July 2010

So much for my great planned discipline in blog writing...7 months since my last entry!  We have just had the fun of welcoming and hosting the Charolais Young Breeders Stockjudging event here at Gretna House.  John worked hard to arrange the day, and thanks to him and all the other technical speakers who turned out. A really impressive group of young judges arrived who I hope enjoyed the day.  The cattle have been enjoying the remarkably dry year to date...we have had less rain in the first 6 months combined than in the month of August alone last year.  Let's hope that it is not a pattern about to repeat itself.  The Ultimate daughters are making a great job of their calves, and the Camelot calves continue to please...lots of power and growth, without sacrificing calving performance.  I am confident that he is going to make a good impact on the breed. 

Happy to report that the new commercial developments, hotel extension, new commissined sculpture and courtyard at our visitor attraction were finished just about on schedule and are looking great and performing well. Children about to come home from school so 8 weeks of fun ahead! 

Thursday 7th Jan 2010

Happy New Year and here's to a healthy and succesful 2010.  The "hot" issue of the day here is, like the rest of Britain, the weather.  Unusually cold with persistent snow and hard frost.  We have escaped the worst of the weather, but it has killed trade in our commercial business which relies on people being out and about on the roads.  I have also had to postpone two building contracts at the hotel and the visitor attraction which is a nuisance, but we cannot complain when we see the state of other parts of the country.  There is not a lot happening on the farm at present... John is spending most of his day carting buckets of water or rigging up hoses to ensure water gets to all the housed cattle. And no field work at all. Tedious.  So far we are really pleased with our Camelot calves which look very growthy and promising. Time will tell during the coming months.

Thursday 14th October

We finally got started harvest on 10th of September and since then have had a good spell of weather, so other than being a month behind with everything, we are getting through the normal autumn work. The Tour of Britain was a great spectacle and success.  Amazing athletes these professional cyclists.  We had a "full on" day in our wedding related businesses at Smiths Hotel and the Old Blacksmiths Shop on 9/9/09, when we looked after around 20 wedding couples who had chosen to marry on the 999 date.  These "special" dates are like a bonus ball for the business, but of course will run out after 12/12/12!

The first calves from our 25,000gns stockbull Camelot have hit the ground recently and look very promising.  So far so good also in terms of ease of calving.  It is always an excitement when the first offspring of a new bull are born.  

At the recent Carlisle bull sales we were pleased to win the overall Championship with another easy calving Ultimate son, Gretnahouse Drysky, who has gone to a customer who has bought three Ultimate sons in a row.  I am confident that he will do well, with his short gestation length a key feature of his performance. 

Off now to meet up with our architects to look at the plans for the extension to the hotel that I am planning in the new year.  Do you ever feel that sometimes it would be nice if life's treadmill slowed down a litle to allow time to get off for a breather?

 Monday 31st August 2009

I hate to sound like the moaning farmer, but it is a long time since I have felt as truly pissed off by the weather!  Since my last blog we have had around 200mm of rain, just when we were really needing to be at the harvest.  We have not turned a wheel and at this point I am just not sure when we will get started.  What I do know is that it will be a salvage operation at best, and next year is already being compromised because the chance of a decent opportunity to establish autumn crops is receeding fast.

I had a very enjoyable and interesting trip to La Roche last week to the French National Charolais Show.  A fantastic spectacle, especially seeing the number of mature bulls on parade, which is a sight that we just don't get in Britain.  Charolais cattle is almost a religion out there and the support given to breed improvement through funding experimental farms and progeny testing stations is something that I wish our government would follow.  We are kidding ourselves if we do not accept that the UK is a long way behind a lot of countries when it comes to providing empirical research based information on which to base breeding decisions.  A great trip.

We've got the Tour of Britain cycle race stage finish at Gretna Green on 14th September, so Charolais cattle are not the only thing that has been imported successfully from France to UK! 

Monday 10th August 2009

Welcome to my first ever blog!  Yes, technology has finally arrived at Gretna House.  Dragged kicking and screaming into the world of blogging, I am planning to let you know what's happening here on a regular basis, in the (perhaps vain!) hope that it may be of some interest. 

Harvest is a stop start affair with more emphasis on the stop than start.  Winter Barley has come off quite well at Stuartslaw (our Berwickshire farm), and we have taken a field of wheat here at home which was no more than average.  All for the privilege of taking a bad price at the end of it! True to form we started some whole crop silage last night which we are making along with our second cut grass...and guess what, it rained hard overnight. But on the bright side, it has dried up and we should be able to crack on this week.

On our family holiday to France recently I found myself able to visit a Charolais breeder in the south.  Very interesting to see a commercial Charolais herd working hard to supply his direct selling enterprise. I am heading back out to France at the end of the month to a society organised technical trip which should be both interesting and fun.

The cattle are doing fairly well here...Camelot has had his chance with our autumn and early spring calvers and seems to have settled them fine....it's always exciting to see a new stock bull at work.  We will have three bulls and a very good heifer forward for the autumn sales at Carlisle and Stirling.

Enough for now...my wife Lucy is concerned that I will experience "blog burn-out" if I don't stop. Back to real work!