Kids Connect campaign blog

13-year-old Craig's sure been busy:

It’s been one week since the school holidays have started here and the haymaking has still not began because of wet weather.

Often by now most people around here have finished their first cut of silage but this year’s weather has delayed it.

A number of jobs including the big task of shearing the sheep were done though.

Craig writes:

This week has been fairly busy with the first section of hay cut at the beginning of the week.

On Monday afternoon once the mower and turner had been hitched up to the tractors and checked over, Dad made a start on cutting the hay.

Shortly after I joined him in the field with the turner on the other tractor to spread the hay out.

Craig writes:

With changeable weather, there’s been a fair mixture of things happened.

On the wet days because no hay work could be done we made use of the time and began washing the fold floors with the pressure washer ready for the harvest, although it’s a number of weeks away yet.

I also walked my dog Molly quite a lot this week, usually in the evenings.

She is a Bearded Collie cross and as you would expect from a Beardy she is mad and loopy!

Her time is usually spent sleeping, swimming in the river or barking at my cat Murphy!

I took her up the road to the next farm one night this week and she came back with her legs (usually white) black as coal after her running through every muddy puddle she could find.

We also have a sheep dog that is a Border Collie – not as mad as Molly but often doesn’t do quite what you want her to do when rounding up sheep.

Craig writes:

Only two weeks left of my summer holidays now - and the weather still hasn’t improved much.

There hasn’t been a lot happened on the farm over the past week due to heavy showers although Tuesday was lovely and we cut more hay.

Unfortunately it was so wet that we couldn’t touch it much with the turner and ended up carrying on with the endless job of floor washing.

My auntie and cousin were staying with us this week, so for a change I went for a walk in the Cairngorms one afternoon with them and to brighten it up a bit we went grass sledging in Aviemore afterwards.

It was great fun. I wish I had a grass sledge, and then I could go sledging in the summer as well as winter!

Since there wasn’t much for me to do on the farm I did a bit of cycling with my mates and we camped out in the garden for a couple of nights – a good laugh!

The hay has dragged on later and later this year and it would usually all be baled long before the Black Isle Show on Thursday. Certainly not the case this year.

Craig writes:

At last we have baled all our hay.

It feels ages since we were cutting the first lot of hay and the turner has certainly done a lot of work this year.

It’s been a fairly busy week and we’ve managed to get the set aside cut as well as trying to fit in the turning of the hay.

Thursday was the Black Isle Show day so that morning was spent there.

It was very interesting and I really enjoyed looking round the various breeds of cattle, sheep, goats and hens - although it was lucky the show was before the foot-and-mouth outbreak down south as otherwise there would have been no livestock.

In the tent with the hens there were also rabbits and some of them were huge! I never knew that you could get rabbits so big.

Craig writes:

On Friday my Dad had some spare time so we went up to Strathconon for the day and although there was the odd shower it was a good day out.

Molly our dog came with us and spent the whole time swimming in the river and running around – she seems to have endless energy.

I got a new bike a few weeks ago and got a chance to put it to the test on a forest track with one of my friends who also got a new bike.

Craig writes:

I’m back at school now and it feels like I’ve never been away!

The vegetables in the garden are now ready and I’ve already lifted some carrots and potatoes.

I’m really pleased with how the veg has turned out this year – especially the carrots, as they are huge.

I did a sponsored walk in Poolewe called the ‘Great Wilderness Challenge’ in aid of Highland Hospice, Children First and the Children's Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS).

Poolewe is on the Northwest coast of Scotland near Gairloch. I was one of hundreds of people that walked 13 miles on road, over hills and even through a bog.

Craig writes:

I have seen plenty of combines around so I suppose that marks the start of the spring barley harvest in our area although as I write we haven’t started yet.

Some people have only just sheared their sheep surprisingly enough.

We sprayed all our spring barley off with round-up recently so hopefully by it will soon take full effect on the crop and we will get harvesting.

Round-up kills and ripens the crop to the same stage so that there aren’t some parts of the field that are still green or just not quite ripe and therefore not ready to be harvested.

Craig writes
We’ve started harvesting our barley as well as getting all of the lambs weaned and the weather seems to be staying nice.
After an early start, Saturday morning was spent weaning the lambs off their mothers – all went well apart from a silly ewe that jumped the fence into the neighbouring field.
A strong breeze brought the combine into the first field of spring barley in the afternoon and just as we thought everything was going great, a blockage arose inside the combine. This involved clambering into the main part of the machine to unblock it so we were stopped for a couple of hours.
We were barely started again when we saw the sheep that had escaped run into the burn. With a struggle we got her out and rushed off to tip the load of grain before the combine needed emptied again.
The field got finished, the end-rig was baled and the grain came in about 16% moisture – perfect!

Craig writes:

The combine has been and gone after a long spell of weather led to a smooth-running harvest.

Straw this year was plentiful and the lack of sun to fade it resulted in the straw having an especially golden colour to it.

The folds are full of piles of grain now, although there has been a couple of lorries in for loads so that thinned them out a bit.

Our barley grain is put for malting, but sometimes goes for feed if the quality isn’t good enough – that's certainly not the case this year as the demand is high for the crop although feed prices are just as good if not better than malting this year depending on your contract.

Craig writes:

The return of foot-and-mouth in this country has been a bit of a shock to all of us with livestock, but on a brighter note the arable side seems to be doing well.

I’ve been busy taking bales to the side of one of our fields recently, for them to be taken away to Skye.

I was using a four-bale spike on the back of the tractor as well as having the loader on the front to take another two – a bit tricky to start with but I got the hang of it.

The big grain bucket has been well used as we’ve had a few more grain lorries so the grain is gradually disappearing from the sheds – more brushing and shovelling for me!

Craig writes:

Oh well, a few more loads of grain cleared from the folds and a couple more full lorries of bales away too.

I had a go at flinging the straps over the lorry to hold the bales on but I didn’t get on very well with that!

Some of the brussel sprouts in the garden are ready now and I’m amazed at how good they are – they’re in decent condition, filled out, big and most importantly of all they taste good as well.

Great! On Friday school closed for the October holidays – two weeks to do what I want!

All our grain has been shifted now and as well as that all the five-foot bales have been cleared from the steading yard.

At the weekend we weighed all the lambs. We marked with livestock paint any lambs that are heavy enough to be sold just now for slaughter if we decide to.

That afternoon Dad washed the tractor while I cut some kindlers for the fire in the house.

Craig writes:

We bought three new Suffolk tups at the annual tup sale at Dingwall Auction Mart.

Including them, we now have seven tups, which we are feeding at the moment to keep them strong and healthy.

The day after that we were up early to drive down to Kendal in England to stay in a holiday cottage for the week.

The cottage was on a livestock farm with sheep and cattle. The landscape was totally different there compared to where I live as it was very hilly and the fields were surrounded by dykes rather than fences although there are a few dykes still standing on our farm and there are plenty of hills round about the area I live.

Craig writes:

The weather in the past week has shown signs of winter being round the corner as it’s been cold with gales and the snow was right down to the lower hills on Friday.

The high winds resulted in the trees being bare as ever and causing huge piles of leaves to build up against walls – good for collecting them though.

One evening a friend and I were piping at the Inverness Town House for an awards ceremony and the wind was nearly taking me of my feet with it catching on the tall drones!

Recently I’ve started to feed the birds again and because it’s been so cold they are really appreciating the seeds and nuts and are constantly going back and forth to the bird table.

The book on wild birds is out, and I’m attempting to identify the ones I’m not familiar with.