Morning on the farm

Mornings on the farm certainly don’t sound like any pastoral symphony but I like them all the same. We do get the birds. The first birdsong of the day always sounds particularly bright and shiny. This is shortly followed by a second dawn chorus from the dogs. The youngest border collie sleeps in our next door neighbour’s boot room so she is let out first. She then enjoys going round and teasing all the other dogs who are still in their kennels. She manages to wind them up into a frenzy of howls and barks. There are two tribes of dogs on either side of the farmyard and it is all out war between them. So once the first tribe have started up it’s not long before they’re trading insults with the other lot over the stoney yard. Not long after this, tractors and various other forms of farm machinery are being started up. In the midst of this arrives one of the most brilliant men I have ever met: our milkman. Here is a cheeky portrait of him. When all else came to a standstill in the snow last year he didn’t miss one day’s delivery. He is a big man with enormous forearms who wouldn’t look amiss standing next to William Wallace in Braveheart. He has an accent to match so when he was giving me directions to our local Common Riding I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. He was one of the first people to make us feel welcome in our new community and I would take his tourist information and weather forecasts over anyone’s.