Well dear reader, I trust this finds you well? I’m scrawling the blethers this week after a busy spell, as the time of year surely dictates; as always with this and indeed a lot of the work I’m at the coos tail but as my auld man says at this time often we just have to be “haiket and glaiket” for a bit but it aye passes and the work always gets caught up with!
The calving has gone well enough but the cows are aye needing silage and will be for a bit yet, in February I got a bit cocky and near suggested we could have a couple of hundred bales carry over, I should have not counted those chickens!
Calves are looking well enough though but a cold east wind persists and it’s still a bit brisk either end of the day.
We are down to six left to go so hopefully get them tidied up soon. Lambing has been mixed although we were lucky to have missed that hellish weather mid April, I know some poor chiels had a bad go that morning; but I would suggest that with the odd exception there will no be too many spare lambs come the back end anywhere.
Just like their counterparts the ewes are hungry and are working hard to keep to with a lamb. We could all use some nice warm heat with some gentle showers, it will come I’m sure.
There are a few things that put the fear in me something hellish, one is getting an email from the department saying there is a communication in yer portal (it always sounds a bit sci-fi yon) the other is finding a fox shite full of lambs wool on a tour of the hill.
The latter I found last week and felt the dread. It’s been strange as in the winter here often times we hear the vixen calling out, advertising her femininity and willingness to mate in the ridges to the back of the steading.
This year silent, the neighbour lamps regularly and all was quiet, even in the few days of snow, I saw very little tracks. But as always the proof was in the pudding, or indeed on this occasion the wool was in the shite.
I have great admiration for foxes, but when the time comes you have to act. The usual liking of the dens ensued and at these times old timers yarn about the den by the split in the burn, or the one under the big flat stone, or the time she did that, and the time there was lambs trailed so far to a den.
Great knowledge and a good advert to use yer lugs twice as much as yer mouth. The old faithful dens were looked and most had new occupants, badgers have certainly got the first dibs on real estate in these airts it seems, I would think it’s gie near time that a grown up conversation was had regarding these prolific inhabitants.
Success was won through for us but no longer will that vixen call on the scree, nor will she feed again on the peeweep chick, frog, nor hill lamb stalk from its mothers keeping. Alas it must aye be thus, so long as we remember that our dominion over nature is temporal, fleeting at best there will aye be a fox to worry about, and hopefully hill lambs for it to stalk.
We made our annual pilgrimage yesterday to Dingwall Mart and their spring Luing Society sale. What an exemplary show of cattle forward in both the Luing and commercial section, a real credit to the hardy craturs that keep them and a great advert for Northern stockmanship.
Sadly although the beef trade is buoyant there was still I feel too many part or whole dispersals, I understand now is likely a very fruitful time to give up the sooker coos but it’s a shame to see herds in fewer and fewer hands and I feel doesn’t do much to safeguard the longevity of our industry.
We had a good day though and we’re up a good bit on the year, hopefully those wee coo makers will do some good for the purchasers.
On a similar note I was heart sorry to see my old workplace in the news for sad reasons; Forfar Mart was where I cut my teeth on leaving college and I was lucky to learn from some very astute and wise people at a time when I was greener than leeks.
I maintain that one of the best show of hill lambs I ever witnessed was at that mart, and so too suckled calves, the stock matched the folk though, some of the loveliest, couthiest people a young lad could have hoped to meet.
I’m sorry for Forfar town, the closing of the mart will only be to its detriment, this will also be a poor go for livestock keepers of Fife, Angus, Perthshire and further afield. It is a complete failure of government policy these last years that reflects in Forfar’s position being untenable; the drift of livestock no longer kept on the East coast compared to even 20 years ago is staggering.
It is not a happy coincidence that now food inflation is on our telly nearly everyday with political wantobes arguing with political hasbeens over the value of a cheese piece, and the link is gently being made that to have food, you need farms and farmers.
Food security is flimsier than it has likely ever been, in a pastoral country such as we have capable of growing grains, fodder crops, veg and grass, we along with much of Europe should be the tip of the spear in feeding ourselves and indeed those in tougher parts that are struggling.
As has been already noted by many, the value that a viable, sustainable, biodiverse hill farming industry has to play in feeding and clothing our population cannot be underestimated, neither can the social and economic benefits that a healthy farming population can have on rural communities be discounted either, it is not unnoticed that many rural hospitality businesses are struggling to find staff, years ago that wouldn’t have been a problem, there is no silver bullet to safeguard our rural communities but now more than ever we as a community communicate with our Union and ensure that we back those people working so hard to deliver meaningful benefits and results.
The next next while is crucial if we are to have anything like a viable industry left, I hope the importance the contribution hill farming makes is not forgotten by the politicians in either house or else the vixen may well go forlorn.
I wish you all well in the meantime, the grass will come, it aye does, stick at it heros you are doing a fine job.
Finlay McInytre is a farm manager at Dunalastair Estate in Perthshire
