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The "back end" (fall) has arrived and farmers all around Orkney are asking one another, "Thoo still have kye oot?"

"Aye. But no for long."

It is the great season of... The Bringing In O' The Kye!

For us it started two weeks ago with Erlend bringing in some of the heefers and stots "tae save grass for the coos"... and so the freedom of summer ~ the freedom to leave the farm in the evenings ~ was curtailed and the winter routine of feeding the kye each morning and each night started to set it, although on a small scale.

In a way it's a relief to bring the kye in because while summer is free and fun it's also a time of loose ends. Because of the long hours of daylight you are never sure when the farm day will end. 10pm? Midnight? And there is not much of a routine so it often feels as if you are floating from one day to the next. I never know when to set the table for tea ~ 6pm? 8pm? I can't get ahold of Erlend on the mobile phone - should I eat my tea now instead of waiting? I'm awfully hungry...

Winter brings with it a hard-and-fast routine. Kye fed at this time in the morning and this time in the evening. Breakfast at this time, tea at that time. No guesswork necessary!

Erlend likes to bring the kye in when they are not soaked with rain which is tricky during the back end in Orkney! Today wanted to bring in a batch of older coos-with-calves from the Grenabu field (not sure about the spelling...). I like shifting older cattle because they know the drill. Had they been young kye I would have declined to help because I'm just too heavily pregnant and I have to move reallyslow ~ not good for runaway youths that try and get past and around me!

But first... there was Coo #86, already in the byre and looking like she was in some serious pain! Her arthritis was not agreeing one bit with the concrete slats so Erlend decided to move her to a bedded pen. This is how it is with cattle farming in Orkney: you are forever playing a gigantic game of chess! The only bedded pen available was occupied by our Angus bull Torf and I was merrily scratching his enormous neck. "We'll hiv tae shift the bool." Erlend announced.

My hand froze in mid-scratch. "What's this 'we' stuff?" I gulped.

"Yer here tae help, no?" Erlend wondered.

Torf stamped his hoof impatiently and I resumed scratching behind his huge noggin. "You know I don't work with bulls!" I protested.

"Wha...?" Erlend eyed Torf - his ears were drooped like airplane wings, his muzzle nearly touching the ground, and his eyes were rolling towards the back of his skull. He was positivly melting under my touch! "He's no gaan tae do anything tae you!"

"Erlend, he's a bull. Enough said." I announced and then, "I'll go and hide behind the byre doors at the other end and watch just in case you need me to call an ambulance." It's not that I don't trust Erlend... I just don't trust "bools"...

"Aye." Erlend muttered as he shook his head and walked away. I could read his thoughts perfectly: Women... My farmer man often forgets that not everyone has grown up with massive bulls as a matter of course!

Well hey! This woman's personal motto is: "When in doubt, wimp out!"

It's kept me alive thus far...

Of course when Erlend went to the other byre to get Torf's new pen ready he discovered that the gate had been broken by energetic stots and so he had to spend fifteen minutes doing repairs. While he worked I went back to Torf and resumed my scratching. He has a fine head for a bull: wide forehead and tapering into a tidy muzzle with huge ears that don't miss a thing. Each time I scratched behind one of those massive lugs he'd tilt his head into my digging fingers and shut his eyes...

When everything was set Erlend comenced shifting Torf while I watched from behind barn doors and gates. My husband is Boss Moo around this joint and the cattle know it! They don't seem to notice that they out-weigh him by several hundred (or thousand!) pounds... Torf is no exception. Erlend swung his gate open and the bool eyed him wearily. "C'mon, then!" Erlend barked and Torf bolted from the confines of his pen, down the passage way (where he gave a few delighted bucks) and out into the gated square.

I followed via the other end of the byres and peeked through a crack in the other byre door just in tome to see Torf come charging into the other byre. He immediately pounced on a pile of silage with gusto. "C'mon, beuy!" Erlend grumbled as he walked up and poked the bull in the neck with a stick. Torf turned and trotted away but then he began to flirt with some ladies in another pen. "Move it, beuy!" Erlend called out as he slapped a large bull buttock. Torf looked startled and he quickly bolted for the waiting pen. Once inside he began wooing the heefiers in the larger pen beside him.

