All things bright and beautiful?

What I've been thinking about:

1. Chironomida
2. (It's not an STD)

One of the things I notice when I'm walking the dog at this time of year is the abundance of flora and fauna. Pink and blue flowers are dotted along the edge of the cycle track in between the nettles and sticky willy and swallows dip over my head on their way to feed their chirruping young in nests under the eaves. 

I'm unable to name most of the wildlife around here (although I'd probably be evicted if I couldn't recognise a sheep or cow by now). But there's one that any Scot knows in their first list of animals, along with being able to point at kittens, doggies and horses. And that's the aforementioned chironomida. 

Look, doggies! 

That's right, it's the wee biting b*****d that is the midge. 

In true Presbyterian fashion, we can't have blazing, uninterrupted sunshine for over a week and just enjoy it. Oh no, we have to suffer lest we enjoy life in all its glory. (As if burning within five minutes of leaving the house wasn't enough).

Factor Duffle Coat

This year's midge is more keen than usual, buzzing about for far longer than is acceptable. For those lucky enough to be unfamiliar with the little blighter, it usually appears early in the morning and later in the evening but leaves us to enjoy the bulk of the day uninterrupted. Not this year. The 2023 edition has decided that it is mounting a hostile takeover for daytime as well. 

I imagine them in their small but mighty midge army strategising about which watch each platoon will take to ensure maximum coverage (Ultravox playing in the background, naturally). When they're not sleeping (do midges sleep?) or biting, they're sharpening their weapons until they glisten in the light, ready for the next crusade. 

A youngster flies into the officers' mess with news of casualties, squashed on a boilersuit by a hand bigger than any of them can imagine. The more experienced among them don't miss a beat (it means nothing to them). The new recruits will one day be that hardened, barely registering the daily reports of losses. They remain focused on one goal and one goal only: domination. 

Anyone would think that the wee biting b******s are starting to affect my sanity. But I know the truth. 

Our Saviour

They're all going on a summer holiday

Things I've learned

1. Farmers are adept at diversification. 
2. I like salted caramel ice cream. I was pretty sure of that already but it's always good to check these things. 

I've been thinking a lot about holidays this week. It's partly the weather - which has been scorchio - and partly the increase in traffic on the roads. 

Dumfries and Galloway is a region that relies heavily on tourism. According to Visit Scotland, British travellers alone made over 750,000 overnight trips to the region in 2018, spending 2.5 million nights and £141 million. 

Of course, this is a mixed blessing. It means that when we have visitors ourselves, there are plenty of places and events to take them to. But we've also all come across drivers either braking for every bend (or puddle, which was my particular favourite) or going far too fast on single track roads and overtaking on blind corners on the A75. 

It's not quite the onslaught that Edinburgh usually has every year. When I lived there, I really enjoyed the fact that I passed Edinburgh Castle on my morning bus route and that I could walk to some of the best art galleries in the world but it made going about my day to day life in August absolute hell. It's certainly experiencing a quieter summer this year due to covid cancellations and, although that has a massive impact on businesses that rely on festival audiences, I'm sure there are many that are breathing a sigh of relief and enjoying the quieter streets. 

Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Which brings me back to D&G and the farm. Before I lived here, the tourism sector was something I only really thought about in a work setting. Having worked for Spring Fling and the Wigtown Book Festival in the past, I've been involved in a lot of audience surveys, reports to funders and the like but it all felt a bit more abstract. 

Spittal Sunset
Photo by Ivie

Now the view from my bedroom window includes the two holiday cottages on the farm and if I'm sitting outside I can hear people on the cycle path and the gates opening and closing. 

I really like it. I love living somewhere that other people want to come and visit and it stops me taking these glorious views for granted. A friend of mine came to visit last week from Wiltshire and stayed in a nearby AirBnB (Spittal Cottages were both booked!). Her and her children arrived one drizzly, overcast afternoon and woke up the next day surrounded by the Galloway Hills and Galloway Forest Park. They were all captivated by the views, the wildlife and the peace and quiet. It was great to see the place through their eyes and it made me fall in love with D&G a little bit more, if that's possible. 

Photo by Julia

While they were here, we went to Cream o' Galloway on a sunny Saturday. It was my first major trip into the outside world since mid-March so it was all slightly strange. But as numbers were limited to enable social distancing it meant that it was quiet, we barely had to queue for ice cream (salted caramel since you ask) and the kids could explore the adventure playground and go karts till their heart's content. 

It reminded us of a previous visit around six years ago when they'd come to Auchencairn to stay with me. As we waited for the tractor ride (little did I know I'd be able to do that every day if I wanted in a few year's time), the chap said, "now remember that we'll be driving through a working farm. There will be machinery and equipment lying around." We thought he meant from a health and safety point of view and keeping the children safe. "We've had complaints from visitors that the place looks untidy." I'm not often speechless...

Flitting and Stripping

What you should know:

• if you keep reading you'll see a photo of Ivie stripping

Ivie has had two addresses in his life; I'd had two by the time I was 8 months old. I've moved house twice in the last year come to think of it (it made sense at the time, honest). 

