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Crofting Life

Happy New Year

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Last night I had several writing inspiration moments. Never mind that they came at various times in the middle of the night when I was supposed to be blissfully sleeping away. But they were good enough that I had a wee think over them. Even composed a full paragraph for one of them and revised it before finally passing back to the land of nod.

But when the morning called with two boys wanting their breakfast, I was trudging down the stairs racking my brains as to what glorious inspiration I had meant to write. I figured it would surely return during the day; something would surely cause it to return to the memory panel. Alas, it never has. The black hole of the night swallowed them whole, never to be seen, heard, or thought of again.

Which means, I then felt duty bound to write something. Anything. Surely typing away would jog the eloquent and detailed stories I had envisioned But time slowly slipped away. It was a day of the usual chores: sort cows, check sheep, give a bit of attention to the moulting chickens, check the other lot of sheep, and in the mean time try and keep track what two boys were up to (stop licking the ice for one). And before I know it, it’s post-tea, the boys are tucked up and my bed is calling. I have no plans of waiting up. I know, I know. I hear the uproar by the dedicated hogmanayers. But for me, a late bed does not mean a lie in in the morning. So I’m happy to join in the celebrations at somewhere in the world that has already celebrated and head for bed. For those that like to stay up, that’s great. Whoo-hoo, tonight’s your night. Me, I need my bed.

But what I haven’t done is sort my goals for the coming year. Yes, I have for a long time, had goals each year. This concept was giving to me by sister in law (way back before she was my sister in law). It’s been great fun. Things such as ‘do 20 munros’, ‘read 30 books’ kind of goals. All achievable goals. Some general, some being more edging and getting me to do things I wouldn’t do while stuck in my comfort zone. Not the “I want to lose weight’ type of resolutions some people seem to like. Those lot can have their cake and not eat it. Mine would be more likely to ‘make a three tier cake and ice it like a quarry complete with diggers’ kind of goal. Or the ‘Get up one munro’ (in the past it would have been 30 but cows and kids put a huge hurdle in the way for managing that). I’ve already started a reading list for 2024 (although I completed one of them yesterday). I would try and make sure there was balance in them (physical, mental, spiritual, personal, social, etc) as well as practical. I have absolutely no need to go skydiving. But a weaving course would be great. So I need to go have a wee think for the year to come. And I know 2024 is just around the corner so it’s a bit late to leave it until now to think about it. But the next two days are public holidays, who is really going to be asking for my list before then.

Crofting Life

Winter and the flamingo dance.

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That time of year when snow glistens in the sun. The muted sounds buffed into tranquillity. All perfect winter scenes as social media are serenaded by a whole orchestra of glittery, snowy pictures that burst onto the scene.

And then it all melts. And you’ve got a foot of mud to wade through. The soggy ground squelching, holding wellies down stronger than an industrial hoover. The fear of becoming wellieless grips as each step is taken. The thought of a soggy sock in the middle of an open field, far from any relief of a dry foot grips your chest as tight as watching a movie where the music has gone into ‘suspense’ mode. The potential of looking like a flamingo, but without the glamour safari backdrop, as your welly remains in that last step is a very real, impending doom thought. Separation anxiety very quickly sets in. Noo, this is not the time to try the hippy bare-foot, guitar playing country life walk. This walk was to sort a fence. And a urgent matter. I don’t want a soggy sock. I want my wellies!

And so, to redeem that tiny piece of grace, two hands desperately go into starfish mode, the yoga pose (yes neighbours, of course I’m practicing yoga in the middle of a cow field) is maintained as the slow and very cautious bend is undertaken to perform the tug of war against the mud. Who’s going to win? Surely not the mud. The tugging ensures. Until suddenly, you win. The mud releases it’s grip as you fly backwards. Your wellieless foot is still dry. Hooray! Ok, you’re bums now soaking from the landing, but hey, at least you’ve been reunited with the wellie. The mutterings of ‘aye, this is the good life, huh?’ reverberate in the mind. Well, no one can’t say I’m not close to nature. I’m about a foot deep in it!

And I’m not sure if I look better in the flamingo pose or the yoga pose. I’ll go ask the cows.

Crofting Life

As the snow lies

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December ended up being a bit of a blur. Not in the “have you been to Specsavers?” type, but the day to day tasks turned to a ‘lets try and keep everyone and everything alive’ mode.

