Uprising and into the unknown….oh and some veg too!

Ashamedly I see that it has indeed been WEEKS since I last posted……..this would not be for having a lack of things to say, however we have been extremely busy. I sometimes think we should have a PC and a non PC blog going……..perhaps I’ll tackle that one later on in the year!

So Keith finished making all the silage and got it all stacked, and now we are waging war with the little birds on the Estate that think it is good to peck holes in the black plastic – today we will be spraying big white eyes onto the plastic to try and deter them – it does seem to work. The problem being if the bales are punctured, the silage goes off and rots……..action required! There were 250 odd bales in the end, enough to feed the cows and sheep over the winter.

We’ve been harvesting and eating and selling our carrots and potatoes, and considering our lack of weeding, the field has again produced a bumper crop. There is definitely something deeply satisfying about harvesting and producing, it connects one back to the earth.

(sorry about having to tilt your head to see pics – haven’t figured out how to rotate in this program!)

For the last few years we have been trying to lease more ground on which to house our increasing menagerie, and expand our business. Now a neighbour wisely reminded me the other day of an old gaelic saying ‘slippery is the doorstep to the big house’, however, I feel we can pretty much safely say now that it looks like all the hard work and persistence is going to pay off, and we should be getting the lease on some more ground to farm in November. So this for us is a huge step into the unknown – rather than being smallholders, we will be taking the giant leap into becoming farmers – it is both exciting and terrifying at the same time! And it will be the first steps towards achieving our dream of farming native breeds sustainably on a large scale…..and making it work. As I mentioned it has been a very long road to this point, and the beaurocracy encountered has been, at times, thoroughly frustrating and beyond belief! Being a musically driven individual, I often adopt anthems to forge through problems, and the anthem of the moment is Muse’s Uprising….it has been inspiring!

Cailin, our highland bull, has wonderfully fulfilled his job as our stock bull for the last 3 years, and it is now time for him to be prepared for sale. He will be being sold at the Highland Cattle Sale in Oban in October, and is currently in the field next to the house getting some tlc before going off to sale. He is an amazing gentle giant (although slightly intimidating when standing on one’s front lawn!).

Our lawn mower is broke, so Keith thought Cailin might enjoy eating down the grass before the winter sets in! He’s been an amazingly productive and manageable bull, and it will be sad to see him go, but it is time for him to have some new girls to look after.

So the rest of this week Keith will be selling the Estate lambs, and I will be catching up on all that paper work building up on my office desk! It’s coming to the end of the farming cycle, and hopefully the next one will bring exciting changes and new adventures!

Rain and Harvest

Not for some time do I remember an August where it has rained quite so much…..but that is the way of it! Keith has been flat out this past week harvesting the grass crops and bailing it into silage (kind of like fermented wet hay, which the animals like quite alot during the winter). Despite the rain, the bailer breaking and the mower breaking (what is it about machines?!*), it is nearly all bailed and wrapped, and is ready for stacking.

Quite a crop really! The flowers are all out in the garden too and going mad with the rain and warmth…..

We’ve started to harvest the carrots and other veg too. I love this time of year when we can sit down to an entirely home produced meal…….it does give a great sense of satisfaction 🙂 I think it is brilliant that more and more people are using small areas of ground to grow their own veg etc in more built up areas – we should all be doing it! Even if it means only one or two home grown meals, the satisfaction and sense of well being that comes with this is worth it!

I remember vividly as a child wanting to plant vegies in my mum’s garden, and never being allowed to…..I also wanted a menagerie of animals and frequently tried to turn up home with birds, ducks and anything that squawked, barked or meowed……they conceded on some fronts, but it wasn’t until I moved here and we started farming ourselves that the desire was satisfied! Those who know me know that I am the most rubbish gardener ever…….and weeding is my most least favorite thing to do…..but despite that fact, we have still managed to produce beautiful flowers and great food – rubbish gardeners everywhere be encouraged!

So September and October should provide many fruits of our labour, the jobs for this time also include getting things prepared for the winter, as it seems to land on us soon after the leaves start to turn! Tristan’s head is healing nicely, hopefully the scar won’t be too bad – but then it is one of those things with little boys isn’t it!

Smart Sheep??

I was most amused the other morning to look out the window and see the following….

