... what makes Laurie’s book so remarkable, and so profoundly enjoyable to read, is that for him, many of these decisions seem almost instinctive. He follows his heart, in choosing his patch of land, the breed of cattle he loves, and the presence of curlews as a measure of the health of the landscape; and often, 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. At some moments it’s hard not to think of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s heroine Chris Guthrie in Sunset Song; and his extraordinary power to conjure up in words her passionate love for the land of the Mearns, and its old farming ways ... weaves into those chapters not only a practical account of the working of the farm, and those extraordinary moments of poetry and communion, but also much reflection on the history of a region that Laurie describes as 'forgotten,' and also the story of the profound personal sadness of childlessness, as experienced by Laurie and his wife in a farming life built around cycles of successful breeding. For all that, the book sometimes seems just a shade repetitive, as if it could have made its mark even more powerfully at a slightly shorter length ... Yet its importance is huge, setting down a vital marker in the 21st century debate about how we use and abuse the land. It reflects both the hardness and the joy of a life that nurtures the land for the long term, rather than simply raping it for profit; it warns us that even the best-intentioned policies, determined by faraway governments, can do great damage if they ignore the hard-won knowledge of past generations.

This is a book about a place you will probably have never visited and never will: but you should read it nonetheless because what it says has a wider importance, about some of what we have got wrong in the way we respect nature and farming and what we might get right if we change our ways ... At a time of lockdown it is also that most valuable of things, an escape to an open land where curlew still cry and the wind and rain cut in from the sea and city life feels a million miles away ... Laurie has the deep love of a place that’s at the heart of explaining it to others. There’s a certain sort of landscape writing that delights in antique mysticism: as if remoteness and spirituality are the same thing. This book is far better than that. It confronts the loss of open hills to sterile conifer plantations, which make nobody local rich but have obliterated a way of life and the nesting grounds of curlew, a bird which merits the obsession Laurie has for it.

Whether handling his kye or repairing the farm’s one-gear tractor, Laurie has an authentic ability to balance the pains and joys of small farming ... The great strength of Galloway is that it allows a touch of sentiment back in. Laurie works a remarkable balancing act. The blackened fingernail, bruised by bustling cattle, presses down on a key as richly ambiguous as the curlew’s cry.

Laurie has a descriptive talent, finding beauty and meaning in whatever he surveys ... an unflinching account of what it takes to turn into a farmer, bearing callouses, bruises and scars. .. There is a propulsive energy that carries it across pages where his lyricism or introspection threaten to bog him down. Favourite words are frequently over-used (drooling, dribbling) and for a writer with an innate sense of rhythm, a few sentences jar ... Frankly and confidingly written, it is so obviously a labour of love it inspires awe for Laurie’s heroic dedication. Few could fail to be impressed by his resolve to bring some kind of ecological balance back to his few acres, at considerable personal cost ... His attempt to reclaim some of that older and better way is moving as well as inspirational.

His descriptions of these [farm] venerable contraptions are thrilling to read and include a stirring paean to a baler, the Hayliner ... This is a beautifully written, passionate memoir, its pages pungent with words that summon a past way of life...one lived in intimacy with the weather (generally horrible), in touch with the sky and earth and its creatures, domesticated and wild. When, approaching book's end, Laurie sells his first Galloway after five years of nothing but outlay, we rejoice with him.

[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. Organized around a calendar year, 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.

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 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' ... Like the bittersweet cry of the curlew, Laurie’s lyrical tribute will be hard to forget.

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 ... Laurie’s narrative is a celebration of farming and the rural life, hard as it may be ... More than anything else, the book is also a requiem ... A lyrical, keenly observed addition to the top shelf of British nature writing.