A Cosy Christmas

What I know about Christmas on the farm:

1. Cows still need fed. 
2. Ivie doesn't really switch off. 

"Will you have a lie-in on Christmas Day?" I asked Ivie.

"Probably not," he replied, "I like just getting up and out and then I'll have the rest of the day."

I can see the logic but there's something indulgent about lying there, waking up gradually and talking nonsense. To be fair, we manage to talk nonsense at all other times of the day so maybe it's not a major sacrifice. And since we got the puppy, a lie-in doesn't seem like such a relaxing proposition. 

I'm awake!

This is my first Christmas as an actual Spittal resident so it's made me think about starting our own traditions. Growing up, my Dad used to make us have tea and toast before we were allowed any chocolate on Christmas Day. I still do this (with an ounce of teenage grumbling) and it's a nice little way of remembering him all these years later. 

One of Ivie's suggestions was that we get the stove going in my shed and have a cosy cuppa in there on Christmas morning. Sounds good to me. 

Sunny Shennanton Sawmill Shed

It's not how I thought my Christmases would pan out, to be honest. In a past life, I imagined my future Christmases would be filled with letters to Santa, school concerts and early wake-up calls of, "he's been!". Things didn't turn out that way but, you know, I wouldn't change it for the world. 

I'm a firm believer in everything working itself out in the end and if I'd had a people-carrier full of kids, I wouldn't be living where I do with the wonderful person that I do. We're privileged auntie and uncle to six nieces and one nephew between us aged 8-26, who we love having in our lives. 

I'm sure everyone's 2020 Christmas is a bit different to what was planned. I hope that you're all starting your own wee traditions that will be talked about in years to come. 

Merry Festivities to you all! xxx

Giblin Christmas 1988-ish

Lambing: The Prequel

What I learned last week:

1. High numbers make Ivie happy.
2. I might have to roll my sleeves up in March. 

Last year, I wrote three blogs about lambing (imaginatively entitled Lambing: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. I'm nothing if not creative). As time went on, I got more involved but only as much as squirting iodine on newborn lambs' navels and occasionally feeding the pet lambs. I've yet to actually lamb a ewe and, to be fair, I'm not sure I'd be trusted. 

It's a bit of a responsibility as so much can go wrong (and they're also not my animals). The lamb can come out the wrong way round - in lambing terms, you want the front legs first, then the head - or it can get stuck on the way out. It's not all cute lambs gambolling around and bleating, sadly. 

Anyway, one of the things I'd heard a bit about before was scanning percentages. Every year, a man comes with a special ultrasound to find out how many lambs are due in the Spring. I haven't actually seen it in action but I like to think of it as the self-serve counter in the supermarket. 

Each ewe is scanned and the man shouts out the number of lambs - hopefully 1, 2 or 3 - so the ewe can be sprayed with the right colour. And then Ivie hands over his Nectar card. Or something. After all the scans, the machine tots up the numbers and comes up with a percentage.

You want the percentage to be nice and high as that means lots of twins and triplets on the way. This year, the Spittal percentage was 205%, making Ivie and his brother very happy indeed (no, really).

There are 48 sets of triplets due next Spring. This is good as it means lots of lambs but it also means lots of pets. This does not make Ivie and his brother happy. 

Ewes have two teats which means that twins generally fare better than triplets, although ewes with just one lamb can often be persuaded to 'adopt' (more on that in a later blog). 

The maternity ward lambing shed is going to be a busy place with lots of multiple births, adoption hearings and the like. I'm a bit worried that I'm going to have to get a bit more involved than in the past. Hopefully, this will just mean filling water and feed troughs and not getting in the way, rather than scrubbing up and wearing gloves that go up to the shoulder. 

Now I'm wondering if #lambing2021 will require masks. 

A Day at the Salon

 Things I learned this week:

1. It's not just male calves that have horns.
2. Now none of them do. 

Working from home these days means that I'm much more aware of what's happening on a daily basis. Whether it's watching the vet arrive to check out a new calf or a Fallenstock lorry leaving with its load, the sights and sounds of the farm are much more in my face. 

