Although I’m still eating like a mamma bear planning a lengthy hibernation, it feels today like we might be emerging from our first winter here on the croft; the snowdrops are in full bloom and it’s been days since I’ve had to boot a hole in the iced water troughs. Spring may not have sprung but it’s having a wee think about it.
The beasts are all feeling springy. Sick Boy is back out on the ridge and has cast off his loner persona. We suspect he had a wee bout of FOMO while luxuriating alone in his wooden cabin, so has come out of lockdown resolved to be the life and soul; now relishing alfresco dining as the day’s social highlight.
The pigs are eating like the proverbial, and thriving on it. They have proudly reached the milestone of being able to get an entire wellied foot in their mouths. No more toe nibbling for these muckle creatures.
The gales have eased and so too have the calves who had taken to galloping wildly from shore to ridge as if racing the wind. They’re lying sunbathing today and happy to share their furry warmth and coorie in with any passing crofter. The mild weather has also encouraged tourists to drop in. Today alone we’ve been visited by a a sika deer and her weans, eight buff big red deer and our resident wee bandit – a velvety roe buck who feasts daily on every remnant of last year’s harvest.
And therein lies the challenge: feeding our indoor residents in a neighbourhood awash with thieving toe-rags. Here nobody locks their doors, but they sure as hell barricade their broccoli.
Short of sending the Great Dane out on patrol with a walkie-talkie and earpiece, we’re short on strategies to fend off these felons. Our only line of defence so far is the newly constructed Polycrub, but it’s still awaiting a sturdy pair of doors and the implementation of a strict entrance policy. A shamelessly discriminatory guest-list will admit only visitors of the two-legged variety. It could be tempting to invite the fluffy highlanders in for a weather-proof cuddle, but instant carnage would result.
Once we’re happy that it’s harder to get into the Polycrub than to old Glasgow’s Vicky’s on a Saturday night, we’ll fill it to the brim with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, chilies, strawberries, salads and the much-needed vines. But the acreage on this coastal hillside should afford us an abundance of root veg and greens without the need for plastic sheeting and bouncers. So we’ll dig in the tatties, sow the carrots and kale and just hope that our ruminant friends will be willing to share. Perhaps I’ll encircle the veg with a sprout perimeter in the way that you lay out a jam jar for wasps in the hope of deflecting their attention from your Chardonnay.
Whatever ruse we conceive it’s time to batter on. The pigs seem to squeal for breakfast an hour earlier each week as spring approaches, so I’m guessing this is when the real work starts. If we’re going to make a decent fist of feeding ourselves off this land we’d better roll up our sleeves and get on with it.
We’ll pop a wee tranny in the Ploycrub and maybe a disco ball to quicken the work-rate. It’ll be more Clatty’s than Vicky’s, but that’s the way this crofter rolls…
The Softer Crofter 