I don’t think the quaver in your voice at the end of this moving chapter was embellishment for the reader was it..? I am gulping back tears David… no, in fact they are flowing freely!
Good grief, the wrench of person from land and animals is so hard to disguise…
As always I am caught by your so perceptively emotional and metaphoric words my friend - just beautiful… and heartbreaking.
Hi Susie. I am a bit of a teary old fool :-) I often start to quiver and quaver when I read things and normally stop and redo them. But for this one I had three or four goes and never managed to keep my voice steady. So it just had to go out as it was!
Thanks so much for your recent recommendation to Adam Nathan - he was in touch and says he will include that bit in the project somewhere along the line.
Having bought 2 acres and a 200 year old farmhouse with a barn bigger than the house and predates it, I found this piece so relatable. It’s the first thing I’ve read of yours. While not coastal, we have cleared land that’s been hayed for years. It was a portion of a plot much larger that got subdivided. The front yard is fairly traditional. The back fields we have been spreading local pollinator plants, fighting the horrific bittersweet. Took down 30 ash trees ( not for more land to maintain) they were devoured by the emerald ash borer and were dead. Yes we are only stewards of the land and do the best we can to protect it. Since owning this house ( unless you have deep pockets I’d never recommend buying a 200 year old house. I’ve been given some scary diagnosis’ , 2 back surgeries, it seems the only joy I have is the many, many birds. We have in spring and summer a huge colony of ( they return every year and nest in some open outbuildings) chimney swoops, summer bats , hundreds of bluebirds, red winged blackbirds, gold finches, hummingbirds, so many I don’t know the names of . Dragonflies and fireflies as well. I’m glad that in my more healthy years I’ve planted all those native plants, I’m afraid the bittersweet will be a problem but we may borrow a goat…
Your writing is beautiful and it really made me feel like my place. Thank you for the great read. I only found this app a couple weeks ago and am so impressed with the content.
Dear Mary, you have done so well by the land that was entrusted to you and the creatures that have benefitted from your care. The joy of that is a mighty thing and I hope you bask in it :-)
Can one purchase history? If so, then I believe you did. You bought a dream. A beautiful story, David. I more than visualize the appeal.
“So I took possession of it. Or it took possession of me.” Torn to leave and torn to stay. I wonder how it feels to write about your Croft sitting in your new homestead. Setting down your pen and looking back over your shoulder to the words from your past. I am glad to know you both purchased a new dream.
All the love we pour into a place, as we tend it with our two hands, does it remember us, I wonder? Because surely we leave a parts of ourselves behind there when we go. I hope reflecting on this lost love helps both you and Sharon move through the grief that remains. I am traveling to Iceland next year and reading about all the large boulders who were named long ago by the folk who live among them.
I'm sure places remember us - hopefully with a bit of an indulgent smile as they forgive us our foolishness. Coo. Boulders with names :-) We once had a very dear chicken who grew old and died, peacefully enough. A little brown Araucana. For a long while we had referred to her simply as Old Lady Chicken. Somehow we felt reluctant to bury her in the usual manner. A long way up the mountain that rose behind the croft was a great cube of a glacial erratic. We decided that she wanted to be sky buried and so I carried her up the slope, opened up her skinny little body and laid her on the rock. It was such a big rock and so shaped that it would have been hard for a fox to reach her. A buzzard or possibly a Golden Eagle ate most of her, we believe. So there is a rock up there on the mountain that, while we live, is called Old Lady Rock.
Well, sort of :-) The Mallerstang ridge which looms large over our house is actually, by appearance and by local lore, a sometimes grumpy old male giant. His wife is a bit further east.
I'm conscious, as I read your beautiful words, of how a piece of earth can claim us, and change us too. I'm thinking a lot about place and belonging, and what that means, especially as someone whose deep ancestry lies far from the country of my birth. I guess, in part, belonging is a choice, to allow a place to claim me, and to give myself to it in turn.
Thanks for reading and for your kindness. You live by a tidal river - now, there's the makings of all the dreams we'll ever need :-) When I was a child I once fished for a week on the just-about-tidal reaches of the Torridge in Devon. Only, I didn't know that the pool at the bottom of the stretch was tidal. I fished down that pool a dozen times and then at the end of the week there was a slightly higher than normal tide. I was wading deep, going over the now familiar rocks and feeling the push of the current like a tune I could hum, a different note with every step. And then the river stopped. It STOPPED! I've never since ceased to believe in, and search for miracles.
So much in this reminds me of where we are (at the other end of the UK in the Blackdown Hills) - small farms trying to wrestle nature into shape over generations - and lots of blue rope! So beautifully written.
Oh, the Blackdown Hills. I had almost forgotten their subtlety and surprises. Thank you for reminding me. So many corners and crannies of this wonderful island where we could spend a lifetime and not know the half of it.