Last week was fairly noisy. Ivie and his brother were de-horning the calves. I must have looked horrified because Ivie explained that removing the horns keeps them from injuring each other when they tussle and also stops them injuring humans when they have to get up close and personal. 

I wondered if having their horns removed was a bit like having a pedicure, except they don't apologise about the state of their feet and wish they'd brought their flip-flops to change into to go home. As you can imagine, it's not quite as simple as that.

It involves moving all of the calves into a pen then taking them one by one down a sort of corridor called a race. The race ends in the crush, a metal contraption that locks as soon as the animal pokes its head through. Imagine a really strong baby seat. With a calf in it. 

Happy Hornless Calves

There are various implements involved, depending on the size of the calves' horns. Little stubby horns are lobbed off with sheers then cauterized with a de-horning iron, which is a big, hot, metal stick. Horny horns are removed with a de-horning wire, which is a hot, twisted cheese wire. A standard trip to the salon then. 

(They all have anaesthetic applied to the top of their heads to make it as painless and stress-free as possible.) 

It's a noisy business - and not just the swearing. The calves make it perfectly clear that they'd quite like to keep their teeny tiny horns, thank you very much. And Ivie and his brother make it perfectly clear that the ******* calves will do as they're ******* well told. 

The swear jar is filling up nicely in time for our Christmas night out. Oh wait...

Wearing it Well

Things you should know:

1. I've never been fashionable (although you've probably guessed that by now). 
2. That's ok. 

I think it was inevitable that I ended up living with a farmer on a farm. The uniform is great and suits me down to the (muddy) ground.

It won't surprise you to know that I've never been a dedicated follower of fashion. Being born in the 70s and having two older brothers means the hand-me-downs were more tomboy than Tammy Girl and that's been pretty much my 'style' (if you can call it that) since then. There was that time circa 1982 that my mum wouldn't let me get a rara skirt but, on reflection, that's maybe no bad thing. 

These days, I'm happiest in jeans and wellies or head-to-toe waterproofs for walkies in the rain. There haven't exactly been many opportunities for getting dressed up this year anyway and that actually suits me fine. Given the choice, it's comfort over style every time, although I haven't quite resorted to working from home in my jammies. 

There has been lots of chat recently about 80s style making a comeback, what with Diana and The Crown and the Quality Street dresses on Strictly. I'm slightly horrified but then I remember that it's unlikely that boiler suits will suddenly have ruffled collars or waterproof leggings will become pleated and high waisted. 

My last blog was all about the uncertainties in farming but I'm reassured by the constancy of some things. 

• There will always be two pairs of muddy wellies and leggings at the door.
• I'll know it's below freezing when Ivie finally gets the thermals out the back of the wardrobe. 
• There will never be a shoulder pad in sight. 

Eat, Sleep, Repeat

What I've been thinking about:

1. It's all about routines. 
2. Except when it isn't. 

It turns out that puppies are hard work. In the run-up to getting ours, wise people nodded sagely and said, "puppies are hard work." It went in one ear and out the other as my toddler brain screamed, "puppy, puppy, puppy!" 

It's now six weeks since we picked up the trembling bundle and brought her home and we're getting into our groove. Or so we like to think. What's actually happening is that we are fitting around the routine that the puppy has set for herself while fooling ourselves that we're the ones in charge. 

Hard at work

Having her has made me notice other people's routines around me. When I take her for her morning walk, I see the same farmer on a quad off to feed cows at the next farm and the same lorries on the way to the ferry. 

There's something quite soothing about routines, especially when the outside world seems a bit out of control. We set our alarm for the time the puppy wants to get up, we make her breakfast while trying to stop her eating our socks and we take her out for a pee as soon as we've sat down for a cuppa. 

 

The point at which the puppy always needs out

Apart from life with a 14 week old puppy, living on a farm is all about different routines, depending on the season. Except when things don't go to plan. Which is every day. 

Today, for example, there is a blocked culvert. This means that Ivie was an hour late coming in for breakfast, we've only seen each other for ten minutes all morning and he's behind on feeding the cows.

Farming is such a strange mix of fixed tasks done at a certain time and the biggest spanners chucked into the works every single day. Farmers seem to need a strong core of dogged determination combined with a heavy dose of flexibility to deal with the demands of the day. 

