Saturday 3 March 2012

The sun shone a second day.


I was working at Haunn today. #haunntherapy I call it. It is only a mile from the farm but it feels like a world away, and it was lovely to be down there getting cottages ready for incoming guests.

We have had a 4 seasons in a day day today. Started with rain, sunshine, more showers, gales, wild seas, more sun, warm out of the wind, hail storm tonight before clear skies, moonlight and brilliant moonlit cloud. I decided to use the sun to test out the new camera again.


Middle Cottage all ready. Fire laid, log basket full. Sun streaming in the large velux.


Ewes graze on the hill side of the deer fence that separates the in-bye and hill - beyond the Haunn Cottages. One of the gates blew open in an early winter gale, and some deer got in. We still have not got them out!


When we renovated the Haunn Cottages in the late 90's, we repointed the walls but no one ever did around the wall bases. Last week, however, we finally got that job completed. (Better late than never.)


This is our first brown calf this year - born earlier today. It's grandmother will have been a shorthorn x highlander from Torloisk. All the other calves so far are black.


I have photographed this bank to show how important it is to get the sheep to nibble the summer grass right down. Later in the year this will have lots of bird's foot trefoil, wood sage, harebell on it.


Farmer had to shovel today. The new drum chipper makes a very even chip, but it doesn't flow as easily as the old chip. It sits more densely in the chip store. So every few days we have to shovel as the auger cannot shift it, and a big hole appears in the middle of the store. It is not recommended to let the supply of chip up the auger run out as you can damage the boiler. Our boiler is nearly 3 years old.