MUSHROOMS --- LACTAIRES, BOLETES and CHANTARELLES

The contents of the baskets are mushrooms, not any old mushrooms. These orange and blue caps that emit an orange milk when bruised are so special that they don’t have a name in our great English language, even if it is the lingua franca of global business. In Polish, they’re called “rydze”, in Russian it’s “грузды”. The French call them “lactaire” meaning the milky one. The botanical name is “lactarius deliciosus”. Neither Brits or Americans offer a name because they don’t come from the supermarket. The poet Shelley sums up the attitude of most English speaking people toward wild mushrooms in the words,

“And agarics and fungi, with mildew and mould,
Started like mist from the wet ground cold
Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead
With a spirit of growth had been animated.”

That description suits me just fine. When I walk in the woods, I feel that they’re mine. My only competitors are the #!$%& young Polish immigrants who pop out from the undergrowth dragging a large bucket filled with their ill-gotten goods.

Lactaires, as we shall call them, are the best --- with the consistency of steak, a sweet fruity taste and a characteristic tang that belongs to the wood. They only need to be fried in butter, served on toast along with a small vodka. After one bite you’ll feel that even the best caviar doesn’t measure up. For the Scotsman in me, that’s especially good news, as the mushrooms are free. Being so prized, they’re not easy to find. You have to get to them before the maggots find them, and that’s usually a day or two after sprouting. Not every year is bountiful. Some years you won’t find a single one. Then there are years when they crop up everywhere, and this appears to be such a year. At Cottarton at least.

After three years at Cottarton, the mushrooms found us. At first I thought I was dreaming when mowing the lawn I found one in front of the mower. After a small look around I discovered one patch, then the next and them the nextunder the line of trees surrounding our property. But when I found them growing out of the gravel, and out of the bed that Amber had weeded, I let out a yell that, had it been heard by any neighbour, would have summoned an ambulance. Restraining myself from picking them, I waited for Amber to come home from work. I wanted to hear her shrieks. She shrieked --- evidence that the Polish/ Russian mania had properly infected her. We gathered a basket full. They were only a day old and scarcely contained a single maggot. We ate some – for two or three days, cooked and froze several baggies full, and took the others to Agata and my mother in Scone. Agata loved them, even if she was insanely jealous. It’s not fair that some people have our luck to have lactaires crop in their back yard.

They kept coming. Each time it rained, the Lactaires sprouted and we gathered another basketful. Bewildered about how to handle the bounty, I salted many of them --- arranged the freshest caps in a jar, salted each layer and then pressed them with an oak weight I had cut for the job. After a day they let out their water. A process similar to making sauerkraut, it will preserve them for winter. I pickled a jar and froze the rest.

The mushroom crop made me wax philosophical. Our piles of winter snow made Amber and I wonder about how many more similar winters we could take. We’re hoping last winter was one of a kind and not part of Scotland’s new and improved climate. Last “spring” Amber was looking at real estate in southern France. Now,the very Earth is sending us another message, offering us a gift that probably hasn’t come to anyone else in Scotland, telling us that this is our home, and where we need to be.

Bambi --- aka “The Usual”

I’ve been asked how we live off our vegetables with three feet of snow covering our garden. We dig for them. When Amber needed carrots to roast with a chicken I dug a trench three foot deep and twenty feet long to look for them. It took a few tries but I was able to find the carrots, well preserved under the snow. They were more delicious when baked than you can imagine.

Now that the snow is melted, so that we have less than a foot, we’re back to our battle with Bambi. Last night he came by and ate the remains of the sprouting broccoli, leaving only turds. He’s been a pest since his home, a nearby forest was clearcut. A couple of months ago the deer located Cottarton and stripped all the vegetables except the leeks. I have a reputation as a non-violent, anti-gun, anti-violence sort of bloke, but when the deer attack by veggies, I start seeing strips of venison hanging in my shed. Zackary already showed me where I need to build a deer platform, so that I can sit comfortably all night, a bottle of whisky by my side, gun in one hand and a lantern in the other, and root out Bambi. The problem is that nights are beastly cold --- can be -5 Celsius, and I like my sleep. But --- it’s not a bad idea if nothing else works, and we could have a good supply of venison.



