Read Online A Croft in the Hills by Katharine Stewart - Free Book Online Page A

pictures we had at last
extricated from the boxes in the cupboard. Outdoor footgear and dogs were to be strictly prohibited. We foresaw long Sunday afternoons spent in the comfort of this oasis, but actually it
didn’t turn out that way. Sunday afternoons were usually spent attending to lambing ewes, chasing cattle out of the crops or catching up on domestic work, and the room itself had often to be
converted into sleeping quarters for a benighted contractor. But still, we did enjoy brief moments in it and the knowledge that it was there was a satisfaction in itself. We began to feel we had
got past the stage of the initial assault and were beginning to dig in for the campaign.
    It was not a hard winter and by mid-February the larks were singing. Soon, we began to sense the slow tilting of the earth towards the sun and then a rash of activity broke out. Dung was carted
to the fields, the vegetable plot was enlarged and dug, houses were got ready for the new batches of chickens.
    We got wind of activities on other fronts. The hill-road down to Loch Ness-side was being widened and resurfaced, the worst of the bends rounded and a fine new bridge built, to replace the
rickety one over the burn that cascaded down from Loch Laide. It was said that when this work was completed, the bus company would seriously consider putting on a weekly service to Inverness.
    There were rumours of various new enterprises starting up in the district. A nursery garden, at the foot of the hill, where tomatoes were grown in soil heated by electricity generated by local
water-power, was already well established. Now, we learnt, another ‘in-comer’ was to cultivate the sheltered slopes immediately above this garden for the production of soft fruit:
another was setting up a small dairy farm and yet another was going in for mink. The place was buzzing with reports of the activities of the ‘tomato-man’, the
‘strawberry-man’, the ‘mink-man’ and the ‘dairyman’. All these concerns were sited in the comparatively sheltered district overlooking Loch Ness. Each time we
passed that way on our journey to town we would watch, goggle-eyed, for signs of the progress of these fascinating enterprises. We began to feel, with our adoption of more or less traditional
methods, distinctly back numbers. Still, our oats had impressed even the seed-merchant the previous autumn and our ewes were in grand shape. Perhaps there was something to be said for a quiet
merging into the landscape.
    The scheme for the testing of cattle came into operation at this time. We had ours tested and found, to our dismay, that Daisy and one of the heifers were reactors. Daisy’s milk had been
declared free of bacilli and she appeared to be in radiant health, but she didn’t make the grade, so she and the heifer had to be despatched to the market at once. We bought in a good cross
cow, brown, with a white star on her forehead, which we christened Hope, in token of our feeling towards her, and a sleek, demure, quite enchanting little cross-Shorthorn heifer, which we could
only call Pet. The name exactly fitted her.
    The byre had a thorough cleansing and disinfecting and whitewashing before these new beasts were installed in it and we hoped our little herd could now be established without further
skirmishings. A cow, particularly a house-cow, is so much a part of the family that one hates to have to exchange her for another. We had just got to know all Daisy’s little whims and quirks,
knew what blandishments she particularly appreciated and how to humour her and to cope with her occasional moods. Now we should have to start all over again with Hope. She was to calve in a few
weeks’ time and was slow on the move and quite placid; she proved an excellent milker and we soon came to have a real affection for her. A cow certainly responds to kindness. I soon
discovered that Hope would let down her milk most willingly to music—‘Lilli Marlene’ was her