After a pretty wet summer September has given us some warmth and lovely dry days.
September is a busy month on the farm. Long days in the fank sorting lambs in preparation for the weekly or fortnightly trips to market in Oban. Early starts loading lambs into the livestock trailer, setting off in the almost dark to catch the ferry, along with dozens of other farmers and crofters heading in the same direction, with the same goal. With each journey back from Oban the fields are emptier and the transition to the winter slowly begins.
The latest farm biodiversity contract we have with the Scottish Government started this spring, and allows us to make silage any time after the 1st of August.
Over the last few years we have noticed that the fields seem to be more fertile than they were a few years in to managing the grazing. We have realised that we were almost being too protective of the fields, and the late cut silage we have made for decades has been quietly increasing the fertility of the grazing. The other change is that by cutting so late in the summer we seem to be encouraging plants like Meadowsweet and Knapweed, which flower later on - the early summer flowers are being throttled by the secondary flush of grass growth.
Being able to make silage in August rather than September, was, we hoped, going to allow the early flowering plants to successfully set seed, before the usual flush of late summer grass growth. However the weather in August did not give us the chance to find out if this was going to make a difference! After a very wet month we finally made silage in the Haunn field on the 31st August. It will be another year before we see if it makes any difference.
Still days, warm air and sea haar.
Clear sky nights with wonderful Aurora visible with the naked eye.
At the end of September our last guests of the season stayed in the Shepherd's Hut. It is closed now, water turned off and the bath put away until the spring.