I've been thinking about moving house this week - not that I'm planning on doing it again anytime soon. But we're getting ready for a new bathroom so have been taking down shelves and stripping wallpaper and there's now that strange echo that you get when you start to pack boxes prior to a move. 

Move 1, July 2019

Move 2, Dec 2019

Housing on farms is something that seems quite complicated if you haven't grown up in that environment. For example, Ivie's two addresses have been the farmhouse (where he grew up) and the farm cottage (where we live now). It takes less than a minute to walk between the two so he's never had to bother setting up mail redirection. 

When Ivie's brother and sister-in-law got married they moved into the cottage. So far, so straightforward. When their third child was on the way, they moved into the farmhouse. That's when Ivie moved into the cottage. The end. 

Except it's not the end. If one of Ivie's nieces or his nephew decide to make their life on the farm, they'll probably move into the cottage so we'll move out. And if later they have a growing family, they'll probably move into the farmhouse, meaning Ivie's brother and sister-in-law will move out. And so the merry-go-round continues. 

It sounds harsh from the outside looking in but it's practical and follows the circle of life, a bit like farming itself. 

I used to think that would make me feel quite insecure and transient about where I lived but the old adage about home being where the heart is, is absolutely true. We're middle-aged so we're looking forward to choosing paint colours and flooring and have been saying things like, "it'll be so much easier to keep clean". 

Decorating doesn't feel like a waste of time because this is the home we're building together today. I could repeat all sorts of cliches about living in the here and now but it's something that kind of happens on the farm anyway. Every day is a new day and, although what happens today has an impact on the future, none of it is set in stone. 

For instance, Ivie is supposed to be at silage on another farm today but it started tipping down as soon as he got there so he'll head back and find another job that needs doing. Like stripping wallpaper. 

Two Baths Fisher 

Sheeting the Pit

Here's what I've learned:
1. It's sheeting the pit not pitting the sheet (but try telling my brain that). 
2. Apparently it was really easy this year (but try telling my body that). 

For a few weeks now I've been hearing rumours that I would be involved in sheeting the pit this year. Like many things in life, I didn't give the reality much thought (I once agreed to walk 500 miles across Spain in my summer holidays without thinking about what that actually meant. Luckily it turned out to be amazing, despite being proposed to by an Australian and an Austrian. But that's another story). 

Somewhere in Spain, 1994

Last Thursday after tea, I was instructed to don my boilersuit, leggings and wellies and join the Wacky Races to the silage pit. I ended up as a hanger-on on the loadall after turning down a lift on the quad (I didn't think Ivie's brother and nephew would appreciate me clinging to them the way I do to Ivie) and in the loadbed of the pick-up (I didn't want to embarrass myself in front of Ivie's sister-in-law, niece and two of her friends by tripping on the way in and on the way out). 

Another member of the team was already up the hill (via tractor) so that was us up to nine. 

This is how the pit looked by the time we'd finished. 

It looks that way for five or six months of the year. 

I've walked past it often in the last couple of years. 

I've never once contemplated how it gets like that. 

For the uninitiated, the pit consists of three concrete sides and an open front. It is filled with cut grass then covered in two layers of plastic, a layer of green mesh and weighted down with tyres. 

BUT the layers of plastic aren't just two single massive sheets. Because that would be too easy - and too difficult (imagine trying to transport a bin bag that size). So, there are side sheets that are rolled in from the sides then the main sheets are rolled down in sections and weighted down at the seams with tyres. I didn't quite grasp which sheets go under and which go over but Ivie seemed to have it under control. At one point, I was sure we were folding French seams Patrick and Esme would be proud of. 

Socially distant teamwork

This was us rolling down the last sheet. By this point, I was sweaty, out of breath and had aching muscles. And we hadn't even started chucking tyres around yet. It was a rude awakening from my 14 weeks of shielding where I haven't ventured off the farm. Apart from a fantastic online Pilates class (thank you, Di), there hasn't been a huge amount of lockdown exercise. That certainly changed last Thursday...

I probably did a bit less than everyone else, partly because I was always one step behind, standing on the wrong sheet or putting a tyre in the wrong place. Frequently all three. But it was one of those occasions I'd have been sad to miss (but don't remind anyone I said so this time next year). It felt like I was making a contribution, however small and unskilled, to the people and place I call home. 

Silage: The Untold Story

Things you should know:

1. The title was just to draw you in. 
2. Sometimes I don't want to know. 

Silaging began this week at The Spittal. The short version of events is that Ivie et al cut the grass, pick it up, put it in a big heap and leave it till winter. Oh, and I don't see Ivie from morning till night. It's like lambing all over again but without the cute lambs to show for it. 

#lambing2020

Of course, there's much more to it than that. I went up the hill to take a look and have a five minute tractor date and kind of wished I hadn't. One of the team was in a big tractor driving (quickly!) up and down the big pile to make it neat, tidy and compact. Obviously if you've grown up around farming things like this are an everyday sight and don't phase you in the slightest (I've yet to find something that does phase Ivie to be fair). But for a townie like me it all looked like a precarious bucking bronco and I didn't like it one bit.

