It’s three o’clock and almost dark. Raw cold outside, dark and dreary; it’s almost a pleasure to be in the office. My desk looks directly into the barn where our young dairy heifers await the bull, any day now, and pass the time chewing hay and preening each other like teenagers on a girls’ night in.
I can hear the dairy from here too; Mick calling the cows to milking, the feed rattling through the pipes, and now Johnny Cash overwhelms it all as the great milking time singalong starts, that the cows (if not us) seem to enjoy so much.
The winter’s hard; an ongoing slog of feeding and bedding and cleaning and fencing and mending ready for the spring. But it has its pleasures. The calf house is full, and new ones are arriving every day. The sweet smell of straw, and silage and manure. Those sharp, cold mornings that invigorate my body and soul as I stride across fields. The pub so full and noisy and warm.
The winter solstice and Christmas is upon us. The turning point of another year. A time of both introspection and celebration. Enjoy!
