Noddy and the Highlanders

Oh the autumn is here, everyone seems to have a cold, and the days have been windy and gloomy. I think it is time to start lighting the fires, stocking up the stores, with all those vegetables, chutneys, jams and pickles, and hibernating indoors. I don’t quite feel ready to let go of the summer, but the change in weather is bringing about the change in seasons. I feel sorry for the lingering blooms of flowers, battling against the chilly September winds.

The happy farmer goes out looking like ‘Noddy’ each day, complete with red fleece and big hat, only to return, after a morning's fencing, with a matching red face, and that’s without any whisky !!

The highland cows have been moved down towards my mother in laws, off the hill and into the fields, to get a good bite of grass before the winter weather and the geese strip the fields bare. They are in great form just now, and happily followed the happy farmer, bucket in hand, off the hill and along the single track road to the fields, a group of cars patiently waiting in the lay-by, until the cows were well clear of the road.

It will soon be ‘tupping’ time once more, when the ‘boys’ (and I am talking the woolly ones here, and not the welly boot clad gang!) go into the fields with the ewes to work. The happy farmer has been busy giving those boys a manicure; they have a tendency to get bad feet, so theirs have been neatly trimmed in preparation for those ladies in waiting. It never ceases to amaze me how soft the tups are. The ewes live in large numbers out on the hillside and in the fields, in all weather, spend several months of the year pregnant, then go through the birthing, feeding and rearing of their offspring, before the whole cycle begins again. The tups on the other hand, spend the year lazing around, eating to their hearts content. They get extra rations of feed to build up their strength in October, go out into the fields to ‘work’ in November, and are then gathered in, and fed throughout the winter to help them recover from their few weeks of mating. They come away from the sheep and are literally ‘knackered’. This is often the point where we lose old Mr Blue. We use a blue faced Leicester tup, among other breeds, each year, and invariably he struggles to survive the winter months, in spite of being given shelter, extra rations and anti biotic jags, as he is the one that always seems to get a flu bug. If he is feeling particularly naughty he may even die before tupping begins, choosing his time to coincide with after the tup sales have finished and just a day or so before he is due to begin his mating programme.

This year tupping time is going to be challenging, with the foot and mouth crisis, not knowing if the disease is going to spread, and the movement restrictions, which will prevent us buying new stock to breed in with our flocks. In September or October the happy farmer usually goes away to the mainland to buy several new tups for his ladies. Fingers crossed the outbreak will be contained and livestock movement can return to normal as quickly as possible. On a flippant note, how else am I going to get those new shoes if the happy farmer doesn’t manage to sell those lambs?!!

Until next time….