July  

1 – Biked to Peggy Bell’s Bridge with the dogs. Purple bell heather in full bloom on Reaveley Hill. White heath bedstraw and yellow lady bedstraw (so called because it was used to fill lady’s mattresses!) much in evidence. Engineer arrived to mend both forage harvesters. Silaging resumed after lunch and finished by early evening; the pits sheeted and tyre-d. A cavalcade of four huge tractors, the tele-porter that rolled the pit, plus trailers and harvesters, left Ingram bound for another neighbouring farm at Fawdon. They worked on until 9p.m.

2 – Shepherd’s Cottage is one of a few selected businesses involved in the National Park’s Green Advantage scheme. It aims to promote sustainable tourism, a greater awareness of the environment and eco-friendly behaviour. Hence recycling and composting facilities, and energy saving devices are now part of the “visitor experience” at the cottage. Organiser Kim came today to take photographs for the new Green Up North website to be launched later this year.

6 – Squally showers and unsettled weather playing havoc with plans to clip the hill sheep. Gathered Wether Hill this morning. Bracken is very dense and high making walking, and spotting sheep, difficult. Jim’s dog Sam inadvertently walked amongst a brood of young partridges. One parent bird hung onto his tail, the other went on the attack. Sam just carried on!

 Which they did. 421 clipped. Put ewes and lambs into Show Field to “mother up”. What a noise, all bleating at once. The newly clipped ewes smell strange. It takes a little while for the lambs to recognise their mums.

Kingfisher spotted fishing at Brandon Ford.

8 – 6a.m. Gathered Glitters and Turf Knowe sheep into field at the Hill Cottage. Busy day in the sheep pens: the ewes that were clipped yesterday were all dosed, sprayed (to prevent fly strike) and given a copper bolus. Bruises on my legs prove I was there!

9 – Gathered the backside sheep down to farm. Shearers are coming tomorrow, after all.

10 – Clipped the backside sheep. Processed them in the pens. Housed the Glitters ewes tonight for final day’s shearing tomorrow.

11 – Several visitors called in to watch the shearing. After clipping the ewes are “busted” or marked. If they stray, people know they are ours. A long handled “busting” iron is dipped in thick paint (we call it “keel”) and the ewes marked with an “I” or “WI” depending which hill they are from.

Lots of tall Parasol mushrooms amongst the old anthills up the Back Water. My “Mushrooms and Toadstools” book says they are delicious to eat. Confess to being wary and have never tried.

12 – Ate first field mushrooms for breakfast. Dennis has begun shedding his lovely tail feathers. They fall out at this time every year. No more lovely displays but he will grow a new tail next spring.

13 – Hay field cut today. Howick Estates brought tractors and trailers to cut bracken on the hill. They do a small area each year. The bracken is used as mulch in the lovely gardens at Howick Hall, on the coast near Craster. 

14 – Took quad bike and collies to move sheep back to the hill. Picked half a basketful of horse mushrooms. Some were the size of dinner plates!  Buzzard sighted at hill pond. Probably hunting rabbits.

16 – Ross turned the hay. Warm, airy dry sunny day. Good haymaking weather.

17 – Wet morning. No hay today. Of all things, daughter Emma found a tiny bat on the hall floor this morning, just a little bigger than a 50p piece. Didn’t quite know what to do or where to put it. Rang John Steele, an authority on bats. He thought it might be a juvenile Pippistrelle. Offered water on soaked kitchen towel. Gently wrapped it in a duster and took it upstairs. John said to put it on a south facing wall, outside the bedroom window. Worried in case it fell, but it began climbing up. Returned later and couldn’t see it. Hopefully it will survive.

Wedding reception at Brandon today in a splendid marquee. The bride and groom, Angela and Kevin came home to afternoon sunshine and the sound of steel pans. What a memorable occasion in the valley.

Took a walk across the dry part of the riverbed to look at the myriad of flowers. To name a few: weld, poppies, great mullein, sneezewort and great willowherb, otherwise known by that lovely name of “codlins-and-cream”.  Beautiful colours.

Especially pleased to find two less common flowers. The yellow Slender or Beautiful St John’s Wort (it likes acidic soils) growing amongst the heather on Ingram Glitters, and Common Water Crowfoot in the almost stagnant water at the hill pond. A delicate flower with white petals and a yellow centre, it has two sets of leaves, floating and submerged.