The microscopic bugs seemed to have held the house hostage. The siege seemed never ending; one attack would finish with that moment of silence before the next one would spring out from nowhere. In the middle of those situations, the snow fell. Suddenly at first. And a lot. And then the temperature dropped. Not to any drastic plunge by any means, but just enough to freeze water. And water’s fairly crucial. So the battle of the ice was declared; a twice daily repetitive strategy was enforced. Grab the wellies, the waterproofs, energy from the depth of your toes (before they freeze), start ‘The Battle’ song by Hans Zimmer in Gladiator, clench the fist, lift that snow shovel high and call out that battle cry.

The byre’s water went first. So the cows were let loose to the top field (which can have a water trough filled from the house). Rocky and Hilda are out wintering, so they needed another gate opened to access the far field which has a burn, which has so far, never frozen. But it has been close, so a 20 minute trudge through the snow to check water was flowing commenced. And in the mean time, let’s not forget the hens. Nor the dog. Or the mini crofters. The clean washing pile was deemed a non essential service and still seems to be suffering the aftermath.

So it was back on one of those days, between two children becoming ill, that I took ill. And was in bed. So the SOS lifelines were called. The dog went down to one set of neighbours, another checked the cows and chickens. And another popped up at tea time to feed the boys their tea (who had managed on cheerios and youtube). And to add a wee cherry on the top, a water filter at the polytunnel decided the situation was just too much, and burst.

The water pressure at the house raised the red flag. The burst pipe hunt began and once the flooded polytunnel was spotted, the repair work began. And it highlighted how much of a maze of pipe work we have, and how hard it is to find anything when it’s three feet under snow.

So the music tempo changed. And along came Elvis and his ghetto. But adapted, to fit the scene. The song, with their rewritten lyrics had been forgotten about until today.

As I cleared a path to the pickup, checked the cows, and attempted to get the boys ready for school, the song came back.

As the snow lies

On a cold and dreich December mornin’

Another water pipe begun to freeze

In the byre (In the byre)

And the crofter cries,

‘Cause if there’s one thing that she don’t need

It’s another job that needs some heed

In the byre (In the byre)

People, don’t you understand

The woman needs a glass of wine,

Or a two week trip to where that sun shines

Have a look for Timbukto

And in her dreams you find her there.

But now we find the schools been shut

And have more work to do

Well, the weather turns

And a soaking crofter with a runny nose

Works in the snow as the cold winds blow

At the byre (At the byre)

And her hungry burns

So she starts to roam the fridge at night

While she dreams of spring

And she dreams of light

In the byre (in the byre)

So now, the snow swirls around outside. The pick-up already covered again in snow. The school run never attempted after the messages arrived of adverse weather and school closure. And the gentle strumming from Elvis softly plays as I dream of spring.

Crofting Life, Livestock

Woolly Silence

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Things have been fairly quiet on the blogging aspect. The writer’s block has seemed to have outlasted the pandemic and is still going strong. A few times I would get those ‘whay-hey’ moments, but rarely would the mental concept last, the next breeze would chase it off and by the time I got to sitting down to write, it would be a distant memory, not of the concept itself, but that I had at some point had a paragraph I could have written. Maybe I should dig the laptop out anyway, I would wonder. But I then found excuses, I was trying to work on my knitting, I have a cross-stitch project from about 10 years ago that I would desperately like to finish. What about the spinning wheel that I rarely touch, let alone the piano. Then there is the pressure of Duolingo (for those unaware, it has leagues, and points, and demotion potential if you don’t practice). For one whole year I was doing French via Duolingo. That has now changed to doing Gaelic (because having two boys in the local Bun-sgoil and sgoil-àraich means now getting asked questions which I have no idea), so I shelved the French and swapped to gaelic. And while I don’t spend a lot of my time language learning, it can quickly fill an evening, even with the longer spells of darkness. And I did try combining knitting with gaelic but counting K2P3, as basic as it is, was not aiding with duolingo (suggestion to any involved with the Scottish gaelic is can I have a knitter’s version).

Now, I realise a lot of people are not keen on the nights drawing in, but I’m enjoying it as it gives an excuse to finally get to the spinning wheel and my knitting (yes, my spinning wheel has been outside but often, I just sit there and eye up all the outside jobs that need done). And with the attention back to the wheel, and the knitting needles back out, I recently did take a day off and went shopping. To the rare breeds sale at Dingwall Mart. What more, then window shopping (well, gazing through the pen gates) at all the different breeds of sheep, a cafe area which serves bacon rolls and chips, and to then splash out and buy some more sheep could you want in a day?

