Posted on by Lesley

Coos on the Croft

It was always going to happen, I guess.

The stock fences surrounding the croft are ancient and rickety at best. They’re on the list for replacement, but we haven’t got around to them yet.

I was making the bed one morning this week in the caravan when I looked up and saw one of Angus’s cows looking back at me from a few metres away. Chewing away contentedly. From by the vegetable beds. On the croft. Not on the hill where they should have been.

It suddenly computed.

The cows were on the croft. They’d gotten in somehow. There were several highland cows and their calves contentedly munching away on the long grass around the caravan.

Images from Hectorshighlandcoos

I struggled on with my wellies and ran outside. They were grazing happily, obviously enjoying the lush pasture of the long grass after the rather more thin pickings of the common grazings on the hill, where the grass is well cropped by sheep and interspersed with clumps of heather.

Husband was working on the house but came quickly, equally surprised. Luckily he spotted Angus and his son on the hillside, and between them they managed to herd the cows towards the gate at the top of the croft and eventually back onto the common grazings.

Highland cows are lovely, shaggy, gentle beasts, despite the horns. Bizarrely, they didn’t touch the vegetables at all, happy with eating the grass.

If we had better fences I’d be happy to have them on the croft occasionally to crop the grass down, but at the moment they’d likely escape onto the road and cause chaos. Angus’s cows are experienced escape artists and well known for bringing the local traffic to a standstill.

First job this week – find some help to repair the fence…

19 Replies to “Coos on the Croft”

  3. Cows in the garden are a hazard of country life but they rarely cause too much damage and it is a good way to get to know the neighbouring farmers better.

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  4. Fixing fences is constant work. The word coos in the title attracted me, I haven’t read it since last time I whirled through Terry Prattchet’s Disc World series, I read the whole post in his voice (in my head of course).
    Rural life is the same the world over it seems. We have had stray bands of cattle come through to prune or fruit trees and occasionally our vegetables. The sheep (our own) also do their share of pruning.

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      2. Just relistened to ALL the Tiffany Aching books on Audible. I’m sure that we’ve got MacFeegles on the croft.. 😉

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      4. Crivens!!! 😂
        I have actually never heard anyone say that in real life. We should start threading it into our conversations.in homage… 😊

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      2. I’m so glad that you found one. They’re lovely, aren’t they. And so much smaller than I imagined. Lovely to find another Pratchett fan – he is much missed.

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