18 – Brood of very small grouse chicks on Heather Shank. Ross disturbed them while out running. Baled the headland, the outer edges of the field, this evening.

19 – Baled the rest of the hay this afternoon. Final dig of the Breamish Valley Archaeology Project got underway in our Shield Field. The prehistoric landscape in the valley is now acknowledged as one of the finest of its kind in England having escaped the blight of modern ploughing and large scale tree planting.  

Over the past ten years we have witnessed some amazing discoveries, Bronze Age burial grounds dating back 4000 years, Iron Age round houses, and held some precious finds: exquisite food vessels, thumbnail-size flints and fine arrowheads. 

20 – Evening sighting of an otter on the riverbank. Next door neighbour Charlotte and her friends watched in amazement for about 30 seconds until it slipped away into the cover of a fallen tree. The Breamish is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, one of the reasons being the presence of otters although we rarely see them.

24 – Picked several heads of meadowsweet to make champagne. A good alternative to elderflower, which I’d missed, the sweet smelling flowers, together with sugar and lemons, are added to water and left to stand 24 hours. The whole is then strained, put into gas proof plastic bottles (we have experienced glass bottles exploding!) and left for a few weeks.

25 – Hay bales led in to the cattle shed to get them under cover. They will be stacked later when thoroughly cooled. The smell of new hay is just lovely.

28 – Third peahen appeared with two chicks, tiny compared to the others born last month that are now feathered.

29 – Narrowly avoided stepping on a slow worm in the big shed, so pleased to spot it. A rare sight, about ten inches long and silvery brown in colour, the last I saw was a road casualty. Gently nudged this one into the stable “pooper scooper” and took it to a shady grassy spot in the silage pit yard.  

Went over final animal and farm sitting arrangements with Charlotte, and her dad Adrian, before setting off for North Yorkshire for Ross’s wedding tomorrow! Susan and Ann feeding and walking the eight dogs. Leaving the farm isn’t a simple case of shutting the door. We’ve got great neighbours. 

30 – Ross and Rebecca were married at a little country church near Tadcaster. Weather perfect bar two or three spots of rain. A wonderful day had by all.

  click on the pictures to enlarge

August

1 – Back home yesterday. Now wedding is over (but I’m still on cloud nine!) decided to let the peahens and older chicks out of barracks. A few anxious moments as the chicks got muddled up with wrong mothers. In a day or so they will learn to follow the peahen.

2 – Official opening by the Duke of Northumberland  of the refurbished National Park visitor centre and the brand new “Decade of Discovery” exhibition. Several finds from the archaeological digs are now on permanent display at Ingram.  Ceremony followed by buffet lunch in the village hall to the accompaniment of tunes on the Northumberland Small Pipes played by acclaimed performer Kathryn Tickell, and Louisa, one of her pupils. When she’s not on tour Kathryn lives locally near Rothbury in Coquetdale.

Pictured Left to right: Paul Frodsham, National Park
archaeologist, Alan Vout, of Brandon and the Duke of Northumberland standing
beside the big cup and ring marked stone, thousands of years old, unearthed
by Alan at the nearby Hedgeley gravel quarry.

3 – Sightings by Johnny today included a red-legged partridge with six chicks, a hen pheasant with three chicks, a pair of buzzards at very close range and two roe deer amongst the crop of kale. The grouse broods on the moors at Linhope, further up the valley, have fared badly. Many chicks perished during a spell of wet weather soon after hatching.

4 – First calf in the autumn calving herd born today.

5 – Brought ewes and lambs off the Haugh to the sheep pens. Marked some lambs for market next week. All except sale lambs sprayed to protect them from blowfly strike. In warm, muggy weather these particularly nasty flies home in on certain sheep and lay eggs that hatch as maggots. Dealing with them is a most unpleasant job, not nice for the sheep either. 

Wild raspberries very good this year, big berries, also lovely dark cherries on the tree near Ingram Bridge. Can’t resist picking a handful. The orange rowan or mountain ash berries provide a nice splash of colour just now, the birds enjoy them.  

8 – Young peachicks have quickly learnt about the big bird table outside our breakfast room window. Beaks to the glass they are frequent visitors now, scrounging for digestive biscuits or corn. The adult birds actually peck the windows – and recognise the biscuit tin!

