Wee blink of sun and heat will bring all back on track

ello, dear reader, and I hope you are well?

Trachled and I’m sure but, well, it has been a relentless spell of weather, and stock folk, livestock and the people around us don’t need told of the hardships that has wrought.

We mustn’t dwell too long and as Winston Churchill said: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Better days lie ahead, that’s a sure bet and as the curlew, peeweep and oystercatchers start to hop and cry about the farm, that bargain we keep with nature will stand good yet!

Here the cows are calving and we are lambing the inbye ewes. We are like everyone else and have had some difficult days.

At these times it’s so important to remember we are all of us living through this tough spring.

Yesterday, we got some ewe hoggs home and sorted others for home next week. We also sorted some heifers out for sale at the Luing Society Sale at Dingwall on May 17.

These wee cow makers will do some good for someone but like the ewe hoggs, the winter has left a mark on them. But like ourselves a wee blink of sun and heat and all will thrive.

Myself and the auld mannie were coming home from Aberfeldy the other day, as we descended the brae into Foss at the Drumnakyle corners that have caught local and visitor out alike, he chuckled as he recounted a yarn spun many years ago.

The brothers Donald and Dugald Macgregor farmed the land at Frenich on the south side of Strath Tummel.

These two craturs were gie canny with the bawbees and decided well late on in their years to buy an automobile. So it was they departed for Kings Garage, Aberfeldy to make the purchase.

Neither had driven a motor car before let alone held a licence, but it was decided with logic known only to them two selves that Donald should be No 1 driver.

So it was with the salesman in the passenger seat and Dugald in the rear seat, Donald drove around the town a few times to get the hang of the thing. “That should do you,” the salesman exclaimed, in delight to sell the old jalopy, and so the intrepid two set off back home.

The journey was largely uneventful but for the difficulties Donald had in co-ordinating the clutch and the gear change and the throttle and the steering wheel was indeed a queer thing.

As they began to manoeuvre the self same brae the auld mannie and I tootled down some 80 years later, the jalopy began to gather a magnificent speed, a rate of travel neither Dugald nor Donald could comprehend.

Brave Donald, as inexperienced as he was at the driving, stayed at the wheel and kept his composure for the first 20 yards of the brae before maniacally roaring like a bull: “Whoa ya b **** r, whoa man, MAN WILL YOU WHOA, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHOA.”

Meanwhile Dugald, whom indeed was ever faithful to his brother and his abilities, decided though he didn’t like sitting in the front seat anymore and decided to decant himself into the back bench and curl up in a wee ball.

He had seen all this land many times before anyhow so he wasn’t missing anything that way.

The old car had now propelled itself to speeds that would very near deliver a sonic boom and the Drumnakyle corner drew nigh!

Donald dearly wished for reins and a garron, alas it was a steering wheel with a combustion engine and neither would heed his pleadings nor bend to his will.

The fateful corner loomed and the old car, along with the two helpless craturs, took off down the park before settling in the ditch and coming to a halt.

The Macgregor brothers were battered and bruised and sore and stunned but nothing a wee canny time and a stroopach and maybe a wee deoch wouldn’t mend.

That Sunday at the Kirk my grandfather went to Dugald and asked how he and his brother were after their scare: “Well, Peter, I was gie scared at the top of the brae, half way I got into the back seat.

“I knew we were beat though when Donald louped in beside me just before the Drumnakyle corner reciting the Lord’s Prayer.”

Folks, I know it’s been hard, whether lambing, calving or trying to prepare ground, this spring has been a challenge.

I know also that some of those days, in the dark moments it felt overwhelming and indeed there maybe wasn’t much left in the tank.

You got through it though, and the scunner hasn’t got the better of us yet.

Like yon auld Tummel side craturs careering away all those years ago, whiles you just have to make the best of a situation you can’t control or influence.

The words of the late great Andy Buchanan of Meggernie ring in my ears often: “Remember to enjoy it.” A wise man, Andy.

Until next time, stick at it, there’s none better!

HARDSHIP: Another tough day for a sheep in fields that have become waterlogged by constant rain this spring. Picture by Steve Macdougall.