A trip to the sales

Always nice to have a day out together, and yesterday we headed off to catch the 8.40am ferry to Oban as we had some serious shopping to do.

It was the day of the annual Tup Sale at Oban Livestock Market, just out of Oban on the road to Kilmartin.  In days gone by before Tescos, before William Lows, Oban Market was at Lochavullin and there were so many tups for sale in the one day that there were 2 rings on the go at any one time both selling single tups pot by lot.   Ironically yesterday the site of the old mart, the Tescos car park, was waist deep in water, due to biblical amounts of rain over the previous few days!

Our journey started unexpectedly when the back axle of the truck went, a few miles out of Salen.  Luckily we had left enough time and were able to limp, very slowly, to just the other side of Salen where we knew we could leave it, and arrange for the insurance recovery to pick it up and take it to Tobermory.  We were able to contact J who was also on his way to the ferry and he kindly gave us a lift.

It was the first sunny day we had had and such a relief from the heavy rain of the last few days.  Farmer's new rain gauge (a Christmas present) showed that between 2pm on Monday and 1pm on Tuesday we had 60mm of rain!  Yuck!

The car deck was full of livestock trailers.  The cafeteria was busy with farmers having breakfast and catching up on the news.    I arranged breakdown recovery - and phoned to explain to the recovery driver what the story was.

Every year we need to buy new tups in order to ensure that the tups are not breeding with their daughters.  So there is a steady flow on and off the farm of new and old tups.    In the past we have bought from Lanark, from Fort William, from Dingwall and privately from other farms on Mull.  This is the first time we have been to the tup sale in Oban.

It was initially disappointing to see there were only about 50 Blackface tups in the catalogue.   The atmosphere at a tup sale is quite different from a ewe or lamb sale.  For a start the numbers of sheep is far smaller at a tup sale.  The number of buyers at a tup sale is obviously much higher as individual farmers and crofters all need new tups.  So whilst there may not be a huge number of sheep in the pens it is lively and sociable.  You end up seeing other island and Argyll farmers you may only see once a year.

Farmer managed to bid on 2 Blackface tups and was pleased with the prices.   On to the Cheviots and he was hoping to get 3 or 4.  He had an idea of which farms he wanted to get them from, and all you can then do is hope the prices don't go over our budget.   Armed with a note of the lot numbers he was interested in Farmer started to bid.  By the end of it he thought he had bought 4 Cheviots and happily went off to pay for them.  In the office he was told he had only bought 3.   He paid for them and once our tups were loaded into our neighbours trailer we headed down to the ferry.

Just as we arrived at the pier J whose tup we thought we had bought got a call from the mart saying that V Carrington hadn't taken his tup - or paid for it!  For some reason it transpires that V Carrington is Farmer!  So there we were, in the middle of the queue to load on the ferry, being told we had one more tup...  In the end they told him they would deliver it to Mull tomorrow in a lorry that was coming over to collect calves.  Phew! Though collecting it without the truck would be interesting!! We would just have to worry about that later.

All that sorted, it was wonderfully sunny and we sat in the warm late afternoon sun having a coffee from the wonderful Food from Argyll Cafe on the pier.

Our neighbour kindly delivered us and our new tups to the door, just in time for a stunning sunset.   Later on we went to supper in Toechtamhor and were treated to a fantastic aurora.  It was interesting standing outside with everyone sharing the colours they were seeing.  I realised that my eyes really don't pick up the colours very well compared to some people.  Perhaps that is why I love using the camera so much.   I could see the green but not the pinks and reds or blues that others could see.

Farming dilemmas

A mixed week weather wise. Today is cloudy and gales are forecast.  The branches on the trees around the house are bending away from themselves, with their leaves turned outwards.  I expect the garden to be littered with fallen leaves tomorrow!

The hill is looking autumnal, with this sheltered Rowan tree dripping with berries.  The heather is going over and the bracken has turned reddish brown.   The grasses are tinged with reds and oranges now too on the boggier bits of the hill.

The lambs are sold.  Farmer was disappointed, but actually I dont think he did too badly considering. Certainly not our best sale, but not our worst either.  You can have expectations, and you can have hopes - they can trip you up when the reality is less than both.

