Galloway: Life In a Vanishing Landscape

by Patrick Laurie, Nick Offerman (Introduction)

Overview

On the land of his ancestors in Scotland, a young farmer struggles to find a balance between farming, the conservation of wild, and human culture as he establishes a herd of heritage cattle.

Galloway, an ancient region in an obscure corner of Scotland, has a proud and unique heritage based on hardy cattle and wide moors. But as the twentieth century progressed, the people of Galloway deserted the land and the moors are transforming into a vast commercial forest.
 
Desperate to connect with his native land, Patrick Laurie plunges into work on his family farm. Investing in the oldest and most traditional breeds of Galloway cattle, he begins to discover how cows—and the special care that this breed requires—once shaped people, places, and nature in this remote and half-hidden place. As the cattle begin to dictate the pattern of his life, Laurie stumbles upon another loss; the new forests have driven the catastrophic decline of the much-loved curlew, a bird that features strongly in Galloway's consciousness. The links between people, cattle, and wild birds become a central theme as Laurie begins to face the reality of life in a vanishing landscape. Exploring the delicate balance between farming and conservation while recounting an extraordinarily powerful personal story, Galloway delves into the relationship between people and places under pressure in the modern world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781640095014
Publisher:	Catapult
Publication date:	11/16/2021
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Patrick Laurie was born and brought up in Galloway. After gaining a Master of Arts degree in Scottish Language and Literature at the University of Glasgow, he moved to the Isle of Harris to work on hebridean fishing boats. Since 2010, he has balanced freelance journalism with farming and conservation projects in Galloway and the northern part of the UK.

Table of Contents

Maps xii

Introduction Nick Offerman xv

Beginnings 1

Granite 21

Hills 43

Whaup 63

Grass 83

Crop 105

Calves 125

Hay 145

Bull 165

Harvest 185

Mart 205

Endings 225

Acknowledgements 245

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/23/2021

Journalist Laurie shines in his debut, a heartstring-tugging and beautifully written account of farming in his ancestral home of Galloway, an obscure region in Scotland that had once been an independent kingdom. Blending arch humor (“Tourism operators say we are ‘Scotland’s best-kept secret,’ and tourists support that claim by ignoring us”) with evocative prose, Laurie shares stories of his experience raising a rare breed of cattle native to the region on his family’s farm, in an attempt to commune with the land his forefathers worked, a place that’s “been overlooked so long that we have fallen off the map.” To give a better, if disheartening, sense of the ways in which the region’s rich history has changed, he looks at the fate of Galloway’s curlews: birds that belong to the sandpiper family that nest in the local fields. The curlews had been an integral part of Laurie’s childhood, their call, a “grasping, bellyroll of belonging in the space between rough grass and tall skies.” Though they had once been ubiquitous, he writes, their population has declined dramatically, due to the recent destruction of their habitat by policymakers’ push for commercial forests in the area. Like the bittersweet cry of the curlew, Laurie’s lyrical tribute will be hard to forget. Agent: Jenny Brown, Jenny Brown Assoc. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"A quixotic tale of determination, endurance and wonder . . . His descriptions of these venerable contraptions are thrilling to read . . . This is a beautifully written, passionate memoir . . . one lived in intimacy with the weather (generally horrible), in touch with the sky and earth and its creatures, domesticated and wild." —Katherine A. Powers, StarTribune (Minneapolis)

"A rare breed of a book . . . to be greatly treasured." —The Daily Mail

"So remarkable, and so profoundly enjoyable to read . . . it seems as though the Galloway land itself, on which his family has lived for centuries, is breathing and speaking through him, sometimes driving his prose to extraordinary heights and depths of rich, sweet lyricism. " —The Scotsman