As you can see, it was tipping down….as it has most of the week, and the hogs have taken to standing under the trampoline, and on the law of averages, it would seem that the usually less than smart sheep were exhibiting some form of creative thinking…..all except the one at the front, who kind of missed the point of the purpose for gathering there!

We’re getting ready for the kids going back to school next week – I can’t believe the hols have passed so quickly! And largely without trauma – except for Tristan’s stunt a week ago…….4 stitches later, Tristan is starting t0 understand that James Bond style stunts should not be performed on one’s pushbike, and further, James Bond is probably a fraud!

He got the stitches out on Friday, and all being well has learnt his lesson about how fragile one’s head can actually be. For my part, although I dealt with it all most efficiently  at the time, I then proceeded to have two completely jelly days suffering from what I think must have been trauma.

Happy Days!

Dunvegan Show and Puppy Visitors

July is always busy :), and so it has been! We get to the end of a month and wonder where on earth the time has gone! July/August in the Highlands is agricultural show time, as well as peak tourist season, and school holidays……….Jess asked me the other day why I was so happy that day – I didn’t think she would understand if I told her it was mild hysteria! So I just smiled and nodded and said it was a good day.

Two weeks ago we processed one of our Highland Steers (nearly 3 year old) and made burgers to have a BBQ at Dunvegan Show – our local agricultural show – so last weekend we set up our stall and BBQ at the show and cooked Orbost Highland Beef Burgers! It was a great day, and we’d sold out by 3:30pm, in time to sit in the sun and watch the highland games of hammer throwing, shotput and tug-o-war.

Keith also caught up with Monty Halls last week as he gets started on his next Highland adventure in the Outer Hebrides. It’s a winter project, and should show the other side to crofting and living on the West Coast…….when the sun isn’t always shining!!!

On a completely different track, Keith went to give blood a month or so ago, and his blood type card came through yesterday. It turns out he has quite a rare blood type that evolved with nomadic farmers who domesticated wild breeds of sheep and goats for herding………we thought this was fitting! My blood type on the other hand heralds from foragers and organised community based ancestors…..I find it all totally fascinating! My brother gave me a book a while ago about eating the right foods for you blood type, and I certainly think there is something in it…..the only problem being that it now seems we have 3 different blood types living in the house – three different types of foods!!!

Not so little Misty is 8 months old now, and she is still as beautiful as ever! She is properly working the sheep now, and has the instinct and temperament to be a wonderful sheep dog. Her sister Tess has come to stay for a few days, and the two of them are as thick as thieves! They were running about the garden in the rain earlier creating mischief, and I have now confined them to the house where they are sleeping side by side.

Except for their colouring, it is amazing how similar they are! Kind of like odd coloured twins. The addition has added nicely to the chaos of our house, but everyone’s happy, and this is what is important!

Shearing, Fishing and Another Cake

We are rapidly hurtling towards summer holidays, with the kids breaking up from school this week……..where has this year gone?? Our fridges and freezers are virtually empty, so it’s time to start processing again, and I will be spending the bulk of this month putting together a proposal for leasing some more ground. Keith sheared the hogs last week in sweltering weather, and they made an executive decision yesterday when the mercury topped 30C that shearing the ewes was just not going to be an option! Keith shears with our friend Alistair who has a very nifty shearing trailer, complete with cartoon artwork!

Shearing is such a skilled job – to watch the boys at it you would think it was easy – shearing a sheep in just over a minute, but really it is a combination of fancy footwork, intricate clipping and plain old brute strength!

On Father’s day we went fishing with Keith’s dad, Eddy, and we all managed to get a fish…….of course Keith’s being the biggest and the best!!

And finally it was Jess’s birthday last week, and true to form Keith made and decorated a beautiful cake for his favorite girl! Jess also did a talent show with the school this week – she sang Tomorrow from Annie, and practised it really hard – and she won! We are so proud of her!

PEA – BABIES YAY!!!

Just a quick post to say we’re now the very proud carers for 4 little pea-chicks – three girls and a boy. The Peahen cleverly has had them in a very over grown and sheltered area, and they all seem to be doing really well. The peacock has pretty much stayed out the way, and is spending his days being admired by walkers and visitors to Orbost – he does the looking beautiful thing very well! My misplaced camera was discovered in one of Keith’s coat pockets…hmmmmm….but glad to have it back!  So here is our first pics of the pea babies…..more to come as they grow 🙂

you can't see me!