You can buy venison at certain butchers, but not legally. The reasons may have to do with health rules, EU rules or something else. Forty years ago, my mother learned to buy venison from a butcher down the road. While standing in line she noticed a couple of people ahead of her asked the butcher for “the usual”. The butcher responded by giving them a wrapped bundle of unidentified meat from the back room, actually venison. He charged very little. So, mama also asked for, “the usual” and brought it home. We all loved the venison; had it regularly for a month or two, until the morning when mama went in search of “the usual”, but found the butcher’s shop closed down, a police padlock on the door. Later the Perth newspaper reported how the butcher was busted for selling poached venison.



Until Zack builds me the platform, or I scroung up the funds for a deer fence, or employ a pack of wolves to chase off the deer, I’m building an electric fence on two sides of the property where I think they are getting in. Roe deer, the most likely offenders, are quite good at jumping livestock fences, even without taking a run at them. From their snow tracks I located where they jumped the fence. Yesterday I strung out two strands of polywire, one above the fence the other knee level. For bait I attached aluminium strips coated with peanut butter, and then fired up the electric charger.

A good jolt to the tongue might help the deer forget about my vegetables, but what do I know about deer psychology? Are they so determined to come in that they don't mind the old jolt? The electric fence is a technological solution to an old problem. We’ll see how it works.

Mythological...

Cottarton is mythological --- something we knew when we settled here, reinforced one morning when looking out on our driveway I found a large hare --- at least three feet tall. The rainbows we see don’t belong to this world. Neither do the gales that sweep past. And, yes, there’s the snow. You may have heard that the entire UK, as the tabloids say, is in “the grip of ice and snow”. But in our glen the snow, as with the hares rainbows and wind, acquires mythological dimensions. Icicles hanging from our eaves keep growing --- the record’s about eight feet, including the icicle that grew from the ground up. As in Narnia, it’s winter for as long as we seem to remember, and no end in sight of breaking the evil spell. The other night I passed snow giants, beings of snow reaching ten feet, walking with an indifferent nonchalance across the fields.



Viewed from space, the UK looks like the moon, or curst by a nasty spell which has relocated the missing polar icecap here. Try making out anything but snow and ice.

Closer to home, we haven’t seen a postman since Christmas, which is good, as we have a respite from our deluge of bills. The rubbish hasn’t been picked up either. Once a day a snow plough passed down the road, clearing the snow, but there’s no salt or grit. The county is low on grit and reserves it for major roads, once every two days.

Walking to our car, parked permanently at the end of our dirt road, we pass sheep that are making the best of the snow. Every day Robert or Mark Hamilton dump a load of turnips in the feeder for the sheep. You wonder where other animals shop for food. The deer shop at Cottarton.




They first appeared a couple of months ago after a nearby forest was clearcut, leaving the roe deer to forage elsewhere. Then, we still had cabbages, brussel sprouts, kale, Savoy, broccoli. No more. After three visits we were left with nothing but stumps. The locals suggested I buy a shotgun and a lantern, and sit out all night long, drinking whisky and waiting for the buggers to show up. A deer fence --- seven feet high is a permanent solution, but beyond our budget. I’m going to try an electric fence. However, in today’s snow it would be a foot under.

How about releasing some wolves into my field? Now, we’re really talking mythology. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to hear the wolves howling at night? Hear them calling the pack together for a hunt. Watch them gather? They’d have plenty of food, all the deer they ever wanted, and if they ran short of venison, well, they could help themselves to a sheep or two. It might not make for the best neighbours, and that would be a wee problem.

