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.

Changes afoot

Summer has definitely lost out to Autumn, which to my mind started early.  And today, there are only 2 Swallows left in the barn.  The others have already flown.   It feels very quiet around the farm yard without their graceful flight and calls.

So the lambs are all sold.  They went on a lorry last week to Oban with Farmer taking the extras along in the livestock trailer.   Some fetched a good price, others an abysmal one.  However, overall, we sold more lambs than last year, and brought home a larger cheque even though our average was down.  

What is slowly dawning on us is that we would be better off moving the hill flock towards Cheviot, rather than clinging on to Blackface, which none of the finishers seem to want.

We can both remember the farm advisor Donald saying to us when we were first at Treshnish (24 years ago!) that the hill would be too hard for Cheviots.  That has always been in the back of our minds whenever we have discussed the idea of changing - because it was the first advice we had had on the matter.  Since then several other people have assured us that Cheviots would do fine at Treshnish and indeed there were Cheviots here before there were Blackface.    Our neighbour on the Torloisk side has moved over to Cheviot and they seem to be fine!

So we will be buying additional Cheviot tups to put to 150 Blackface ewes.  That should give us about 50 cross ewe lambs to put on the hill in 2 years time!   You have to think ahead.

Heather on the Sitheans.

From Lainne Sgier rocks across Calgary Bay.

You get a good view of the road towards Treshnish from 100m up!

This is the forest near Langamull.  After felling, before replanting.

And a stunning view over the devastated land to Croig, Quinish and beyond.

Meadowsweets before they seed.

Silverweed turning.

Every few years we cut this Fuchsia back as it is growing into Middle Cottage walls!  It grows back very quickly.

An inquisitive calf.

There has been great excitement around the bird feeders.  A young Sparrowhawk has been practising his hunting.  He still has a long way to go.   We haven't seen him catch anything yet, and he has been attacked by a Buzzard in the trees round the house, and mobbed by Swallows.  Today, while we were standing talking to a guest by the washing line, he swooped several times, clumsily, into the bird feeders but failed to take anything.

The final change is that Daughter is now away at college. The farmhouse is very quiet, and funnily enough the internet seems to be a bit faster...!

WE HAVE SOME SPACES IN OCTOBER IF YOU LIKE THE IDEA OF AN AUTUMN HOLIDAY AT TRESHNISH!  PLEASE GET IN TOUCH AND I CAN GIVE YOU DETAILS OF OUR SPECIAL OFFER! 

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. 

June 5th 2016 - #30DaysWild

This evening there was time for some wild time.   It has been a very hot day, so it was lovely to get outside for a walk along the cliff tops.

Now the sun has set and I have just seen an owl fly in to the trees beside the house, fly out and then come back again.  I think it was a Barn owl, but not sure, it could have been a Tawny.   We have Tawny, Barn and Short eared owls on the farm.

I put up a Snipe as I walked along the cliffs, and a Skylark pretended she was injured to distract me from getting too close to her nest site - it worked!

The Bog cotton is still looking amazing, but the fields are actually getting quite dry - boggy pools are now dry underfoot and we are anxiously watching our water supplies to make sure it keeps up with demand.  Having had late flowers last summer, I think we are going to have fast and furious flowers this summer.  The cliff edges are beginning to dry up, and some of the trees have already lost their freshness.