Prince Chan, the other Angus bull, saw this from the other end of the byre where I was lurking and this set him into a jelous roaring rage. I walked over to his pen and kicked in some nearby silage ~ a hungry bull soon forgets about the womanizing antics of his rival! Prince Chan tucked into the silage with a grunt of of satisfaction while I scratched his shoulders and things calmed down.

Now it was time to bring in the calves and coos! The trick to getting our kye out of the fields around here is to get them to follow me and then, once they are all out of the field Erlend shuts the gate and I get them to turn around and follow him! So, this group of coos and calves came thundering out of the field mooing their heads off and just when it looked as if I might be trampled I waved my arms and said, "Shoooosh...shoooooosh..." The key is to let them know what you want without making them panic so the arm waving cannot be frantic. "That's it, ladies." I cooed. "Easy does it now..."

Since these were older coos it was easy ~ they paused in mid-stampede, mooed at me a few times, and then the entire group did a tidy about-face and headed off towards the steading and the warmth/dryness of the byre. (And the silage!)

I waddled along about 1/4 a mile an hour - deffinately not fast by any means and so by the time I arrived at the byre Erlend had everyone inside of their respective pens. Old crippled Coo #86 was in the straw-bedded "calf creep" next door - this is the place that the calves can go, via a small doorway, to escape their huge mothers and the few grumpy old matrons that have no fear of butting calves out of their way.

Upon spying the other coos ol' #86 heaved herself to her feet and lay down in the little doorway where she stuck her head through into the other pen and lowed wistfully at her fellow cows.

"Ah, great!" I muttered.

"Pity sake." Erlend grumbled.

"She's going to block that doorway and then the coos will roar all night long for their calves that can't come through for a sook!" I growled as #86 eyed us disdainfully - not only is she a coo but she's an onery ol' coo that will not think twice about slapping a calf around if it tries to get past her - and any humans while she's at it!

"We'll hiv tae divide this pen in half and pit her over there." Erlend said as he gave his forehead a tired rub. "Aye..."

Coo #86 responded to this by rising up onto her knees and drinking deeply from the nearby water bowl. For nearly five minutes!! She shifted though when Boss Moo came into her pen and soon she was resettled in deep bedding out of the way of the calf door and we could breathe easy.

Until it came to be bedtime... that's when we could hear it: one coo roaring for her calf. Once a coo gets it in her mind that she wants her calf to come, she will not give up roaring. Once a calf decides it wants to stay in the creep on the warm bedding, it will not budge an inch. So every fifteen seconds or so our nightly peaces was shattered with a loud, "MOOOOOOO!!"

By 3am my eyes were bloodshot and I had developed a twitch in my left cheek. "MOOOOOOOO!" Fifteen seconds. "MOOOOOO!" Fifteen seconds, "MOOOOOO!"

I rose at 4am for my dose of pain killers. "MOOOOOO!"

"MOOOOOO!"

(Same coo! Still going at it!)

7am the alarm went off. "MOOOOOOOO!"

"MOOOOOOOO!"

I groaned. "Erlend, we have to find out which coo that is so I can duct-tape her mouth shut tonight."

"Aye." Erlend groaned in exhausted reply.

"By the way, good morning, husband!"

"MOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

"Good morning, my dear."

"MOOOOOOOO!!"

"If that calf doesn't go and have a sook he's going into the freezer TONIGHT!" I growled.

"MOOOOOO!!!!"

It had been a lonnnnng night... "the bringing in o' the kye" is a lovely seasonal tradition but it brings with it a few MISERIES. One of those being screaming coos that will not shut up for anything... (Sometimes I make Erlend get up and go poke calves through into the creep so I can get SOME measure of sleep... this, usually after several nights of MOOOOOOO!...)