Have you ever looked at a wolf close-up? I was privileged to, at the St. Francis Sanctuary in Magnolia, Texas. They study you, understand you, can welcome you or dismiss you with a glance. These are no just a breed of dogs, but are highly intelligent.

The wolf used to run here, long ago when the land was heavily forested, a thousand years ago perhaps, or farther back. Exterminating the wolf, and clearing the forest for agriculture and farming went hand in hand. Once the wolf was gone deer multiplied. Without the wolf to control their numbers, they had no predator other than us. Unfortunately the deer eat small trees and bushes, my berry bushes and my veg, meaning that forest cannot re-establish itself easily, and I end up tearing out my hair.

Maybe we need the re-establish our ancient relationship with the wolf.

Blue Moon

Last night the world never got dark. Yes, I mean last night, December 31, Hogmany as it’s known over here, what should be almost the longest night, usually so dark that you could be looking into a deep well where you can’t see the hand in front of your face. Not last night. Around midnight Amber and I stood outside the house and looked around, surprised that we could see our snowy landscape extending all the way to the horizon in every direction. Nothing moved in the whiteness, unless it was that lone car winding its way on a country road to a Hogmany party. Or a dark haired bloke going “first footing” --- the custom of visiting your neighbour, whisky bottle in hand. It brings good luck if the first footer has dark hair, which is why with my brown hair, I don’t do it. Call it being DQ’d for life.



Under the hazy skies you can’t see the moon; you wouldn’t know where to look. The lighting appears to emanate from every direction and casts no shadow. Perhaps it emanates from the Earth itself from its unbroken snow cover. What’s going on? Isn’t it supposed to be dark? Well, yes, but once in a blue moon --- the name given to the second full moon in December --- it doesn’t get dark in winter. The Earth covered in a thick layer of snow acts like a mirror, a source of lighting that reflects the diffuse moonlight, scattering the rays isotropically. There’s the scientific explanation. Does it satisfy you, or would you rather stand with us in the winter midnight twilight, quietly, and look around you at every detail, the bushes sticking out of the snow, heavily laden tree branches, houses half buried, flustered sheep wandering around in the nearby field. They can't make anything of the twilight either. Look at them all so that you don’t miss a unique moment, one that won’t return.


Morning saw a new snowfall, that erased all signs of several days of snow shovelling and buried our access road. Our car’s lost somewhere in the whiteness. The icicles dangling in front of the study window grew another foot, some of them now almost four feet long. We’re in a snow house as in Lean's Doctor Zhivago, except that the house in the movie set had fake snow and was filmed in the boiling Spanish summer. The actors did a good job shivering and looking cold. At Cottarton we have the real thing. It started falling about December 20. This is the longest siege that the local people remember, but them they tend to say every year. The house stays warm thanks to a wood fire in the living room stove. My mother sits in her chair nearby where she can stay warm and look out over the snowy landscape. She's been with us over a week, keeping us entertained with her often acerbic humour. To her the landscape has an unearthly beauty. She’d like to go to church today but we probably won’t be going. It’s New Year, the world is hung-over, still asleep, including the snow ploughs and road gritters.






Outside, it’s begun to snow again.

A New Life --- Up the stairs

There’s something almost religious about building on an upstairs room to a house, especially if you undertake the project soon after leaving an office job you’ve done for over twenty years where you mostly sat in an office staring at a screen. Now you have to use your hands, make them work as more than appendages for your brain. They have to hold a drill, a hammer, a saw, a drill. You are building a new floor onto an existing structure, making the place where you’ll eventually move. Maybe you’re also preparing the space for the greater move that you’ll make sometime between now and eternity.

Enough of philosophy. We have to thank Pat Grant for the seed idea, that our attic could be somehow transformed into an attic. But it took more than waving a magic wand to accomplish it. About two winters and two summers. Philip Anderson built our stairwell, and the first walls. The first winter I created the space for a bedroom and bathroom. The bathroom space was originally a crawlspace only three feet wide, up against an old, slanting roof structure. To make it larger took some sleight of hand.