Mid summer, flat out and chasing tails

First of all – a huge apology for the delay in posting recently……no excuse except that old farming saying ‘ make hay while the sun shines’……not that we are making hay yet, but we have been busy with planting veg, processing, selling, tending to fields and today we sheared the Estate tups. The sun has been shining – it is lovely, but we are now at the point of ‘please rain!!!’ just for a day – we’ve planted carrots, turnips, radishes, pumpkins etc in one of the fields the pigs had turned over for us – and now they really need some rain to boost the initial growth phase.

The thing about living on Skye (or anywhere in the north of the country really) is that the planting and growing season is so short. Best to plant mid to late May as before then there is still a significant risk of snow, and harvest time is usually September at the latest. With mid summer arriving next weekend, it is a stark reminder that the wheels just keep-on-a-turning whatever it is we are doing, and most of the time we feel we are chasing our tails (oh for being able to afford employees!).

So picking up from the last post, we processed our pigs, sheep and venison and promptly had sold it all within two weeks. Since then, we’ve been tending fields, marking lambs, and all of the aforementioned. In between times there have been a few moments in which to draw breath, and appreciate the beautiful place that we live. Yesterday we had 150 + dolphins visit the bay below the holding – they are magical to watch…..one of these days I will get brave enough to face the cold water and go swimming with them!

Last week I was privileged enough to accompany the RSPB on their ringing mission of this year’s sea eagle chicks. Some of you may have seen the reports more recently about lamb and sheep predation by sea eagles. It is an area of great sensitivity between hill farmers and wildlife organizations. There is a serious problem on the west coast of Scotland hill farms with predation of hill flocks, and it is significantly contributing to the decline in the highland sheep population. We would like to see a solution workable for all concerned, most of all for the eagles, who were re-introduced into an environment where the ecology could not sustain the sheer numbers being released. They are magnificent birds, and we wouldn’t be without them on our Estate, however we believe that the evidence and scale of livestock predation points towards a catastrophic end if a balance cannot be found. If the hill sheep farmers are driven out of farming the hills because predation has made the flocks unsustainable, then the eagles will leave…or worse still, starve.

Politics aside, going to the nest site and seeing the chick was amazing. The parents have a very clever system in place where they have lined their nest with clumps of sheepswool and they have a mini composting system going with maggots and grass to quickly and efficiently decompose the prey remains. Sounds pretty foul I know, but actually appears very efficient as it provides warmth for the nest. I was concerned that the parent eagles might  have a shot at us while the chick was being ringed, but I was assured that they would keep their distance, and they did. The mother flew around above us tutting, and the father sat in a tree across the glen watching intently. The prey remains collected from the nest consisted of gannets and 5 lambs (and thousands of maggots….yes it was gutwrenching!). A once in a lifetime experience though, and I feel very fortunate to have been involved.

Apologies for no pics this post, but I have (hopefully) temporarily mislaid my camera – it is one of those very annoying things! As soon as I find it I will take some snaps of the veggie field.

The Cycle Continues

You can’t get away from the reality that we have our massive menagerie mainly for the purpose of producing lovely meat products, and as lambing draws to a close, the processing cycle continues. Keith set off to Dingwall abattoir on Monday morning at 5am with 5 two year old soay wedders and 3 fourteen month old iron age pigs. At the moment we have no option but to take our animals to Dingwall – there is a massive shortage of abattoirs in the highlands, and Dingwall is our nearest – we are, however, trying to address this problem at present, so watch this space. We believe the solution for remote and highland regions lies in the development of small scale on farm slaughter facilities, and this is what we are pursuing. In the mean time, we will be getting the carcasses back from Dingwall, whole, on Thursday, and will be processing into roasts, sausages, bacon, ham and mutton over the weekend – ready for distribution early next week and gathering hall market in Portree the following Friday. In between times, we are moving the animals around to their summer grazing areas, and we’ll be sowing carrots and potatoes in our field where the pigs have been for the last few months. Our hay field is now shut off from grazing, and will be left to grow until late August when we will cut it for silage/hay/haylidge – all weather dependent!

We’ve still lots of lambs and some calves to keep a close eye on, and I’ve taken some video of the soay lambs at play in the field whilst their mothers were being fed. They are amazing little beings (and so cute too!) so inquisitive and very funny to watch at play racing up and down the banks.

