|
The common practice for other Orkney women living nearby was to help with an expectant mother's household chores when the moment was due; and with one lady being recognized as midwife, they assisted in delivery of the new baby. In her marriage's fifth year, ROBERT TAYLOR's wife was again "on the straw" and likely received kind-hearted neighborly treatment while "lying-in" for at least a third time. Already mother of James and Robert, "BARBAY" gave birth to yet another son on Sunday, March 5, 1826, near the sea of Scapa Flow in the community of Orphir, nearly eight miles southwest of Kirkwall. A tiny babe took first breath and the umbilical cord was severed. The size of "ROBBIE" TAYLOR's family had increased to five, obliging him to work even harder to keep them in beans and jeans. While each succeeding day of April, 1826, carried progressively longer hours of daylight, farm labor all around Orphir parish accelerated into full swing. Drovers herded their "kine" up to the commons where the cattle intermixed with stock of other farmers for grazing upon the grassy hills until autumn. The back-breaking work of peat-cutting was initiated in April and would last throughout the warm elongated days of summer. Orcadian potatoes were planted in mid-April to be harvested with a delving spade in October. The latter part of April signaled the beginning of yearly lambing activities. The entire month of April was always a very busy time on the typical Orkney farm. Repeating the traditional routine performed for his brothers, on April 16, the TAYLORS lifted their six-week-old "peedie bairn" from his crib for a Sunday christening recorded beyond the fields and over at the Orphir parish church near the sea. On Orkney beaches, the 1826 kelp-harvest started in May, and the saltwater vegetation was used in grain fields as manure for fertilizing the developing crops. The valued seaweed also went to feed hungry sheep grazing on the shores, with the woolly animals picking it for themselves right out of the ebbing waters. And down by a conducive warmer seaside, cabbage had survived through the previous winter months in a "plantie-crue," a garden nursery bed. During the month of May, those maturing cabbage seedlings were transplanted to a kailyard. Little baby JOHN was growing at the tender age of two months when May planting-time came to Orphir parish in the year of 1826. But the concurrent crops would not attain any similar increase because Orkney farmers failed to get the needed rain which they were expecting during the following months. The stems of the under-developed barley were too short for cutting during that unusually dry year, therefore the stunted plants were pulled out of the ground in early August. Five months after the sparse harvest, the infant JOHN's 67-year-old grandmother passed away on Sunday, January 21, 1827. ROBERT's mother had been a widow for little more than a year since the death of his father, MAGNUS. CATHERINE (GARRIOCK) TAYLOR had virtually spent her entire life in Orphir parish. Soon little JOHN's curiosity focused upon the surroundings of his rural Norwegian-style Orphir home, a structure possibly having no windows to reveal the world into which he was born. His family's utterances and sounds of the regular activities inside the house were first to catch his attention. From outside came the bellowing of cattle and honking of geese. On summer's late evenings, insects could improvise an erratic outdoor background chorus, while a long-eared owl might contribute its low moaning hoot to an eerie night. Sometimes the rapidly following daybreak aroused early morning music from chirping songbirds in the marshes. And always to be heard, day and night, were the consistent sounds of the ocean nearby. Cries of seagulls carried sharply through the island air, and the pooch population barked while horses and sheep sporadically initiated their own unique vocal exchanges somewhere off in the distance. Occasionally, there was the boom and crash of a springtime thunderstorm mixed with rain patter, while the wind interacted with their thatched roof to produce murmurs and whistling. The toddler learned to maneuver about the house in succeeding months, and combined his perceptive senses to witness the newly-discovered facets of life in old Orkney. |
| Copyright © 2000 Dick Taylor All Rights Reserved |