#silage2018
(apparently)

One of the things that you are never far from on the farm is the changing of the seasons. There's a time for everything and it all has a knock-on effect on other jobs and other parts of the year. 

• If there's not enough silage, it will be more expensive to feed the cows in winter. And farmers don't like spending money they don't have to.
• If there's not enough water, farmers spend time filling up troughs when there are plenty of other jobs to do. Like moaning about the weather. 
• And if you don't take the tups away from the ewes by a certain date lambing will go on beyond my birthday. And we don't want that. 

Don't laugh but when I first started seeing Ivie I did a bit of research into going out with a farmer. I found this on the Farmers Weekly website, which was more helpful than it looks. 

I put together my own rules for dating a farmer (Ivie specifically 😉), which include:

• Redefine dates - if you're not going to see your farmer for a while, go to them. This once involved a 90-minute drive to another farm but we got to spend the afternoon together. 
• Have a five minute date if that's all there's time for. Jump in the tractor for a blether about the day and a discussion about what's for tea. 
• Ban phones from the kitchen table! There are times when we only see each other at meal times and I definitely want to see Ivie's smiling face, rather than the top of his head. 
• Laugh every single day. 

The last one is non negotiable. 

#actualdate2018

Of course, there are aspects of silaging that I'll never understand. Did you know that #silage2020 is trending in certain circles these days? Nope me either. Apparently farmers post countless photos and videos of tractors, rows of grass and big machines (forage wagons and choppers, I'm told). That's one circle I'm happy to stand outside. Perhaps that's what's known as a crop circle...

Rain, Rain Come Away In

Things you should know:

1. Farmers like it when it rains

2. You're unlikely to go on a date with a farmer on a sunny day

As I write these points above it makes me realise that the chances of actually going on a date with a farmer at all are pretty slim. Even when we're not in isolation. 

Throughout the year, Ivie and I joke that we'll see each other in November - it's no coincidence that we got together one November. Our first date was crammed in between curling fixtures and car maintenance but we made it. Just. 

So, we've just had some of the warmest, driest weeks on record. It's been great for someone like me who's been shielding since mid-March as I've been able to sit outside and drink tea, go for walks (within the confines of the farm) and top up my vitamin D. 

Not so great for farmers or their cows. Cows drink a HUGE amount of water every day. I've just googled it to try and get a definitive answer but answers varied between 3 and 70 gallons so we'll just leave it at A Lot. 

                   

Ivie has spent an inordinate amount of time guddling about with water, topping up troughs that the cows empty as soon as he can fill them and shaking his head at the low levels in the hydro pond. 

Aside from having an impact on the water needed for cows, the rain (or lack thereof) also affects every single other bloody thing that Ivie does. I don't pretend to understand what conditions are required for each job but it's along the lines of:

"I hope the wind dies down/picks up, the rain starts/stops and the sun shines/doesn't so that I can spray/spread/cut/disc/roll...."

Remember the old cliche of British Rail and the wrong sort of leaves on the line...?

Anyway, this week the dry spell has ended and we've had almost enough rain. Ivie's as happy as Larry, whoever Larry was. 

I've just googled that, too, and got a more satisfactory answer than to cows' capacity for drink:

It originates from an Australian boxer called Larry Foley in the 1890s, who never lost a fight. He retired at 32 and collected a purse of £1,000 for his final fight. 

Thank you, google.

Tuesday morning was the happiest I'd seen Ivie in weeks. He came in for breakfast head to toe in waterproofs, dripping wet and beaming from ear to ear. I half expected him to shake himself like a dog all over the kitchen floor before lying in front of the fire for the rest of the day.

Suffice to say, I'm looking forward to our second date in November 2021. 

Sweet Dreams

Things I know:

• Ivie rarely has insomnia. 
• He is much less crabbit than I am.

Last week we were staying up a bit later than usual. With the warmer weather and lighter nights, it felt like those days in the summer holidays where you didn't want to go to bed and would rather play outside for another three and a half hours.

Midge Repellent Firepit

But cows still need fed. So, Ivie gets up at the usual time and I roll over and have another forty winks.

I've been lucky that during lockdown I've been able to work from home. My commute into the village is only usually three minutes, to be fair, but working from a desk in the hallway means that my hair doesn't need to be brushed (or washed for that matter...), my top and bottom halves don't have to match and I can be as smart or as scruffy as I like. But let's be honest, even my smart edges towards other people's scruffy...

Giblin HQ

Since Ivie has been getting less sleep than usual, he's been having the odd nap on the sofa. He has the remarkable ability of falling asleep within a breath and a half. At lambing time, it's even less. Towards the end of lambing we were watching TV and he said, "I think I'll have a nap". Before I'd even had time to turn round and acknowledge him, he was sleeping soundly. (And that was during Countryfile so he must have been tired.)

If I've had less than my eight hours, I get a bit crabbit and oversensitive. At peak lambing, Ivie comes to bed at 3am, gets up again at 7am and never complains. I'm not quite sure how he does it. 

Just another reason that it's a good thing I work in an office and not on the farm.