In my job, if something unexpected happens, I know I can catch up tomorrow but it's not quite the same on the farm. I can't quite imagine Ivie coming in for tea saying, "the digger needed a new part so I didn't get round to feeding the calves today" or us getting to February with no ewes in lamb because a tree needed cleared from the cycle track back in the autumn.  

At least some things are certain - death, taxes and the puppy being just cute enough to avoid eviction. 

Love Local

What I've been thinking about this week: 

• Small businesses and how they make the world go round. 

It all started when I was sitting at my desk looking out the window at the man in a tractor cutting the hedges at the Spittal. I'm getting to know my tractors so I realised straight away it wasn't a Fisher man in a blue tractor; it was a different man in a red tractor. 

Blue Tractor
(New Holland just to prove I know 😉)

It got me thinking about all the businesses that are involved in life on the farm. There are the obvious ones like the farm itself; the contracting business; and the holiday cottages. 

But then there are all the others - the aforementioned hedge cutter; the Hoof GP; the vet practice; Fallenstock (which doesn't deal in surplus stock); the lorry driver that takes animals to or from market; the agronomist (I get extra points for remembering that one); the farm supplies shop (that kept us stocked in flour and sugar when everywhere else had run out); and so on. It doesn't take much to see how important these small businesses are to each other. 

On the other side of the coin, there are the other farms that employ I&A Fisher (mainly to do things that mean I make Ivie take off his boiler suit before coming anywhere near me). 

Clean boiler suits

And it all makes our part of the world go round so that we can spend our money locally, too. You don't need me to tell you about the better service you get by spending your money with the small businesses that actually pay their taxes instead of with the huge corporations that offer bigger, cheaper, faster. 

• When we buy plants at Galloway Heathers, Marcus and Iona know where our garden is so can advise what will fare best. 
• When we buy fish from Ferry Fish, it comes straight to our door only a few hours after being bought at the market. 
• When I buy moisturiser at Imagination, I know that Una will help me choose what's right for my skin.  

The list goes on and you'll have your favourites, too. 

So, this is a shout out to all the small businesses that have supported us during lockdown and need us to keep supporting them as we approach the dreaded C-Word. Our corner of the world is a far richer place for having unique high streets. Let's keep them that way. 

Murder in the Farmyard

What you should know:

1. My brother is great. 
2. He's also a typical big brother.

My brother, David, is ten years older than me. He's one of the main reasons I moved to Dumfries and Galloway. We were about to turn 40 and 50 and I was fed up of saying, "Wouldn't it be good if we lived nearer each other?" So, I handed in my notice, sold my flat and made the move from the big city. 

He's one of my favourite people - despite cutting my hair off when I was three, giving me mashed potato he told me was ice cream and making me take a big spoonful of sherbet that turned out to be bicarb. He regularly makes me laugh until I can't breathe and we have the same views about the important things, like biscuits and scones. 

Here we are at a Halloween Party a few years ago. 

It's probably best not to ask
Photo by Katie

Having said all that, I wouldn't want to work with him, which brings me to the very important farmery question of the day. How do family members work with each other for decades without committing matricide, patricide, fratricide, sororicide (I had to look that one up) or any other type of -cide?

I did think about googling 'farm murders' but thought better of it (my algorithms are in a big enough mess as it is).

I'm sure it won't surprise you to know that Ivie and his brother give each other a cuddle at the start of every day on the farm and finish the day with a very continental peck on each cheek. But there must be days when they disagree about what to name the latest newborn lamb, what colour the new quad bike should be and where to keep the latest tool from Aldi's random aisle (it was a ratchet set last night, since you ask). 

Which all makes me think about all the weapons and pseudo-weapons on a farm. It could be like a new take on Cluedo. Pseudo-Cluedo anyone?

• Farmer Fisher Senior in the top shed with the shotgun
• Farmer Fisher Junior in the old byre with the pinch bar 
• Nephew Fisher in the dairy with the dehorning shears

I always thought living in the country was pretty safe. It's maybe time to start looking in the random aisle for an ice pick to keep under my pillow. 

Kiltin' not Killin'
Photo by Louise