In the picture you can see the slanting roof under the shelving. Elsewhere they're hidden under the marble countertop.



The first job --- and it was a job, was to move the attic beams to open up the area, side beams a few inches left or right, top bracing beams up by six inches. 40 beams. It was cold, uninteresting work that left numb fingers, and me wondering if this was going anywhere. Not until Louis Charron arrived in early Summer and needed an architectural project did I get the oomph for the next phase --- even less glamorous, to trim out a beam and reinforce the roof structure for skylight windows. We had to grind off protruding slate nails, bolt on 2 by 4s to roof beams, insert cross beams. Our friends, the Ashtons and Roys cut two holes in our roof, inserted the skylights, and rearranged our roofing slates. Daylight appeared in the attic. We laid down a temporary floor. We barely started to install foam insulation in the ceiling when Louis left, and I had to wait for the next kid to show up --- Santiago my nephew. He grew up in the high Andes and is an accomplished carpenter. Makes amazing kitchen cabinets. Alas, I’m not ready for cabinets, only for insulation, 2 by 4s and sheetrock. When Santi was not riding the lawnmower --- he loved the riding lawnmower, he was up with me cutting up the insulation board or screwing in the sheetrock. Again the work stopped and had to wait until Jordan Poole arrived. Each kid had his passion, and Jordan’s was spackling (plastering as it’s called here). We were starting to see the rooms taking shape.

Around that time I managed to find a plumber and a sparky (Scottish for ‘electrician’). It wasn’t easy. Tradesmen generally don’t like coming out to work in the country. They’re busy people and prefer to work in town. We had several plumbers come out to look at out project, drink tea with us, and talk enthusiastically. But either the estimates never arrived or were so high as if trying to dare us to take them. Come on, make may day! I asked Paul F to do our plumbing, a good kid who had come out before. He wanted the job and did it well. Luckily we knew a good sparky. Once he was able to extricate himself from a heavy work load he came out --- two months later than scheduled, but he did appear. He did a great job and provided good conversation about my favourite Orcadian writer, George MacKay Brown.

Last summer I finished the plastering, endless sanding that made me look each day like a snowman, and then came the painting. The laminated wooden floor went down. Then the Swedish drawers were built into the wall --- Louis's idea, and --- Ta daaaaa!!!! Where’s the fanfare? Ah yes, there are no stairs! Philip Anderson, our joiner, is in Jersey, imprisoned by a dastardly laird who won’t let him out until he has finished building his castle. Christmas is coming --- argh! We need those stairs. So we contact various joiners. They come out, drink tea, look at our space, mutter something about planning permission to which I shrug. They go, and we wait for something to arrive in the mail or a phone call. One estimate did arrive, a high estimate.




Our neighbour Anne Christie mentioned Neal Donald, a joiner in the glen. He comes, and takes the job…and those are his stairs.


Amber and I now live upstairs, a cosy room that feels like a treehouse. We’ve hung up our Navajo dreamcatcher, and we’re expecting some big dreams.

The March of the Sheep

When people think of the Scottish countryside, they usually think of sheep; masses of them crawling like tufts of cotton wool over grassy meadows or wandering the heather covered slopes.Where you don't see sheep, you'll find black cows, the Aberdeen Angus in our area, or endless barley fields. Dotted around the valleys you often see abandoned stone cottages, sometimes with a slate roof, but often little more than the walls still standing. They point to a dark episode in Scottish history. Two hundred years ago there was a different landscape, many such cottages with two or three generations of a family and a few acres of land that grew potatoes, oats, barley, some root crops, hay to feed a few cows, and several scrawny sheep bearing little resemblance to today's fluffy Blackface sheep.There were few if any of the towns you see today. It was a tough life, living at the mercy of bad weather, potato blight or other farm diseases. As most smallholdings were rented from a laird, there was rent to be paid no matter the weather. Every ten years or so when crops failed there was widespread famine.