9 – The hot sunshine over the weekend has given way to torrential downpours. Worried about peachicks. Bedraggled but coping.

10 – Took the small premature calf, which Johnny brought in on Sunday, away from its mother. We call it “lifting”. She needs lots of TLC and special care, just as a prem baby does. Her initial quota of colostrum was given by tube but she happily sucks a lamb’s teat on a baby size bottle. For the time being she will get blue top whole milk from the supermarket. We’ve christened her “Minnie”. 

11 – Very thick fog this morning over hills and in bye ground. Brought sheep off Haugh. Found them more by accident than design. Fifty six lambs away to market. 

12 – Archaeologists rained off after two hours

13 – Yet another dreadful day until late afternoon when sun came out. First we’ve seen of it since Sunday. Final day of the dig. Peter Carne, the director, showed me around. Basically a multi-phase site occupied between 100BC and 200AD, probably not continuously. The excavations are incomplete. One or two extra days are planned.

Supreme, one of our Limousin bulls is pictured doing “solitary” in the cattle pens after demolishing a gate. He literally walked through it much to the amazement of two visitors who watched the spectacle. He’s a nice chap actually, loves a back scratch. On this occasion he was miffed at being taken away from “his girls” and had also fallen out with our other two bulls.

14 – Fine day for Glanton Show as it was for Powburn last weekend. Local village shows are held most Saturdays in August and September. There are classes for sheep, vegetables, flowers, baking and lots more.

Sightings this week include a long-eared bat, spotted by the Clench family at Shepherd’s Cottage, and swallows gathering on the wires, always a sign that summer (missed it!) is coming to an end. Picked field mushrooms on the Haugh, brambles and raspberries from the hedgerows.

17 – Last year’s autumn born calves, weaned yesterday, are shouting for their mums. We keep them shut in for a few days to settle down. Some of the cows weren’t too happy either. They twice jumped out of the hill field and appeared in the farmyard.

18 – The rain gauge at Brandon recorded one inch of rain falling this morning between 6a.m. and 8.30a.m. Thunder and lightening this evening caused a power cut for about 15 minutes. Pleased I cook on Calor Gas and not electricity.

The heavy rain has kept water levels high and locals have enjoyed some fishing mainly for brown trout. A salmon grilse weighing two and a half pounds was landed further up the valley.

Minnie is doing well. She now gets powdered milk mixed with warm water instead of fresh blue top. She drinks seven pints a day in two feeds. Charlotte is pictured feeding her. In the foreground is the racing pigeon, rings on its legs, which arrived several days ago. We feed it corn. Not quite sure whether it’s just very tired or perhaps slightly injured.

In Northumberland the harvest is way behind. Some crops are ruined and other fields of corn very black. The land is so wet that combine harvesters are getting bogged in the fields. We have just one field of spring-sown barley to combine. At the moment it is taking no hurt.

22 – Party in the farmhouse garden – and the SUN SHONE! Some friends couldn’t make it, a rare dry day to catch up with their harvest.

25 – Weaned remaining in bye lambs.

A mild electric current was passed into the water with a probe. The fish are attracted towards it, scooped up in a landing net and emptied into buckets. They are tipped, for a matter of seconds, into a mild anaesthetic to stop them wriggling on the pre-marked measuring tray, then put into a bucket and tipped into a holding cage in the river. The fish were mainly between three and six inches long, the biggest being one year old, the smallest having emerged from the river gravel only this spring. James Hunt, assistant biologist from the Tweed Foundation, who did the measuring, explained that it is done every three years to check that all is well in the river.

29 – Wonderful walk today with friends Anne, Keith and Ian, to the trig point on top of Bloodybush Edge, at 2013 feet (610 metres) one of the high hills at the top of the valley. A watershed of the River Breamish, it was the scene of utter devastation in 1893 when a torrential thunderstorm gouged out acres of peat causing the river to rise in spectacular fashion.

Sightings included a pair of ravens above High Blakehope and the beautiful Grass of Parnassus, a delicate white flower, rather like a buttercup. Past its best but nonetheless a pleasure to see. Wonderful views of Cheviot and Hedgehope from the newly painted trig point.

Waterfall on the Ainsley Burn.	Breamish above High Blakelaw.	Cheviot from Bloodybush Edge.