Yes, having done a little bit of prior research into wool, I went along eyeing up three different types: ryelands, wensleydales, and Icelandic’s. I was given a sack of ryeland wool early autumn which is about to get washed. I decided to practice washing one of the fleeces I had sheared this summer (texal cross) before approaching the ryeland wool. Which will now need to get done sooner rather than later because I bought two Icelandic ewe lambs. And I would like to have gotten through the ryeland wool (washed, dried, and carded) before I then get icelandic wool next year. Which also means I need refreshers on carding. But the problem with looking carding up on you tube, is you come across articles on weaving, and then someone has made bags from weaving their own wool, and then you start looking up looms, which takes you back to the auction mart and oh, look! There’s another spinning wheel for sale at the mart; the same mart I was at last week buying two sheep. Ahh, it certainly is a slippery slope into the woolly world. Besides, I really need to go check the cows, the bull, the chickens, and the dog before I get back to my knitting this evening.

Crofting Life

Timbuktu

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‘Where are you going?’ I was asked as I packed my bags.

‘Timbuktu’, I replied.

‘You’re not going to Africa’, the oldest retorted.

Ahh, you are correct, but I’m going to the Highland’s local equivalent. And possibly better than Timbuktu (although I can’t say for sure as I’ve never been to the real Timbuktu).

See, anytime they ask where I am or where I’m going, I say Timbuktu. Times such as, when I’m taking a load of laundry to the washing machine, when I’m heading outside to hang laundry, or when I carrying clean laundry upstairs to be folded. It is at those times I hear the call:

‘Muummmm, where are you?’

No tannoy is needed for my boys to put out a missing person’s call, to ask all to join in a search party, for voices to be raised to see if the person’s whereabouts can be pinpointed. They are by no means part of a mountain search and rescue team, although the laundry always seems like a mountain and maybe one day I will succumb to the shear heights and become crag fast with it and need help, but not sure the Scottish Mountain Rescue team would be fully trained for that kind of rescue (the type of rescue where you hear: ‘Joe, you start folding towels on the west side, Sarah and I will take on the deep crevasses of the sheets from the south. Sam, you take on the landslip of socks over on the north face while everyone else spread out across the general laundry slope and pick your way carefully over the tops; be suspect for anything that doesn’t smell of Ylang-ylang and Lily). My boys are just getting a bit of work experience really at the basic search and rescue aspect; the type they could put on their CVs – ‘From the age of three, we led countless endeavours to rescue Mum when she disappeared for more than five minutes’. On a positive note, they are good at finding me. However, they are also good at following. Not in the way a dog does scent training and is always scent following long after the person has past that way, but in the ‘never take your eye off the ball mentality’. Their philosophy is it is always better to stick together.

Now, their scent following/search and rescue missions are not all the time, they are less so when the Crofter is home. But while he is gone, I do find the book ‘Five minutes peace’ is a very realistic book, save the fact that it pertains to talking elephants. But the fact that Mrs Large tries to get five minutes peace but is unsuccessful; that my friend, is the realistic part. And with that, I thought I would change the book from a simple children’s book, to a self help book and take up the challenge. So within hours of the Crofter arriving back from work, I had booked two nights away at a local hotel. I was finally going to Timbuktu!

I took enough ‘holidaying’ things to last a week; optimism at its peak as I was only going to be away for two nights. The books (three), the magazines (two), the writing equipment (two notebooks and a laptop), the cross-stitch (that hasn’t been touched for years), the mountain bike, and the walking boots all went. The ability to get outside and enjoy the fresh air is not something new. But the ability to go for a walk without having to carry 13kg for part of it, the cycling without having a trailer attached, the ability to sit for long enough to a actually thread a needle. That can make the world of difference. The space for the mind to feel free…that is, until you round a corner and find 20 cows munching on silage and you wonder where the next cattle grid is in case you need to run as one of them gives you ‘the look’ that you are well familiar with. But the time to have space and have place of refuge were I don’t need to cook, clean, wash up, or be the responsible one.

Was my trip successful? Well, if that means having a good night sleep and doing things I enjoy, then yes. Was I ready to go back and face the cows? No. I could have stayed for longer. But hey, a couple of nights escape has been well worth it. Probably much over due (the good night sleep meant I only needed a small coffee rather than my usual pint size mug). The food was lovely, more so when the only meal prep you had to do was to start eyeing up the menu at about 3pm in regard to what you might want to order.

So, I can highly recommend to anyone: take a break, stay local, support independent businesses, and go have an explore down that wee track that you have always wondered about (just watch out for the cows that may be round the corner…). Go local, go rural and find your Timbuktu.

NB, For those wondering where my Timbuktu was, it is the quirky and fabulous Whitebridge Hotel (who are on Facebook, Instagram and the Internet so go check out some of the décor for a wee taster). I can recommend several walks (and one to avoid if your not fond of cows), the lounge seat next to the fire, and a favourite spot at the bar.