Easter this year was, appropriately, all about the animals. I went home to my parents’ place in northern Scotland, which is surrounded by forest and field. Pretty much any time of the day or night you can see or hear wild animals and farm animals outside. The kitchen window is rather like a cinema screen for the natural world, sometimes making the connection between the food on your plate and its source uncomfortably clear.
Lambs
As we tucked into our delicious Easter Sunday lunch of roast lamb and vegetables, some of the sheep outside were in the process of giving birth. As we munched away, the farmer and his family were riding around on their quad bike, jumping off to inspect the newborn lambs and then chuck them into the trailer with their mother to take them down to the nursery field. When the farmer had gone we saw a mother sheep aggressively headbutting a newborn lamb away from her: once, twice, three times. It was distressing to watch until we realised that she was doing the right thing. It wasn’t her lamb and she wanted to preserve her milk for her own young ones. The lamb’s real mother soon turned up and the crisis was over.
Geese
On the way into town I had to stop the car because the neighbour’s geese had escaped onto the road and were too startled to get out of my way. I got out and herded them back into their garden. Once in town we all went for a walk along the beach. Overhead a flock of wild geese flew north, towards Scandinavia. I thought of H, who is on a literal wild goose chase these days as he writes a book about the journeys of Arctic Geese. Around five minutes after we’d seen the flock, a lone goose could be seen and heard overhead. He was honking madly and flapping his wings for all he was worth. Presumably he’d been left behind and was now trying to catch up with the group. I hope he made it.
Dogs
We went to Findhorn to visit P’s friend, S. S has a lovely dog called Cracker, who has something wrong with the soft tissue that lines his throat. He can’t swallow properly, although he is otherwise in good health. When we arrived S was exasperated with Cracker, who had run off that morning and eaten something he shouldn’t. Because he can’t swallow properly, eating becomes dangerous and he risks ingesting food into his lungs. He’s had pneumonia many times in the last 18 months and S has had to give up his job to care for him. S barely sleeps at night as the dog needs medicine every four hours! P and I were talking about it afterwards, saying how we couldn’t sacrifice so much for an animal. And yet, Cracker had all the personality of a human friend. S says he has thought of having him put down, but when he looks into Cracker’s eyes he sees a lust for life that can’t be denied. I told P about my first dog, Tessa, and how she’d eaten a poisoned rabbit while I was walking her and then taken 17 hours to die. The vet stayed up all night trying to save her but the strychnine was too strong. When I woke up the next morning my grandfather broke the news and I cried in his arms. Something closed over in my heart that day, and though I’ve loved other animals very much, I don’t think I could care for one in the same way again. Humans are more important than animals, I always say, but I admire S all the same. He calls Cracker his guru, and I think I understand why.
Flies
On the way up we stopped at a service station in Perthshire and a fruit fly snuck into the cabin of our van and hid there until I noticed it in the Highlands. I joked that we were taking it on holiday and it would struggle to fly the 100 miles back to its home. I assumed it would fly out of the van while we were unloading it, but three days later on the return journey I noticed it again, still alive. We were pretty near the service station where it had joined us, so I wound down the window and let it out. I wonder if it made it ‘home’?
