It started with a wee bit of kale and a few courgettes, stilted strawberries and masses of spinach. A bumper crop of tatties was shared generously with our local slugs, as were the ubiquitous phallic carrots and parsnips. We had enough for our locked-down family and surplus chucked in the garage in case of any visitor time-traveling from a virus-free future. (Actually, anyone wheeching down the coast-road in a DeLorean should be first on Ms Sturgeon’s ‘get-tae…’ list).
The smugness wasn’t pretty; I’m not going to lie.
No need for the likes of us to mask-up and head to the Co-op, with its antibac skoosh for the trolleys and sticky arrows splattered in apparently concentric circles. We were on the road to self-sufficiency.
Our one fruit tree yielded one apple, but all the nettley and thistley parts of the garden that I couldn’t be arsed to tidy suddenly fruited wildly with a jaggy abundance of brambles.
I always knew sloth was a virtue that would reap rewards.
We had veggies galore and now here was pudding. The excess slug-sucked tatties could even be fermented to provide a little aperitif. Kale-infused vodka anyone? I don’t know if Venus Williams and Lewis Hamilton indulge in a wee voddie and blackcurrant of an evening, but I know that their vegan diets don’t seem to have hindered their athletic prowess.
There was just one major fly in this vegan-friendly ointment, however. Our hurdle to achieving a nutritious vegan diet wasn’t that soybeans need to grow in ‘ample sunlight’, lentils need a ‘warm, dry autumn’ or that chickpeas grow best ‘where temperatures don’t dip below 18 degrees.’ The solid, immobile brick-wall between me and herbivore-heaven actually manifests in human form – the large, meat-addicted Scotsman that does most of the heavy-lifting round here. The husband’s as carnivorous as a Bengal tiger and just as grumpy if you get between him and his prey.
And so we found ourselves in Dumfries just a few weeks ago; unmistakable newbies at the auction mart. It’s a strangely welcoming place, clean and spacious with a decent little café. No sense of the grim ‘you’re all for the slaughterhouse’ kind of vibe I feared. The pigs ranged from squeaky-and-cute to, Christ-I’d-no-idea-they-got–that-big.
It was the squeaky and cute variety we were after and, in no time at all, I found myself walking out with a warm, wriggly little gilt (yup I have all the lingo) under my arm. Safely ensconced in an excess of straw in the back of our wee truck, the girls snuggled down and slept all the way to their new home.
They have a small woodland all to themselves and a straw-stuffed shelter reminiscent of something Heidi would delight in. In daytime their life is more like an Enid Blyton story, filled with fun in the woods, hearty lunches and crazy adventures when the dippy Great Dane is allowed in for a game of tig that she has never failed to lose.
They are strictly known as Small, Medium and Splodge in the vain hope that all concerned maintain a professional relationship. Their main carer has, however, developed a tendency to climb over their fence, plonk herself on the ground and encourage them to use her as a playground to be climbed on, bounced on and nibbled. She, our eldest daughter, assures me she will still happily feast on sausages when the time comes.
Personally I might be sticking to the courgettes and vodka.
The Softer Crofter 