Northernlights

Foggy here too and there is a hint of greeness in the grass fields. Heard of another biodigester going up in the area yesterday needing 6000 acres of crops to supply it so the fodder situation is not going to get any better in the future. The law of unintended consequences.Currently 6c

Yes straw was baled from very weathered barley hence the the grey/white colour but is very dry. However it was baled on a perfect day in the first five days of September which were dry so still has that freshly harvested smell and because it is so broken up the bales just fall apart when plastic netting is removed

A bit of positive news .We had a nice heifer calf born yesterday to a heifer (first time calver) Face getting washed for first time.Five minutes old Looking wobbly on her feet for the first time. One hour old. Milk bar open first drink from mum. One and half hours old.

Dull day this morning after a fine sunny day yesterday which started to dry things up. with no frost a first for nearly a week. Still a very barren looking countryside which could easily be late February.Currently 6.5c. Doubt we have seen the last falling snow at our level as our usual turnout date for the cattle is the 20th April and usually the following week they get snowed onafter going out in 16c plus heat.This year turnout is much more likely to be mid May given the lack of heat and growth so far. Livestock farmers and arable farmers are all under pressure with the late cold spring(I think a lot of Europe is affected too) and output of crops and livestock will all fall this year. Prices will be under pressure to rise but the supermarkets will do their best to limit this.

Good timing today sheep in off field and lorry arrives five minutes later,sheep loaded clean and off to Skye before 9.00am. However driver who has been coming here for nearly 40 years with the sheep said that in most years farms carry forward a surplus of feed from one year to the next but this year there is none almost everywhere.He said that if the summer is poor again and little feed is conserved there will be a mass sell off of livestock from the N and W of Scotland in the autumn. He also said he had never seen our road so muddy. With everything being so backward I have been telling friends for a while that this will be an historical spring .Even on my local forecast on here for next week night time temperatures will not be conducive for grass growth. I think too with a southerly tracking jet probably accentuated by a sleepy sun then above may come true. Currently 2c Just looked at the model thread and their is a chance of more cold weather mid month!!!!!!

Its getting monotonous now we have a covering again this morning at 0.5c. Going to a fun day loading sheep for Skye in all this mud and getting an arctic lorry tuned on a slippy muddy farm road is going to be a challange..

A really foul afternoon with constant sleet and. all the winter mud has returned underfoot .Cattle all very happy to be inside. The upside of all this bad weather is paperwork getting up to date and I even found an electronic payment that was still due to me. The sleet turned more to wet snow in the early evening and its currently 1c.

No science to this but its really reminding me of the cool springs of my childhood in the sixties where cold air was never far away and kept returning all the way to late May.. On tenanted farms over the centuries before, term date was 28th of May when farms changed tenants and all sowing had to be finished before the new tenant came in which allowed for late cold springs.to complete sowing. A bit of science the NW Atlantic has very cold air over it almost half way to us. and Scandinavia is still very cold and with the North Sea still fairly cold, cold air may rule for a while at least up here. Hope these musings are wrong and it will be 21c in a weeks time in the north of Scotland!!!!!!

Well another white morning in April with light to moderate snowfall on a light NE wind . Currently 0c

Light snow falling here at 0.5c. cattle look very cosy in sreading tonight. Oyster catchers seem to have gone back to coast this last few days no calling in the early evenings..

Looking ahead my local forecast still shows cool nights for the next fortnight. Had to turn away some folk looking for for hay today as shed nearly empty.Still a great demand for forage for sheep cattle and horses. Next weekend seems to have gone cooler for us in the last 12 hours so this never ending winter is hanging on. Breezy dull and very cold this afternoon currently 3c.

Well well Easter and we have dusting this morning at 0c. A few photos . No gardening this morning. Another flurry fifteen minutes ago. First time for a while we still have some neeps to lift in April but cows appreciate getting out every day for a fresh row. A North Easterly drift off the Firth and we get snow showers funnelled into us. Pity it took till spring to happen. There must be masses more fresh powder for the skiers today.Must be turning into one of the best ever Easters for all the ski resorts here in Scotland

Fine bright spring day with an arctic background with superb visibility.Moving some soil in garden this afternoon and it was still frozen A few photos from today Ben Wyvis being engulfed by a snow shower this morning Hills to the west still in winter coats. Snow shower to the north across the Firth near Tarbet Ness lighthouse this afternoon. Late pm probably not the last snow shower this spring to the south over the Cairngorms. This shower gave some us some grauple as it passed close by a real spring synoptic.As can be seen in the photos a field of winter rape is very backward and our garden is very barren too. I think the lack of any deep snow cover this winter combined with a number of severe frosts culminating with the strong -5 wind at the end of February has really taken the greeness out of the countryside. Its a long time since it has looked so barren.

