some visitors

We've had some visitors over the last few weeks, to take advantage of our excess of summer grazing

A few weeks ago the cattle arrived and were 'encouraged'  to leave the trailer.

And then they end up eating up the hay and grass that the sheep  have left lying.

  but they cant stay in the one small field indefinitely .

never mind 'one man and his dog ' 

We had One man and his quad bike 

so :
Gather a few friends and round up your cattle

And the next bit is easy - herd then along the drive , with a quad bike .

And shortly after ,they are happily  ensconced in their new home

 (well, it wasnt actually quite as straightforward as that !)

Out with the new, in with the old.

So the new sheep have had their 48 hours of quarantine and been dosed and injected with stuff , so they can be let out . But its not that simple . One of the rams is being castrated by the vet  at 10am and so needs to be caught and brought inside.  And the new sheep are going into the field vacated by this ram ( and his mates)
So first step is catch  a ram , and a mate as they are social animals.

Then move the new sheep on to the field.

 Then move the ram into the shed

and let the new sheep explore  their new field

 PS its not actually as straightforward as that because the sheep don't want to move anywhere different to where they are .

More

We've been to pick up Boreray sheep from Clachtoll  before, in 2014  and also in 2013 .

And we were going again .  But this time  a couple  of differences.  Instead of doing it in a day , which is a tight turn-round time before heading back , and then arriving in the dark and  trying to sort out the sheep in the gathering gloom, we thought we would take 2 days to do it , with an overnight stop.

We have 2 ferry crossings to choose from. Stromness to Scrabster ,operated by Serco Northlink,  and  Banks' Boat between  Gills Bay and St Margarets Hope. This is  the MV Pentalina, operated by Pentland Ferries and  better known as Banks's  Boat because the whole operation was set up by Andrew Banks OBE.  Serco Northlink receive subsidy from Scottish Government but Banks's Boat doesn't.  Some details are here .  And after  the peak tourist season, from September onwards Northlink can only run a morning and evening ferry. The Pentalina  runs 3 times a day . So as this trip wasn't a dash down and back , it was Banks's  boat.  And  there were a lot of cars on it.

The car and trailer is 7.2m in length. For this trip a  bit of challenging reversing with the trailer,  onto the boat. And then down the gap left by the containers.

And after that , on to the overnight stop  in Brora, the Royal Marine Hotel. A nice hotel with exceptionally good food

And then on to Clachtoll.  The  problem this time is the NorthCoast500. The route is the B869 - the winding Clachtoll single track road. And the tourists seemed to be doing it in an anti-clockwise direction .  And some of them had no idea about driving on single track roads. Its not possible to squeeze 2 cars side-by-side, let alone is one of them has a trailer. So I ended up reversing car and trailer up a winding road to let a Mercedes  driver who seemed totally incapable of anything other than progressing on his tour in an anti-clockwise direction.

And sheep duly picked up

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A bit easier on the return trip - just drive on ( and round and off at the other end)

The Scrabster -Stromness ferry goes past the Old man of Hoy , on the west coast of the Island of Hoy.  Banks's boat goes past the islands of Switha, with its herd of feral cattle  and Stroma and its abandoned houses.

Stroma

And as we were back in daylight , moving the sheep from the trailer was a bit easier .

Although the sheep weren't keen on cooperating

Once is the shed, they will be quarantined for 48 hours then can explore their new home .