. crofters, smallholder are all steeped in personal experience in it. But pregnancy related issues for the women who work in agriculture.

This returns to two photos from the Spirit of Crofting video that was done for the Scottish Crofting Federation. Both appear fairly normal.

Bottle feeding a calf. Correct, but it was late May. Temperatures were well above normal and you won’t be able to know I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt underneath and sweating like a pig due to the heat. Why waterproofs then? When the vet had arrived the morning that the calf had taken unwell, she recommended removing the Mini Crofter from the byre due to the risk of transmitting the disease to him (not normally a problem of being around healthy cows but there are some illnesses/disease that we can get from cows, this in no ways means don’t go near them as you are more likely to pick up the who knows what from a work colleague then when you are around cows). But this then put me in a bit of an issue. I was in early pregnancy. The Crofter was away so I couldn’t designate the job. At the time I just worked with the vet on the calf and did a near full body scrub afterwards at the house. Could I find out any more about the risk of working with cattle while pregnant? No, not a jot. In the end, we rang the vet back and asked a ‘hypothetical pregnancy related question’. The vet was unsure and not confident to give further advice. So, being a theatre nurse, my ‘infection control’ understanding and dealing with high risk situations came into force. Personal protective equipment it was. Full waterproof jacket and trousers, wellies, and a bucket and brush of disinfectant at the door. A full wash down before leaving, the entire lot left in the shed before a full surgical scrub to the elbows performed back at the house. OK, a bit time consuming, but the added issue was I was overheating in the layers and dealing with severe nausea. So, to the right of the picture is a chair. Another one was placed in the shed, and the sofas were waiting for me at the house.

I’m not looking for someone to start playing a violin and give me sympathy. But I did find out that it wasn’t just the vet who couldn’t give advise; I asked the midwife, who in turn had to ask the Obstetric Consultants. And no one gave any definitive. It seems to be such a niche market; yes, women work in agriculture. But why so little information about those who are pregnant in it? There is a rise in vets being female, so the situation is not just one profession.

This second photo shows another pregnancy related problem. I was over the due date by this stage (41 weeks + 3). The lack of practical maternity clothing was an issue (and I’m not taking about a pair of comfy trousers, but the need for outdoor wear). The photo had been taken after using the Dexta tractor to pull out the Massey Ferguson tractor from being stuck in mud when it had gone to give hay to the cows. Yes, the ‘new’ tractor was great at doing the heavy lifting, but not being four wheel drive meant it can be pants on the soggy mud. Besides, it then showed the old wives tale of ‘starting-off-labour-driving-over-bumpy-roads’ and the crofting equivalent doesn’t work. So yes, while on the l’ve-eaten-too-many-bacon-rolls belly front, waterproofs and other winter necessities could be worn, the boiler suits were completely omitted and I’ve sure there is a business scope for designer maternity Crofting wear.

What can I recommend from these photos? Not everyone is able to have children, so regardless of how much you want the ground to swallow you up, grit your teeth and try and stay upright. There really isn’t any ‘convenient’ time to be having children while crofting. Any season has got its issues. People don’t ask about having chairs dotted around; but they would if you fainted or was sick. So to keep things quiet, get chairs. And lastly, people have stereotypes, don’t conform to them. They may be horrified you drove a tractor while past your due date, but hey, if that’s so much easier than a bunch of other jobs, go for it.

The past few weeks of glorious weather has meant the vegetable garden has finally had some TLC. It was seriously neglected over the summer as the Crofter had quite a lot to do while I was often out of commission or in a reduced role (forget any ‘pregnancy glow’, and less so when exhaustion/sickness has hit).

The little and often concept of tackling weeds was turfed out the window when sickness hit early on. That has resorted to a full scale weed war last week when I finally got a burst of energy and the ability to bend over without heartburn (the following day was an entirely different matter on looking like I must have run a marathon). Now, to an keen gardener, it will look appalling (all the photos are after I had worked, should have done a before!). But, given the neglect, I’m impressed how well a lot of the veg has done. I realise to all locals reading this, we had snow last week and have now had hard frost on multiple occasions. But to think back that soon after the seedlings were put out, we hit a drought (well, no rain and having to use something called a water can around here isn’t common). It then continued at temperatures which were more attuned to the ‘mad dogs and English men’ scenario.

