Introducing our correspondent…
I was born in Holland, but have lived on various locations in the countryside in Wales, England and Scotland since 1987. I studied history in Cardiff, Durham and Edinburgh, where I gained my PhD in medieval history. I have since taught in Edinburgh and Glasgow and am the senior research supervisor for ecclesiastical history at the Maryvale Institute.
Maryvale is located on the edge of Birmingham and is a Catholic long-distance learning institute that was once the home of Britain’s newest saint, Blessed John Cardinal Newman. I contribute regularly to the Catholic press in Britain, Holland and the US.
Like so many, my family has left the land in the last half-century. One of my great-grandfathers was a small-holder and carter, another worked as a farrier, as did my maternal grandfather. I grew up in a mixed world of urban shopkeepers, military people and those still working the land, a world now vanished.
With my wife, small son and daughter I now live on a small farm in Perthshire, there where the Lowlands and Highlands meet. Our world consists of some fields, ancient woodland, larch plantation and a small loch, and is filled with wildlife and chickens. Harry Schnitker
Harry writes...
It is always a peculiar month, January, especially so out in the countryside. Even in the old days it was the month when time became elastic, stretching and lasting longer than in any other month. People used to hang around the barns and byres, doing odd jobs, mending rope or sharpening tools. Not much call for that type of work now, and barns and byres are as devoid of people as are the fields. Other than feeding the out-wintering animals, work has slowed right down.
Everything else, too, is slow. Light is slow in coming in the morning, dark tardily in the evening. In between, the day is grey rather than blue, relieved only by an occasional streak of orange sun, and punctuated by the odd purple sunset. Even the weather is slow: the gales have gone and have left a tepid, moist breeze from the Atlantic which is a far cry from the icy blasts of the past few years.
The birdfeeder is the only place which is marked by electric activity, with tits of all description, woodpeckers and finches flitting to and fro to eat of the seeds and fat on offer. There is some other, hidden, activity, too. On the steep hill behind the house badgers have arrived. I was told that there were badgers here, but had not seen them until now. To be honest, I have not seen them, but rather the entrance to their underground home, dirty nesting cast outside, for they are fastidious creatures. Why they have arrived is unclear, but like that of all Highland badgers theirs is not a sett in the English sense of the word, and may vanish again soon.
The badgers have settled on what was, until the great gales of the past month, a deer track. Now it is covered by fallen trees, which impair any movement and have created the perfect place for badgers to sit out the torpid weeks of winter. This year the soil is not frozen, so our new arrivals won’t go hungry for want of worms.
The badgers’ new home is symbolic of the enormous changes that have come over the ancient woodlands around our house. Last June they already suffered much wind damage, but the huge gales of the past four weeks have altered them completely. Oddly, the most ancient trees have withstood the violence best. Those that were just getting into their stride, on the other hand, the oaks and ash trees of around 150 years old, have been blown over in large numbers. Birches have been snapped in two, Scots Pines shattered into matchsticks.
It looks horrible right now, a scene of utter desolation. Yet I know that this will have happened countless times before in this wood’s life, for it has been here for at least 900 years. Come spring, it will regenerate at incredible speed, and will have shed the intrusive conifers that were planted here in the 1960s. There will be more flowers than for many a year, dormant seed finally getting enough light to sprout. The badgers will have a bonny playground, indeed.
Thinking about spring, however, makes time go even more slowly. Best do what the chickens do: sit quietly, eat a lot, and don’t get too excited. Even the darkest month will pass eventually.
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- Richard McDermott - 17/01/2012
Excellent! Your portrayal of January is so spot on even here in Wisconsin, I will do like the chickens and be content.