The Farmer & His Wife
Why was John Taylor being banished from his own kitchen?
THE other evening I was driving the buggy back to the steading from our top fields. The road – no, that’s giving it a status it doesn’t deserve – rather, the farm track is only fit for a high truck.
If you took a car up this track, you wouldn’t have an exhaust left by the time you’d gone a few yards!
It had been raining hard the night before and all the pot holes were like little lochs.
I stopped the buggy quickly and shut off the engine as I had noticed a male bullfinch having a bath in a puddle.
Oh, yes, birds do bathe, ducking right down into the water then fluttering their wings to make sure they are wet all over.
Once it was finished, it stood on the side and fluttered itself dry.
Eventually it flew off, I presume to join its mate.
I started the buggy again and continued on my way home.
It was a scene I will remember all my life.
It occurred to me how lucky that bullfinch was.
It didn’t have to worry about washing the tidemark off the bath sides, or running the cold tap before the hot so as not to steam up the bathroom!
Talking about washing, I came in for my midday meal only to be greeted by a rather unwelcoming Anne!
“John, you can’t come into the kitchen smelling like that!”
How was I to come in, I wondered – in my underclothes?
I had been spreading dung with our muck spreader all morning. It’s no respecter of the man, and doesn’t always aim its load on the ground.
Anne appeared with another pair of trousers and told me to go back to the byre and change.
After I’d done that, I came in for a bit of a wash at the kitchen sink.
I did my best to get cleaned up, but my efforts weren’t good enough.
“John, after lunch, go and have a bath – you still smell!”
I didn’t, as Anne instructed, go and have a bath. These days I’d rather have a shower.
As I got out of the shower and was drying myself with a towel, I thought of that bullfinch – all it did was flap its wings and fly off.
Lucky bird. ■