Make silage whatever the weather?

Not just flowers providing colour in the veg garden, as the tomatoes begin to ripen. They are not quite as tasty as last year's though.

We have increased the bird feeders this summer, and seen a massive increase in numbers - this one is dominated by siskins.

Field Gentian.

Very orange Birds foot trefoil?

Along the shore between the boathouse and the Point. This field, imaginatively called the New Field, is where the cows are grazing at the moment.  They have  squashed a few Grass of Parnassus but there are still areas of lots of unhurt ones, plus lots of smaller flowers such as those above!

A very well camouflaged Grayling landed on rocks near the old boathouse.

Yesterday, in wonderful blue sky and sunshine, Farmer cut some patches of thicker grass in the in bye fields, adding about 40 bales to our winter supply - 40 days worth of feed, so well worth doing.

Its important to grease up before starting baling.

Its not a bad view for tractor work.  Beats the views from the fields he used to work in before moving to Mull by a long shot.

Being watched by Zwartble ewe and lamb.

Not so good when the weather suddenly changes and you are baling and wrapping in the rain, but what can you do? You have to just keep going.  Farmer is well known for his 'carry on regardless' gene, which was exhibiting strongly this morning when I took him a flask of coffee on the tractor. 

Moving into new pasture

I have been away a lot this month, hence the break in almost daily wild flower blog posts!  Whilst it is amazing to be in the position to be able to go away, it is always hard to leave Treshnish (and perhaps I should say Farmer), particularly at this time of year when there is a lot happening.  

Shearing was the big task- all the gathering and sorting to be done before and after the fleeces have been shorn.  I left Farmer in good hands as our friend A was here and he would produce better shearing catering than I would!

While I was away Iain T and JH came to do the shearing.  It was a long day for them as there were more sheep to shear than they had expected.  Farmer was hugely relieved when they were done.  Farmer and J from Dervaig put the lambs through the fank. And as expected A cooked up a storm for the clipping shed.

The next gather will be to start sorting the lambs.   The Mull based haulier sold his livestock lorry so over the winter we have equipped ourselves with a livestock trailer and a 4x4 capable of pulling it.  This means we can sort out small batches of lambs and go to several different sales rather than putting all our eggs in one basket (or lambs in one huge lorry) at only one sale.  Hopefully it will make it less of a lottery.   It will be a lot more work for Farmer in that instead of selling all the lambs on one day, he will probably have to go to 4/5 different markets doing it himself.

The fields are changing colours again as the Knapweed and the Devil's Bit Scabious start to flower now.  These next few photographs are from the field, Wigwam 2, which we are cutting for silage this year.    The management plan we have for the fields dictates that we cut in September, so we have just over 4 weeks until we can cut it, even though it would have been wonderful to have made hay during the spell of fine hot weather last week.

The harebells are flowering now too, these were in the shade of a birch tree.

Devils Bit Scabious.

Knapweed.

Sneezewort.

The weather has been amazing while I have been away.  Really hot.  The field with no name where the cows are grazing just now reminded me of photographs of the steppes, the dry grass seed heads gently blowing in the wind.  The Meadowsweet popping up above the grasses.  Cows and their calves sitting contentedly cudding in the sun.

This bullock enjoying a bit of birch.  No wonder we need to fence off the old trees from livestock to allow natural regeneration.

Farmer had been out to check the cows this morning and appeared to be short of 2 heads.  The herd was all quiet and calm so it was unlikely that anyone was really missing but we needed to make sure. This field with its knolls and dips can make it hard to count properly as a cow and its calf can disappear behind a knoll without you realising.  So we went together to get a better count.  Four eyes better than two. We counted the right number thankfully.  It was very calm wandering in the field, looking at the different heathers coming into flower and enjoy the late afternoon sunshine.

The field behind Shian and Duill will be cut for silage in early August, whenever the weather allows. This field had an application of fertiliser put on as part of an experiment for the soil nutrient monitoring project we are taking part in - one of 7 farms in Scotland to take part.  It will be interesting to see if the fertiliser has made any different to the yield from the field.   I am hoping it won't make any difference. Farmer doesn't think it will make any difference.   We allowed this field to be part of the project because it is not one of our biodiversity rich fields!

I hate to say it but it definitely feels as if we are passing from mid summer into late summer now, the grasses are all flowering and the angelicas and cow parsleys going to seed.

Twixt and tween

There is quite a relaxed sense of 'down time' in the Treshnish farmhouse this week. Farmer is still busy with the daily chores of feeding the cows and bedding them up now they are indoors, and being in between Christmas and New Year there are no builders at work and not much office activity!  The hoggs have been moved from the park beside the cattle shed to below the house, so that the 4 gates between Treshnish and Haunn can be left open for our New Year guests.

With the 3 stirks (bullocks), the 2 Luing heifers in addition to the cows and the bull, they are munching more than one bale of silage a day at the moment, so a bit of barley straw makes a good afternoon snack, before the next bale is brought in from the stack yard.

This two are mother and daughter.  Aberdeen Angus crossed with Highland Shorthorn.  A beautiful dun colour.

Troughs turned up after the hoggs have been fed.  Hopefully the wind won't blow them too far over night.

Farmer had to remove brambles from Brownie's coat this afternoon and so Daughter took this photograph for the blog.

The major winter work is about to start after New Year.  Duill and Shian are both getting a bit of a makeover: improved insulation to keep them cosy and a small, simple, unheated 'sit-ootery' - somewhere to sit and enjoy the views, whatever the weather!  Duill's sunroom will be an amazing place from which to watch whatever wildlife is enjoying the little lochan.

We went to the top of the Ensay Burn waterfall yesterday to see how it looked after the rains.  Good for hydro-electricity today?!