Yes and a lot of the shrubs like buddlias ,even honeysuckle have had their buds blackened today nature has taken a big hit this spring and will take a while to recover.Grass fields are quite brown/yellow again this morning.

Coldest night of April so far at -5c at 6.00am this morning and clear. Currently -2c with blue skies and sunshine.

Bright cold day with a fresh NE wind off the Firth. An arctic sky and currently 3.5c Geese on all the fields round about with both my neighbours setting off bangers which do not seem to scare them off for long. Big advert in P & J today looking for hay and hayledge.

Well here we are giving them swedes every day and they are eating them very quickly and without them they would looking to escape over fences/dykes to get food. Its the same with the reared pheasants from last year which are coming up to the steading to scratch in the emptying straw sheds Yes there are very small bits of grass to nibble at but there is definitely not enough to sustain them yet and they will be consuming fat reserves built up on the late summer/ autumn grass. Not everyone feeds extra to wintering sheep. Add the thousands of geese here dropping into nearly all the grass/winter cropfields and any tiny green blade is rapidly consumed. All we are doing is keeping their body condition up so when they go back on the hill in Skye next week they can live for a month on reserves until proper grass comes in May. Part of our wintering contract is to feed them when the grass is finished usually late Janury with hay and swedes until the 1st April We have a very short growing season here. A lot of land on the Black Isle will be better grades(Grade 2 /Grade3i ) than over here (Grade 3ii )so that will help too freer draining will warm up quicker so growth should be earlier.

The damage from the start of March is begining to emerge from the melting drifts as hundreds of dead sheep are discovered in the hilly areas of the borders and central Scotland. These hardy Blackface sheep are always left to fend for themselves on the hill and normally can survive most storms but I belive the depth of drifts is the worst seen for decades. Up here its the lack of grass growth and cold soils for sowing crops that is the worst worry. Even if it warms up in a week it will be several weeks before there is enough .grass to sustain grazing animals. The feed reps all have smiles on their faces. Currently bright and 4c and snowy looking cloud coming in from the NE across the Firth so no spring warmth yet.

Yes I picked tatties as a kid on neighbouring farms plus our own.Later on our two acres when I organised it you just phoned some from the previous year and they woud tell all their friends and before long you had to start turning some away. Every year was an education with the good workers and the slow ones plus high jinks at lunch time. Best anecdote from Mrs Northernlights when she was helping one slow picker is that the reason she was slow was because she was picking with one hand. When questioned on this she replied she was keeping one hand clean for her lunch!! Now with all the rules and regulations kids hardly ever get to work on farms, good from the safety side but bad from never getting your hands dirty and I have had all sorts picking tatties a lot of whom went on to higher education but they always remember picking tatties here if I ever see them. Currently overcast and 4.5c

Dull with light showers here,fresh north wind and currently 6c making it feel very cool. Still llttle or no grass growth.

I think there were probably more locals but with the chance of cheaper more willing labour from eastern europe farmers under pressure to provide cheaper and cheaper crops employed them in spite of the fact that the money they earnt here was probably worth several times more when they took it home because of currency advantages. I have said to a friend who employs a lot on his farm that if he paid local folk three times the going rate here he would get plenty of local UK pickers.

Nice day here too young Mr. Northernlights taking off more stones this afternoon but ground still a bit wet and cold in places.We have the first daffodil out on the farm road next to a south facing dyke in the middle of a bramble patch so very sheltered .I would think almost a month behind recent years. Currently overcast and 6c.

Still practise an old fashioned 7 course rotation here of 3 years grass, 3 years barley and one year roots (Swedes) . On my travels yesterday saw several roe deer grazing a grass field, Partridge in the last acre of neeps, a young hare(leveret) in the old stackyard and a pair of buzzards hunting near the woods. Still have a pheasant coming to bird feeder every morning/. Currently clear bright and 4c with a ground frost

Fine day here too with just a few very light showers. Ground starting to dry again. but this evening it was cooler with wintry looking showers on the horizon. Currently clear calm and 3c

A third BT engineer arrived today early am and tested line no dial tone or broadband.Yipee a definite fault. Turns out it was a bit of broken insulation on the line on the farm road.This intermittant fault has lasted two and a half weeks !!!! Todays heavy rain must have helped to show it up. Fields very muddy again. Remember in the past a lot of the old characters would say we needed a big fall of snow to warm up a cold spring, maybe this will happen in the next few weeks . Currently clear cold and 3c