Sigh of Relief, a pet lamb and a Creative Cake

This morning there seemed to be a sigh of relief from all the animals (and Keith too!) as the sun shone through after a week of ice cold rain and wind. The sheep looked happier, the lambs were venturing out, and the birds were singing. Keith’s  been in full swing lambing and calving for the past few weeks, and it is a very tiring time for him – 16 plus hour days and trying to make sure all the newborns have had a drink and are up on their feet. ( I am speaking mostly about the orbost farm cheviot and blackface sheep, as our own soays are pretty good at just getting on with it!).

The other day however, Keith was down doing the rounds and he found a soay lamb stumbling around the field with no mother in sight. It kept falling over and was perishingly cold. To Jess’s delight, he brought it home for some tlc and to try and figure out what was wrong with it. It fed from a bottle straight away, and warmed up next to the heater. When the lamb started moving around, she was stumbling and banging into things….it took a while to figure out, but it turns out she is blind/or partially blind. So we had a dilemma….. a blind sheep is really not much use in the fields or on the hills here, however I could not justify putting her down just because she is blind (I felt this sent a negative message to the kids). So Galaxy (named by Jess for her colour) is now the newest member of our household and living at present in the kitchen with Misty.

When Galaxy gets bigger and more independent we will move her out into the field behind the house. Sadly most pet lambs meet a disastrous end…..they haven’t been taught by their mothers not to eat that stone, or jump in that bog, or not to stick your head through that little hole, and as a result they do very stupid things to end their lives……Galaxy is going to have the added challenge of not being able to see well, but we will try our hardest to teach her well and make her life happy.

Something less well known about Keith is that he is an extremely creative person. I imagine that one of the reasons he produces such beautiful meat products is that he gets great satisfaction from crafting and creating from start to finish. When Keith left school he was tossing up either being a farmer or an artist. He doesn’t do much painting or sketching anymore as most of his time is taken up with the farm and meat business, BUT twice a year around Birthday times, Keith gets to be creative and decorate the kids birthday cakes – each year he comes up with something more fantastic than the last, and it is all taken VERY seriously!!! Last week it was Tristan’s 10th Birthday and he wanted a racing track and grand stand cake……. (and yes, they are hand crafted icing cars!!*!)

Creativity seems to run in the family, we got an email from our 9 year old niece in Australia, Madeline, the other day……she has been keeping up with the blog, and was very taken with Bud the budgie, so she decided to paint Bud during her holiday break. Well done Madeline – it’s a cracking picture and we love it!

The first calves and a cracking set of twins

The cows started calving two days ago, and we have two beautiful bull calves already. Keith went out to check the cows on first light yesterday morning, and fortunate he did so – he’s videoed the first steps of the white bull calf just after being born.

Keith tells me frequently that it is fortunate he became a farmer as every spring he gets to care for his sheep, cows and pigs while the babies are born – I think the implication is that were he not getting to have hands on with these babies, I would be expected to produce on a yearly basis! Let’s say we are both fortunate then! Here is a pic of the calf 12 hours after being born, and also the other calf that has been born. They quickly turn into little teddy bears 🙂

We are totally passionate about native breeds of animals – and there is good reason for this……they have instinct. When farming in a more remote area that has the pressures of high numbers of predators such as eagles and foxes, the native breed animals have an instinct that helps them avoid predation much more successfully than a commercially bred animal. It was amazing last night walking through the cows to see the calves – we appeared over the hill, and the white calf lay down still as soon as it saw us (it being white made it stand out like a sore thumb, but that is something instinct can’t determine!). The brown calf took some time to spot – it was tucked away in brash quietly while it’s mother was off feeding – it didn’t make a sound as Keith approached it, and infact did not move until its mother called on it. The Soay sheep are the same, they will hide their lambs, and the lambs will not move until they get the all clear from mum. It’s the kind of behaviour that demands instant respect…….it is primative, and makes us feel like they know alot more about survival than we ever could! The other benefit from native breeds as far as we are concerned is of course the quality of meat products that comes from their slow matured, natural life. But lets not go into that on a page that’s full of the joys of new birth and starting out – we’ll keep that for much further down the line!

The Soays are full swing into lambing now, we’re getting 4-6 new lambs every day. Last night we discovered a cracking set of twin lambs – big strong healthy and totally gorgeous! Jess tried to make out that one of them wasn’t very well…..but Keith and I know the underlying motivation – she is desperate to have a pet lamb! She had to settle for a cuddle.