Well, dear reader, the blethers come as usual from the kitchen table, scribed in the wee small hours and as ever at the coo’s tail! It aye just seems to be a busy old time.
I was recently drawn to the great Theodore Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena speech, one that I think sums up the best and worst of human nature.
Some chiels are just set to be like empty drums, loud and not much else, while others get on and do.
He was a remarkable cratur by all accounts, and as I sit and pen away, suitcases up and down the country will be getting the stoor dichted off and the good shirts will be getting a press, as the annual migration to Glasgow draws near for the NFU Scotland annual meeting.
It’s likely the one time of the year that brogues and sports jackets are in vogue in the “dear green place”. I wish all attendees and staff and office bearers well. We are lucky to have folk that give up so much time to ensure the wellbeing of our farming community.
I was sorry to have missed a parliamentary reception at Holyrood due to a dose of the lurgy.
By all accounts it was a very worthwhile event that highlighted the importance our wonderful red meat industry plays in supporting our fragile rural communities.
Professor Alice Stanton delivered a very well received presentation on her research and work in this field that dispels some of the myths our detractors claim as fact. We should cheer QMS on for hosting this event promoting the importance of our industry and getting this important message over to our politicians and others.
On the farm front, the scanner mannie got a call today so it’s getting to that time of year again – cows are entering their final stages of pregnancy and are doing well on lovely silage.
We have started trading some fatstock and the synopsis so far would be cattle: braw, sheep: naw braw. It’s early yet, though, and we must live in hope of a wee lift in the sheep job.
Today I had an interesting blether regarding lynx reintroduction with a lovely chap from Essex who was up here working on some rewilding projects.
While we were poles apart on that issue, there was a great deal we did agree on.
Landscape
He was passionate about what his ambitions are for our landscape, but appreciated my perspective and seemed to genuinely understand the concerns of an already beleaguered hill farming community. We must always engage, and it doesn’t always have to be a coorse exchange.
I don’t for a minute think that I changed his outlook entirely, but I’m confident he left here on his drive south more enlightened. After discussion, he certainly agreed that paddock grazing on an extensive grazing hill system was a non starter.
As the great folk of our industry return home from Glasgow, I leave you with a little of Roosevelt’s words.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
I for one am grateful to have some great people in the arena championing our cause.
Finlay McIntyre is farms manager at Dunalasdair Estate,