Our gardening knowledge has increased over the years. But why things did so well given the neglect is unknown considering the competition with the weeds (and why did the parsnip not even make a half hearted attempt to show up?). As the frost is becoming more consistent, several things now need uplifted. No, it does not fill me nostalgia for being thankful for the harvest, more of a ‘oh look, more stones to be picked out’. Always an eye for future work. However, as I worked on the raised beds today, I discovered the heartburn was back, and with vengeance. Maybe I should think about sorting the croft’s paperwork for a bit…

Yep, since that ‘Beast from the East’, I’ve been waiting to name our snowflakes. So, Stanley finally arrived on Saturday. Nae bad for October but hey, not much effort in terms of snow cover, it didn’t even provide the grass with a blanket. Never mind, just turn to the media and we find Belinda the blizzard has buried us until Easter. I really should quit my sarcasm…

Due to the cow’s jail break last week and their show of determination for getting closer to the byre, having seen the forecast for rain/sleet, we decided that Friday would be their moving in date. With Stanley arriving Saturday (and more importantly, the rain fall) it was just right. Leave them out too long and the ground gets poached very quickly, very seriously (and they won’t want that in the spring when the grass should start growing again). I’m no animal psychologist, but our cows don’t show any partiality for mud baths. With the past month having a bit of a lull in the daily activity required on the croft, it is back on the increase with the byre needing checked, hay provided and water troughs needing checking. The added issue this year is now having a very able bodied toddler who is currently mastering climbing but needs sent on a health and safety course!

Today the Crofter and I were down in Forfar to give a talk on ‘A Smallholder’s Tale’ at the annual Scottish Smallholding Festival in Forfar. When we had agreed to it, it had been highly unlikely that the Crofter would have been home for it so I took the decision that as much as I don’t see myself as a public speak, it would hopefully give encouragement to particularly women or those who have no background in agriculture.

The journey down did not start off well. After the Mini Crofter having to have his weekly bath early, he promptly went head first into the filing cabinet; resulting in a table tennis ball bump on the forehead, a nose bleed and a split lip. The Crofter was trying to sort out all the damsons which I had picked the day before tackling the basket of local pears we had received that needed pickling. Damson jelly in a sieve is one thing, when our toddler decides to try and lick the bowl adding red (blood coloured) juice to hands and head in addition to his injuries, you really are thankful for the flurry of snow that you can now take him out in to try and clean him up again. But that wasn’t all that hadn’t been going swimmingly. We had been unable to send the presentation by email so we had no one of knowing that it definitely worked. The travel down involved a diversion due to an accident. And, on the way in this morning we hit ice twice. Always good to put yourself in these stress situations just to make sure you still have a bit of nerve.

However, we made it without coming off the road. Our picture presentation worked, people turned up to listen, and we finally got to buy some of Dalmore Croft’s pressed apple juice (really, if you live Edinburgh/Fife go have a look, search it on Facebook/internet).

Reward after the talk: a dish that seemed more attuned to an exotic food restaurant, not a mobile food hut parked at a mart. Here’s to the crab!

I had never realised our cows knew this saying. Until they decided that today was the day to change fields, not tomorrow, as the Crofter and I had planned. But today. And not just any time of day, when the neighbours are out and about do the cows go have a jolly.

They have been down on one of the neighbour’s newly seeded grass for the past two weeks with tomorrow being their moving day to the byre for winter. Having satisfied themselves with the lovely green, green grass, I have no idea why they decided the road verge and old turf mounds looked so appealing. Well, one of them appears to have de-electrified the electric fencing and the herd got moving.

Our phone rang and when the Crofter answered it he was also stood at the window which allowed him full view of the now moving parade. Talk about an emergency drill call. This was every man, woman and child to the welly boot room. Pants that it can talk ages to dress a toddler, and when he’s already soaked his only boiler suit, what option have we got? Ha, whatever comes to hand; yep, a posh looking rain coat and muddy shoes.

The seriousness suddenly escalated when I was trying to make up two buckets of food and I looked out the shed door to see five of them heading up the immediate neighbour’s driveway. Well, light exercise is recommended for pregnant women, so off I quickly jogged with my shepherd’s crook and two buckets. The idea of cows spotting your neighbour’s car as a scratching post or attempting to chew the artificial flowers in a flowerpot is not high on my agenda.

Thankfully in this situation the neighbour’s daughters took to the Mini Crofter, the neighbour helped to drive them with the Crofter and I led them with the bucket. It was done in two groups but I guess that would imply an improvement in the efficiency from the cows; it took three trips to get them down. Maybe next time they could do it in a one-er. Or else, never underestimate the power of the bucket with a hungry cow.