What changed it all? The march of the sheep. Beginning in the 1750s, they came from the south, a relentless white tide that swallowed up farm after farm. Landlords, who often ran up huge debts from dubious financial gambles, soon realized that a large sheep farm would give them four times the income and much less bother than the rents from so many smallholdings. Wool fetched a premium price as did mutton, with very little outlay of cash. New sheep breeds appeared that had more meat, ample wool, and withstood the frigid Scottish winters. As often happens, the financial factors were only part of the reasons for change. Poor people, living on the land where you can't control them, are inconventient for politicians. The Clearances lasted over a hundred years, a slow process of forced eviction and land confiscations leading to the establishment of the large farms you see today. The population density in the highlands fell, while the sheep population soared. During a particularly dark chapter, violence broke out between the people being evicted and the sheep farmers. Land administrators, known in Scotland as factors, were known to burn cottages to prevent them being re-occupied. Economists suggested that people would just fit into new jobs on the new farms, but mechanization resulted in much fewer people being needed. More benevolent landowners resettled their tenants in newvillages that took root in those days. Many emigrated to Canada or to the States.

What about the future? Todays farms are scarcely profitable; many exist for mainly two reasons 1. Cheap diesel oil and fertilizer 2. European Union subsidies. When the price of oil rises, as it must when the effects of peak oil become felt, the high price of diesel and fertilizer will make the present system unsustainable.
George Monboit, a writer for "The Guardian" looks at one scenario.

Higher food prices already are making people see the advantages of growing their own. Vegetable allotments so popular that, in big cities you often have to wait for years to get one. Some cities are changing their parks into allotments. It doesn't take much imagination to see the trend extend into the countryside. We may be coming full circle, back to the old crofting days.

Riding the train with Dundee United

Returning from Scone last weekend, after being two days with mum, Amber and I expected a leisurely train ride back to Huntly. Arriving at Perth Station we encountered a crowd of mostly young men with flushed faces, cider bottles in hand and wearing football colours. Several tall policemen and women paced back and forth trying to look impressive. We knew that the lads were coming home after a football game, but had their team won or lost? If the latter, they could be mad enough to trash the station, or anything breakable in their path. Where were they heading? You guessed it, our train.

Waiting among them on the platform, we were treated to a chorus of chants. Less musical than Gregorian chants, with parent advisory lyrics, what the chanting lacked in musicology it had in sheer volume and emotion. You didn’t have to know the lexicon to know that the team had won, and yes…”Weeee’re the Dundee boys”. I yelled to Amber, who stood bewildered and deafened by the spectacle, “Here’re a bit of local culture.”

Train pulls up at the platform. With sinking hearts we see that it only has four carriages, and it’s pretty full. Doors open. Covering Amber with my left arm, we board, are able to take two steps before the horde presses in behind us, sandwiching us on all sides. “Can you breathe, my dear?” I ask. It gets tighter. I have visions of winding up beneath a stack of bodies, when I notice that we’re up against a pair of doors leading to First Class seats. We don’t have tickets, but so what. I open the door. Rushing in with the crowd falling on top of us we find two seats, which we grab. At least we’re sitting down. Dundee United squeezes into the aisle. Slowly, as if feeling its extra load, the train crawls off and lumbers over the Tay Bridge.

A lone voice intones, “We’re Dundee United….” And ten others join in. With the cops gone, beer and cider bottles multiply, get swigged, passed around. Names of players appear in chants, how this or that hero slew one of the Celtic “c—ts” I ask one of the guys what the score was, 2-1. They are ecstatic about the win that came from behind. Other passengers, like us sit bemused by the spectacle. No train conductor shows up; in that press no one can possibly move.

After half an hour we pull into Dundee and the fans stagger out of the train. We watch them disappear down the platform, still chanting. Silence, except for a giggle from a couple of little old ladies. The experience made their day.