Beasts and Violins

Farming in County Sligo, County Leitrim

66 Farming in County Sligo, County Leitrim The boss handed me a blowtorch to change a trailer tire, said “Use this until I can find a rig to rent.” The lugs were all rust-blistered and the spare wasn’t around, and we wouldn’t have had the problem if he’d only released the brake. There was a hole the size of my fist where the tire had been dragged, and there was rain collected in my hood, so when I thought to bring it up, I doused myself with water. The fees were already paid, and the cattle ready to go, and the mart had already started, but it had snowed overnight, and we shouldn’t have been driving anyway. We rented a second rig for way too many euros, and the guy who drove it tapped me with his cane every time he laughed. The cows were loaded up, but we were late to Drumshanbo, and when we shoved them out urine splattered our legs. Some of the paperwork was missing, so we couldn’t sell the calf, so we couldn’t sell the mother either. And we didn’t get much for the old one or the bull, but in the stands I swear I saw a man eating a chocolate bar despite the stink. The auctioneer made the cattle nervous when they were shot into the pen, 67 and twice the handler nearly got crushed before he slipped into the guard. But he kept whacking them with his switch and letting the next one through, and hands kept going up, so I was chicken to scratch my head. That night I took out the English girl again, but she wouldn’t come inside, and we talked in her tiny car until I wished I’d been castrated. The Lake Isle of Innisfree was just a tuft of grass, and Doony just a rock, and that damn Alsatian snarled at me every time I went near the house. So I took another bath in the out-building with a rag in the sink. ...