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In the byre.

 

DSC_7766

 

I hear the beasts along the track well before I reach the farm. In now for winter, they bellow, snort, moan, even sing. A gloomy November day, the little light there is washes through the slatted wood of the byre. ‘1771 I think she is…..’ Buzzing of the clippers, a stripe down each of their backs so they can be sprayed for fluke – Ian tells me about the life cycle of the parasite that lives in the liver. Whistling, ‘go on’, ‘hup hup’, as they are moved around the byre. I ask Craig what he likes about the job and he says he just likes working with cattle, he can’t see himself doing anything else. Talk turns to bovine related injuries, how some simply have mean demeanours. Just like folk. Raymond announces its 19 years to the day since he started at the farm. Talk of pensions bring grumbles and its noted that for some Glasweigans life expectancy means they won’t even reach retirement. Pause, ‘196’…….a flu vaccine, a trim of the hair in their ears. Sitting in the hay, drawing the men and the cows.

 

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Sheep.

 

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Ink and gouache on paper – 32.5 x 20 cm

 

Starlings on a telegraph wire, the fish van hurtles past, Shirley delivering her herring and mackerel door to door. Cider and ploughing matches, crows rise from the trees bickering. The cattle are coming into the byre tomorrow for winter, the tups are going to the ewes. Ian pares their hooves with a Stanley knife, shapes them, sprays them and tells them their day at the spa is over. Hawthorns tremble with scarlet berries, the leaves are all but fallen and the smell of cold sleepwalks the hill. A milky sky folds and flows,  bell clang of metal gate in latch. It rings across the fields.