THE FIRST FIVE MONTHS

 

(It’s the only way I can get it to tie in my annual newsletters!)

 

We started life here with a bit of splash. It was the island show on our second Tuesday and Jack the Jack Russell was Champion pet and got his picture in the paper. I was so pleased as he is a little big dog that gives people so much pleasure. He embodies all the best traits of his breed with none of the worse ones so long as you ignore the tendency to disappear for hours in pursuit of rats and rabbits. It does seem though that dogs suffer from the same disillusionment that we do –he no longer believes that he can catch absolutely anything and so is less likely to stay around burrows for hours just in case.

 

Later that month I thought that I had better do something about increasing our stock. What would any reasonable person with a power mad Shetland cow do now she's living 100 miles south of Shetland in order to keep her cow happy? Well, you'd ring Evelyn –the wonderful secretary of the Shetland Cattle Herd Book Society-wouldn't you and ask things like the price of Shetland calves -there is the bank manager to consider and Daisy has got to be able to boss them properly - and when would be the best time to come and how long for. You work out just what you can afford and when himself is next due home so that he can horse, dog and cow sit and then you ring Evelyn back and phone the travel agent.

 

What followed was a manic two days in Shetland -made more manic by my flight being two hours late - organised, chauffeured and hosted by Norman and Evelyn when I saw 6 separate Shetland herds - all different- owned by 6 separate lots of people -all different. The hospitality was incredible, the weather was awful and the memories ...especially the driving or perhaps more precisely before Evelyn hits me, the "situations" I was driven in -I was especially glad that one particular vehicle was not driven -at least with me in it- down one particular track!

 

Maggie did her bit towards increasing the numbers when she produced a heifer calf in September. Unfortunately Cassie suffered some injury at birth and while she has grown on OK and has a marvellously calming influence on any calves she will make steakdom and not motherhood. The two heifer calves and the bull calf from Shetland came down in November with the guys in Shetland and the weather doing their very best to teach me patience –I was never even in the queue for it!

 

They settled in well and teamed up with Harvey. All was calm until the coldest night of the year when the dog barked at 5am and again at 6am.Blearily I looked out of the window, without my glasses on, saw nothing untoward, cursed the dog and went back to sleep. Got up, had breakfast, glanced out of the window prior to going outside to see the merry band coming back up the lane! They had obviously decided that there was no place like home for a darn good breakfast!

 

Another unplanned excursion saw Maggie and the two heifer calves playing on top of the muck heap followed by Megan and Nina taking themselves up the bank that surrounds the silage pit-empty thank goodness. They proceeded to walk along the top of the bank looking just like two models showing off this season’s fashions!

 

OK I know that you are really longing to know what the weather is like in the winter. After Shropshire it is warm! There, that shocked you! The early part of that first winter I was wondering what all the fuss was about. Some days the wind got up but the days were generally bright. Granted every hour or so it would perfectly vile for thirty seconds or so but you could see it coming. True, when it did decide to throw down hail stones with a gale force 7 wind behind them even the dogs took off for home, glad that the boss did not want a long walk that night. What was interesting was how my legs shook once I got out of the wind -a bit the equivalent of getting your land legs after a long period after sea.