Thank you, so evocative this crofting country will stay with me all day. Your reading further enhanced the rhythm and meter of each sentence. I will be back soon.
Living in the United States, I am not familiar with a croft or some of the other words used, but I easily caught the drift of the writing. And at the end, it was so tender hearted that you had to leave, that I really feel for you and encourage you to keep writing.
Brilliant description, I'm fortunate to live on Lewis, myself and my wife. We live in a township on the east coast, south lochs. We have settled here and wouldn't change a thing. 14 years of this life has had its challenges but on the whole its been far more rewarding. I've travelled to Breanish a few times, a beautiful rugged coast line but an unrepentant Atlantic (breeze) storm is something to behold. I wish you all the best for the future. Crofting for me will go on as long as I keep my health.
Hi, 1crofter, and thanks. I bought a cow from South Lochs once, and a beauty she was. A rusty red shetland. I’m glad to hear you have found your dream. I had to walk a few more miles before I could settle into mine :-)
As an American city girl, the lifestyle you described is fascinating, you brought it to life. In my mind I can see the cows falling into line in the morning and peeling off to return home. The only experience I've had that touches on that life is a 1960s visit to my German mother's farming village. Both seem like they belong to another world.
What a wonderful description of the socially engineered aspect of crofting. I love your writing. It slows me down and I savour the feelings. Thank you.
i always listen to you read your posts. the depth of the feeling drops me into your story as your language takes me on the journey. i am appreciating this Riverwitch series between you and Sharon already. What a gift you are offering us...this insight into the intertwining of your lives on The Croft and now all these years later. grateful.
Thanks Anne, you are always so generous. Isn't it interesting, the different forms and structures that Substack seems to open up. I can't imagine Sharon and I would ever have thought to do this project without it. At least not remotely in this way.
I don’t think the quaver in your voice at the end of this moving chapter was embellishment for the reader was it..? I am gulping back tears David… no, in fact they are flowing freely!
Good grief, the wrench of person from land and animals is so hard to disguise…
As always I am caught by your so perceptively emotional and metaphoric words my friend - just beautiful… and heartbreaking.
Hi Susie. I am a bit of a teary old fool :-) I often start to quiver and quaver when I read things and normally stop and redo them. But for this one I had three or four goes and never managed to keep my voice steady. So it just had to go out as it was!
Thanks so much for your recent recommendation to Adam Nathan - he was in touch and says he will include that bit in the project somewhere along the line.
As an aspiring writer I am in awe of your ability to paint a feeling and an image in my mind.
Having bought 2 acres and a 200 year old farmhouse with a barn bigger than the house and predates it, I found this piece so relatable. It’s the first thing I’ve read of yours. While not coastal, we have cleared land that’s been hayed for years. It was a portion of a plot much larger that got subdivided. The front yard is fairly traditional. The back fields we have been spreading local pollinator plants, fighting the horrific bittersweet. Took down 30 ash trees ( not for more land to maintain) they were devoured by the emerald ash borer and were dead. Yes we are only stewards of the land and do the best we can to protect it. Since owning this house ( unless you have deep pockets I’d never recommend buying a 200 year old house. I’ve been given some scary diagnosis’ , 2 back surgeries, it seems the only joy I have is the many, many birds. We have in spring and summer a huge colony of ( they return every year and nest in some open outbuildings) chimney swoops, summer bats , hundreds of bluebirds, red winged blackbirds, gold finches, hummingbirds, so many I don’t know the names of . Dragonflies and fireflies as well. I’m glad that in my more healthy years I’ve planted all those native plants, I’m afraid the bittersweet will be a problem but we may borrow a goat…
Your writing is beautiful and it really made me feel like my place. Thank you for the great read. I only found this app a couple weeks ago and am so impressed with the content.
Dear Mary, you have done so well by the land that was entrusted to you and the creatures that have benefitted from your care. The joy of that is a mighty thing and I hope you bask in it :-)
Beautiful reading
Can one purchase history? If so, then I believe you did. You bought a dream. A beautiful story, David. I more than visualize the appeal.
“So I took possession of it. Or it took possession of me.” Torn to leave and torn to stay. I wonder how it feels to write about your Croft sitting in your new homestead. Setting down your pen and looking back over your shoulder to the words from your past. I am glad to know you both purchased a new dream.
Yes, you are so right - as I get older I realise that 'buying' a piece of land is just signing up to look after it for a while, as best I can.
All the love we pour into a place, as we tend it with our two hands, does it remember us, I wonder? Because surely we leave a parts of ourselves behind there when we go. I hope reflecting on this lost love helps both you and Sharon move through the grief that remains. I am traveling to Iceland next year and reading about all the large boulders who were named long ago by the folk who live among them.