Over the last few years we have become aware of the price difference between Cheviot and Blackface lambs straight off the hill.  It seems that the buyers won't want to pay a lot for Blackface lambs and if you were to add up the difference in lamb sale prices between the two, you might wonder why on earth we were still breeding Blackface.  Someone told us that the buyers like buying Blackface lambs as the prices are much lower and they can make more money on them.   That is pretty depressing if you are a breeder of Blackface sheep.

So why on earth do we still keep them?  We have Cheviots on the in-by fields and like them, they are relatively trouble free and easy to deal with, though heavy on Farmer's bad back in the fank and at lambing time.  It is an ongoing conversation in the farmhouse kitchen at the moment, going over advice we were given when we first starting farming here, advice we have been given more recently, thinking about all the pros and cons.  Watch this space!

The last gather brought in 13 'roughies' off the hill.  J very kindly sheared them for us last weekend. 

One evening we took off with our bicycles and went to the 'Secret village'.  We are happy to tell you where this is when you are here, but I won't write its location online!

The hens and turkeys are all happy when the sun is shining.

The misty low clouds give Gribun added drama on a damp day when we went off down to Iona for the day. We wanted to show a house guest the Abbey before she goes home tomorrow.  Disappointingly it wasn't sunny so she didn't have that magical glowing turquoise experience crossing on the ferry, but it was still very lovely - as always.   I hadn't been inside the Abbey for a few years and the newly renovated Museum was really good. 

We watched the comings and goings of cruise boat passengers being ferried back to their ship and the Iona Seafood fisherman landing his crabs, while we waited for the ferry to come back. 

This years lambs go.

It has been a beautiful day, fresh and warm, with wonderful blue skies at times and gentle soft autumn light softened by light spitty clouds. The fields around the steadings are full of sheep. Each field with a different group. Alot of bleating as the newly weaned ewe lambs are calling for their mothers and some mothers call back. Those with the strongest bonds walk each side of the fence. Most of them, though, concentrate on fresh grass and learning the new flock order.

At certain times of the sheep year, strange things happen (!) - sheep change name and become something other than what they were.

When the main draw of lambs are sold, for example, as ours were this week, the ewe lambs we keep back for breeding stop being lambs and become Hoggs as soon as those lambs are sold.

When these Hoggs are first shorn at just over a year old they become Gimmers.

The Gimmers then become Ewes after they have had their first lambs.

It gets more complex with the Tups (males), and half the time I m not sure who is who is what. (A Tup is what the English call a Ram) And they can be Wedders, Shearlings, a 1 Shear, 2 Shear and so on.

Tonight, with our lambs sold, the field of ewe lambs is now a field of Hoggs. And very noisy some of them.

During the first 5 months of their lives the Hoggs have instinctively learnt the lie of the land from their mothers out on the hill. This means that they are 'hefted' to Treshnish.

Hefting is the knowledge and sense of the place where the animals are born. They learn from their mothers where to find water, shelter, shade, the sweetest grazings. And when they return to the hill next spring they will make use of that knowledge and a year on will pass on the same knowledge to their own lambs. (You could not easily introduce 'foreign' sheep to an open hill like this - with 4 miles of dramatic unfenced coastline and lots of cliff edges, unhefted sheep would not know how to get around, and gathering would be a nightmare).

But for now the Hoggs will stay together for the rest of the year until the spring. They will be taught how to 'feed'. Eating delicious supplementary food (such as 'sheep nuts' or hay) does not come naturally to sheep and so it is necessary to teach them so that in later life if you bring them in for lambing you can supplement their diet accordingly.

The ewes go back to the hill now and will recover their body condition before the winter now that their lambs are not taking milk from them any more.

The next time the ewes will come through the fank is when they come into the in-bye fields to meet the Tups.

It is now dark outside - the evening is quiet. Lights shining warmly from the Treshnish holiday cottage windows, scent of woodsmoke in the air. Bleating and baa-ing from the fields beginning to quieten down. Mixed feelings seeing the lambs go but excitement too as a new season begins.