Fabulously Feral – a countryside childhood

Kerry Thomson - 9 Jan 17

I managed to successfully dodge my youngest’s 5.45am wake-up this morning.  Still pretending to be asleep at almost 8am, the sound of the chaos from round the kitchen table (were they limbo dancing?!) was interrupted by that most beautiful and magical of winter countryside noises – the call of migrating geese. Like a child on Christmas morning I leapt out of bed and straight to the window – craning my head skywards to watch hundreds of them pass by in perfect ‘V’ formations.

Making my way downstairs I was met by Angus, my four year old, shouting, ‘Mum, Mum, come and look!’ ‘You’ll never believe it, come and see’. He dragged me to the kitchen window where in the field before me was a shimmering Mexican wave of brown feathers. The geese had decided to camp out in the field infront of the house. So I sat and enjoyed my morning cuppa watching what must be one of the wonders of the natural world.

I grew up in Belfast in the 1980s where the only wildlife on the streets was toting a machine gun. My children will have an altogether different experience. They know the glorious ‘rat-a-tat’ of a woodpecker, they have vast collections of feathers from woodcocks, partridge and pheasant and at age four, my tractor obsessed eldest son understands crop rotation – not because he’s had to sit in a classroom and learn, but because he is always looking, watching, asking questions. He spends his summer days sitting in a tractor with his packed lunch watching baling, cutting, muck spreading. He has always wanted to be a farmer when he grows up and I’m pretty sure he will be.

In the technology obsessed world of today where ‘screen time’ means so much, it’s heartening to see that it’s not just Paw Patrol that can inspire joy. Their excited screeching when we open the egg boxes to collect the daily booty from our chickens, is better than any Kinder Egg opening clip on Youtube. The kids are also learning about hard work – they collect the eggs and take the dirty straw to the midden. In the summer we head out with bags full of tupperware to collect wild raspberries and brambles – their little faces and hands stained purple from feasting on their spoils.

We still remember one summer morning when we opened the curtains to see a herd of escaped cows on our driveway. Or when a mouse set up home in the glove box of my car and ate right through the wiring.

Tilly, my three year old, adores the pheasant that visits our bird feeder throughout the spring. She affectionately named him ‘Percy’ and believes that any pheasant she spots, no matter how far from home, is in fact Percy following us making sure we’re all ok.

But it’s not all Swallows and Amazons and The Famous Five. Growing up in the countryside, children are exposed to the brutality of nature and the cycle of life from a young age. They see dead sheep lying in the yard at the farm. They’ve seen lambs stillborn. Angus recently helped me drag a dead fox off the drive and find a quiet spot to lay him to rest in the woods. He carefully covered him with a blanket of ferns ‘to keep him warm Mum, before he goes up to be a star in the sky’.

Sometimes on a crisp clear night, we head outside and look up to the stars. We can see Orion’s Belt, the North Star. We talk about all the people we’ve loved and lost who are now up there shining down on us. It’s moments like this that make me feel that life can’t really get any better.

But then they walk chicken poo back into the house and I remember that living in the countryside involves endless loads of washing and the eternal quest for the perfect pair of wellies that don’t split!

But those are minor trade offs. My little feral bumpkins may not be the most sophisticated, have absolutely no road sense and often have straw in their hair; but their heads are full of wonder. Their memories of the natural world will always stay with them and I couldn’t ask for more than that.

Kerry Thomson

I'm Kerry, I live in the sticks in Scotland with one husband, three kids, one dog, six chickens, 200 cattle and 2500 sheep. You can read more about me and my gang on my blog www.postcardsfrommykitchentable.com

View profile for posts, events and more info