I'm sure places remember us - hopefully with a bit of an indulgent smile as they forgive us our foolishness. Coo. Boulders with names :-) We once had a very dear chicken who grew old and died, peacefully enough. A little brown Araucana. For a long while we had referred to her simply as Old Lady Chicken. Somehow we felt reluctant to bury her in the usual manner. A long way up the mountain that rose behind the croft was a great cube of a glacial erratic. We decided that she wanted to be sky buried and so I carried her up the slope, opened up her skinny little body and laid her on the rock. It was such a big rock and so shaped that it would have been hard for a fox to reach her. A buzzard or possibly a Golden Eagle ate most of her, we believe. So there is a rock up there on the mountain that, while we live, is called Old Lady Rock.
Then there was the reclining woman who was the mountain, I recall, who was the Cailleach. Is she waking in the Mallerstang valley now?
Well, sort of :-) The Mallerstang ridge which looms large over our house is actually, by appearance and by local lore, a sometimes grumpy old male giant. His wife is a bit further east.
I look forward to hearing more about him!
Then there was the reclining woman who was the mountain, I recall, who was the Cailleach. Is she waking in the Mallerstang valley now?
I'm conscious, as I read your beautiful words, of how a piece of earth can claim us, and change us too. I'm thinking a lot about place and belonging, and what that means, especially as someone whose deep ancestry lies far from the country of my birth. I guess, in part, belonging is a choice, to allow a place to claim me, and to give myself to it in turn.
Thanks Carri. I guess you've nailed it there - it takes two to dance :-)
Beautiful writing. I learned and felt so much. Thank you.
Thanks for reading and for your kindness. You live by a tidal river - now, there's the makings of all the dreams we'll ever need :-) When I was a child I once fished for a week on the just-about-tidal reaches of the Torridge in Devon. Only, I didn't know that the pool at the bottom of the stretch was tidal. I fished down that pool a dozen times and then at the end of the week there was a slightly higher than normal tide. I was wading deep, going over the now familiar rocks and feeling the push of the current like a tune I could hum, a different note with every step. And then the river stopped. It STOPPED! I've never since ceased to believe in, and search for miracles.
Yes! I also grew up by a different New England tidal river. Magic is everywhere.
So much in this reminds me of where we are (at the other end of the UK in the Blackdown Hills) - small farms trying to wrestle nature into shape over generations - and lots of blue rope! So beautifully written.
Oh, the Blackdown Hills. I had almost forgotten their subtlety and surprises. Thank you for reminding me. So many corners and crannies of this wonderful island where we could spend a lifetime and not know the half of it.
Thank you, so evocative this crofting country will stay with me all day. Your reading further enhanced the rhythm and meter of each sentence. I will be back soon.
That is kind of you, Leslie. Thanks. I see that you converse with rivers. Keep teaching us the language :-)
Living in the United States, I am not familiar with a croft or some of the other words used, but I easily caught the drift of the writing. And at the end, it was so tender hearted that you had to leave, that I really feel for you and encourage you to keep writing.
Thanks, Ellen, you are a kind soul. I’ll keep chipping away at it as long as a few people find some sense in what I write.
Brilliant description, I'm fortunate to live on Lewis, myself and my wife. We live in a township on the east coast, south lochs. We have settled here and wouldn't change a thing. 14 years of this life has had its challenges but on the whole its been far more rewarding. I've travelled to Breanish a few times, a beautiful rugged coast line but an unrepentant Atlantic (breeze) storm is something to behold. I wish you all the best for the future. Crofting for me will go on as long as I keep my health.
Hi, 1crofter, and thanks. I bought a cow from South Lochs once, and a beauty she was. A rusty red shetland. I’m glad to hear you have found your dream. I had to walk a few more miles before I could settle into mine :-)
The road will always rise to meet your feet, when you choose the right direction. May your future always be kind.
As an American city girl, the lifestyle you described is fascinating, you brought it to life. In my mind I can see the cows falling into line in the morning and peeling off to return home. The only experience I've had that touches on that life is a 1960s visit to my German mother's farming village. Both seem like they belong to another world.
Thanks, Karen. That is kind of you. Yes, how many different paths there are in the world. It's amazing how they all fit in to one little planet :-)
What a wonderful description of the socially engineered aspect of crofting. I love your writing. It slows me down and I savour the feelings. Thank you.
Thanks for reading, Susan. Hope I haven't trodden on any historical toes :-) I'm PhDing just down the road in Edinburgh. Small world.
i always listen to you read your posts. the depth of the feeling drops me into your story as your language takes me on the journey. i am appreciating this Riverwitch series between you and Sharon already. What a gift you are offering us...this insight into the intertwining of your lives on The Croft and now all these years later. grateful.
Thanks Anne, you are always so generous. Isn't it interesting, the different forms and structures that Substack seems to open up. I can't imagine Sharon and I would ever have thought to do this project without it. At least not remotely in this way.
Well, David, you've done it again - beautiful piece!
Thanks Patricia. A bit of a fork in the road - thanks for sticking with it :-)