OUT-TAKE:

'A really unpleasant experience was fly strike in two new calves for the first time ever courtesy of an unusually warm autumn'

Christmas is a time of mixed emotions, with much happiness as friends and family come together to celebrate, but also sadness as we remember lost ones and those who are feeling the cold and financial pinches.

Too many good folk from Scottish farming have gone West this year, not the least Doddie Weir, whose memorial service was this week. But they will be remembered with affection and there’s nothing else for it but to push onwards and upwards.

The only time I ever saw Doddie close up was in 1991. I was studying at Newcastle and although he was not allowed to play as he had just made the Scotland team, Doddie came down to support his fellow agric students at Edinburgh playing against the Newcastle agrics.

I went to the bar in the union to catch up with my brother, who was playing for Edinburgh and as I walked up the steps of the union, a bar stool flew out of the window and landed on the grass, a harbinger of what awaited inside. The ancient tradition of collecting trophies had clearly started.

The scene in the bar was not any different from any other Saturday night in any Student Union bar I ever went to. In other words, carnage and mayhem reigned, beer and wine flew through the air accompanied by friendly insults, failed chat up lines, shouted conversation and a steamy, shoulder to shoulder, cattle float atmosphere.

There in a corner of calm with a full pint of ale in front of him sat Doddie Weir, in a Hawaian T-shirt, a serene smile of utter contentment and a look of satisfaction over all he surveyed, like a kind of gangly Buddha who had already worked out the entire meaning of life at the tender age of just 20.

Unfortunately for me, I never got to know Doddie, but his attitude in the face of extreme adversity and suffering had been quite extraordinary, and whenever the black dog descends, as it will do from time to time for many of us when things don’t go well, it is worth remembering his simple mantra: “Don’t complain. Keep smiling, keep positive and enjoy life.”

Great achievements often come in the face of adversity and few have been more inspiring than Doddie’s approach to his illness and the support of his friends in setting up the My Name'5 Doddie Foundation. DoddieAid kicks off again next month and I will be proudly donning my snood and logging the miles for North and Midlands, a great way to raise money for MND research with the added benefit of banishing the January blues with a bit of physical exercise.

Back home, I’m thankful for a spell of colder weather – although there has been extra work defrosting water troughs – as it was better for the fattening bulls, who were hit hard by pneumonia when the weather was wet for such a long period in October and November. We have not bothered vaccinating in the past, but having lost two bulls this autumn, it must be in the plan for the future.

Despite that, the bulls are finishing well, although the grading camera seems to be a bit wonky at ABP – the weights are OK, but for some reason the system seems to think most of them are grade R, when they are normally nearly all U. My trust has taken a big knock. Is anyone else experiencing this?

An even more unpleasant experience was fly strike in two new calves for the first time ever courtesy of an unusually warm autumn. Luckily, we picked it up in time to save both calves, but the first one was a close run thing as it’s a new phenomenon for us and quite shocking how bad the infestation was.

The potatoes are flying out of the cold store pre-Christmas, although it feels a lot warmer in the cold store when the temperatures are so low outside. My father is fond of reminding me of the winter of 1947, when the snow drifts were so deep that they reached almost as high as the wires on the telegraph poles and Margaret Donaldson, the post lady, used to trudge out from the town through the snow to deliver the mail.

Nowadays, it seems like everyone in town has a meltdown every time there is a brief flurry of the white stuff. A brief few days without power last winter after Storm Arwen gave us a taste of the hardships the people of Ukraine are enduring as their much colder winter sets in. I hope they continue to get the support they so clearly deserve.

Enough of the troubles of 2022. Like the poor wee mouse in Robert Burns' poem, whose nest is turned over by the plough, my best laid schemes have 'gang aft agley'. The poem ends by suggesting that the mouse at least is lucky, for it cannot fear what else might befall it in the future, whereas man can.

I don’t agree with him! We need not be ‘cowrin’ timorous beasties’ living in fear of the future, we should embrace it.

Nothing is more vital to us than food and energy, and we are in a strong position to provide both. If governments won’t support food production, they should not stand in the way of land being used to grow energy instead in the form of solar panels or wind turbines. Grid connections and planning laws are too restrictive as things stand.

Although there may be turbulent times ahead, there will also be opportunities and unless we are bold and brave, like Doddie and Margaret Donaldson, we are in danger of missing out on them. Happy Christmas one and all.