"Laurie’s narrative is a celebration of farming and the rural life, hard as it may be . . . A lyrical, keenly observed addition to the top shelf of British nature writing." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Journalist Laurie shines in his debut, a heartstring-tugging and beautifully written account of farming in his ancestral home of Galloway . . . Blending arch humor with evocative prose, Laurie shares stories of his experience raising a rare breed of cattle native to the region on his family’s farm, in an attempt to commune with the land his forefathers worked . . . Like the bittersweet cry of the curlew, Laurie’s lyrical tribute will be hard to forget." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This very contemporary account, taking place as it does in the midst of numerous environmental tipping points, is a crucial reminder that tending to the world right in front of us is maybe the best thing we can do.” —Literary Hub, Best Books of the Year

"Laurie writes lyrically about his small herd of Riggit cattle and his crops, their successful growth contrasted with his and his wife's fertility struggles . . . The account brims with beautiful details of farm life, complemented perfectly by Sharon Tingey's penciled illustrations. Narrated in Laurie’s Scottish voice, this paean to simpler times is reminiscent of James Herriot's writings about Yorkshire and well worth a read." —Booklist

"How do we find our truest selves? Patrick Laurie’s answer has been to meld back into the landscape that had formed him, returning to his heart's home; and then endeavoring to revive a working landscape, its wild things, and his soul. He tells the story of this journey in prose that will take you there. Join him on this walk." —Carl Safina, author of Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace

From the Publisher

12/17/2021

Journalist Laurie relates a decade of experience raising native cattle in Galloway, Scotland. With his wife, he returns to a small farm in his hometown and chooses to plant a constant rotation of multiple crops in response to more popular and profitable single-species forest plantations. It is here that he raises a small herd of Riggit Galloway cows, an ancient breed long overlooked by breeders focusing on fast-growing animals. This demanding work leaves permanent marks on Laurie's skin, alters his sense of sound, and changes the way he sees landscapes. He has a new vantage point in the continuing local disputes between farmers and foresters. In an area famous for its geology, he examines farming traditions and the role of folklore in passing down knowledge. As an illustrative example, Laurie uses curlews, birds who rely on tall grasses once common in the Galloway hills and are preyed upon by foxes—how does one balance the needs of curlew, fox, and farmer? Nick Offerman, who visited Laurie to see how a family farm supports sustainable agriculture, writes the introduction. VERDICT Travel and natural history readers will appreciate this personal story that illustrates the connections between farming, communities, and wildlife.—Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.

Library Journal

★ 2021-09-15
A Scottish farmer paints an intimate portrait of his home turf.

“I’m too late to know the old world, and too early to forget it,” writes Laurie. “I’m stuck in the middle and I’m scarred by the loss of wide places and lonely, calling birds.” Galloway, a small region of southwestern Scotland that ends in the Solway Firth, was once a region of grass and rock, lately covered up with commercial tree farms. That forestation has had material effects on two of Laurie’s prime subjects: It has ruined the grassy habitat of the curlew, a migratory shorebird, and it has deprived the ancient Riggits breed of cattle, “prized for their ability to graze on rough forage and then transform those thistles into high-quality meat.” Readers will learn just about all there is to know about both animals in the course of this appealing chronicle, organized to follow a farmer’s year, with month-by-month chapters and a lagniappe to honor the summer solstice. The education parallels Laurie’s own: He learns by doing and by talking to the fast-disappearing old-timers, their crofts turned into retirement cottages for wealthy people from south of the border. Some of what he learns turns out to be invaluable, some not quite so much, as when an old gamekeeper swears by the presence of a phantom: “Craigie herons aren’t magical or special beyond the realm of other birds; they just don’t exist.” Laurie’s narrative is a celebration of farming and the rural life, hard as it may be. “Owning and working land is no automatic joy,” he writes. “There’s no escape from undone chores and the smell of shit on your boots.” More than anything else, the book is also a requiem, as when Laurie laments that “things collapse at such a rate that soon we’ll look back on all the names we had for birds and wonder why we ever needed them.”

A lyrical, keenly observed addition to the top shelf of British nature writing.

Kirkus Reviews