We have started feeding the sheep in preparation for them lambing. This year the weather has suited the sheep they are happy outside eating silage and getting some feed once a day. The dry frosty weather makes it easy to feed the sheep as the ground does not turn to mud. I managed to get a slightly better photo of Meg when she was sitting outside the cottage door watching as I cleaned the kitchen.

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We will not be able to get much time away from the farm once we get nearer lambing and start feeding the sheep  so we thought we would make the best of a nice sunny frosty day. Once we had finished feeding the cattle we went for a drive out to Aberlour for our lunch at the Mash Tun hotel. We went for a walk along the Spey, the North bank was white with frost but the sun had melted the frost on the south bank. The frost on the plants at the side of the path was really pretty.

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We would like to wish all the people visiting our site a Happy New Year.

We had lovely weather today sunny and bright and not cold in complete contrast to the last two New Years when we have had snow and freezing tempuratures

I took Meg for a walk this afternoon and the views over the surrounding countryside were good due the clear day. We saw geese flying back towards the coast for the evening and seagulls swirling round in cicles above the fields.

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The cottages were busy through the summer with the more visitors from Europe. We are going to get a map of the world so we can mark on it where all our visitors come from as we get people from different countries every year which make it very interesting for us.
The grass grew really well all year so all our animals did well. We sold our first lambs to Morrisons 3 weeks earlier this year compared to last year in the middle of June. The price for lambs this year is higher than last year.
Sadly our sheep dog Meg died suddenly in August so we had to get a replacement as we needed to get sheep in from the field to sort out lambs. We got a young dog from our friend Hugh; he trains dogs for sheep dog trials. The dog we got from Hugh was already called Meg. She is completely different from the original Meg as she is black with a little white and is very friendly.

At the end of August we started selling our cattle at Thainstone Mart, Inverurie. The prices were up on last year so we got the highest average price for our cattle that we have ever had in the 11 year we have been keeping cattle. So it has been a good year for most livestock farmers this year.
Harvest was better than last year so we got all our straw bought and in the shed before the end of September. We sold all our cattle except 5 small ones and all our lambs by the middle of October. We sorted our ewes into 4 lots and put our rams in with them. Then we went on holiday for 3 weeks to Malaysia and Thailand leaving the farm in the capable hands of our friend Hugh.
Since returning from our holiday we have been busy going to market at Dingwall and Thainstone buying weaned calves. We had some calves come from Islay this year; We did not go to the sale they were bought for us by someone who went over to the Island. They came to us in an articulated lorry so we had to go down to the Cuminestown road at 1am to take them off the lorry and bring them to the farm in our trailer as articulated lorries cannot get down our farm road. Once they have settled in we have to vaccinate all the calves we buy against pneumonia and treat them with a wormer.
So this is my excuse for not getting organised for Christmas. As well as all the trips to market we have both been separately down to Yorkshire to visit family so it has not left much time for other things. So far we have only had a little snow and some nice frosty days. Hopefully we will continue to get reasonable weather as it makes life on the farm so much easier.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

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This year I am even less organised for Christmas than usual. I have only just got all my Christmas cards posted. We are all well. Jimmy graduated from Robert Gordin University in July and now has a job with Halliburton, an oil supply company in Aberdeen. Lorna is in her second year of fashion management at Robert Gordon University she has a weekend job in menswear at John Lewis. They both stay in Aberdeen.
The year started snowy again but we were reasonable lucky because most of our snow melted in January and we did not get a lot more unlike parts of Scotland further south. We got some frosty days but that enabled Neil to go in the fields and take down old fences without making too much mess of the fields.
In February we started putting up the new fences ready to plant 3000 metres of hedges round some of the fields. We use a local fencing contractor who comes with a post chopper on the back of his tractor to knock the posts into the ground. This makes the job slightly easier but fencing is still a very manual job.
In March we got some men in to plant the hedge plants, all 18,000 and the 3000 native trees which we planted in 5 acres to make a small woodland. At the beginning of March we dug the hole and laid the electric cable ready for our wind turbine. The men from C & F Green Energy came and put in the metal frame and filled the hole with strong concrete
As we had bought less weaned calves in October we have enough room in the sheds to bring nearly all the sheep inside before lambing. When we started lambing in the middle of March the weather was not good, rather cold and wet but it improved so all the ewes and lambs when outside quickly after they were born making lambing much easier than last year when in snowed a lot at the beginning of April. The good weather made the grass start growing early and we were able to put the cattle out of the sheds into the fields at the end of April.
After a few delays our turbine was delivered and erected at the end of May. It has been working well when we have wind any faults have been fixed by C & F as soon as they could get someone here from Ireland. It has produced about 15000Kw of electric so far. It pleases me when I can have the washing machine and tumble drier going and we do not need any electric from the grid. I even try and do my ironing when we are producing electric a good excuse not to do it if it was a nice still sunny day in the summer. The only problem is I cannot keep putting it off or we would run out of sheets for the cottages.
The cottages were busy through the summer with the more visitors from Europe. We are going to get a map of the world so we can mark on it where all our visitors come from as we get people from different countries every year which make it very interesting for us.

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Since we came back of our holiday we have been busy going to markets to buy some weaned calves. We have been to Dingwall and Fort William as well as buying a few in our local market at Thainstone. So far we have bought 75 they are all starting to settle into their new home now. We have to vaccinate them against pneumonia and treat them with a wormer. We let them settle for a couple of days after we buy them before we do this then they do not get too stressed

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This year we treated ourselves to a proper holiday, our first for 3 years and our first holiday without Jimmy & Lorna. Leaving the farm and Meg in the capable hands of our near neighbour Hugh we spent 9 days in Malaysia and 10 days in Thailand. We had a really good time seeing some surprising things, like an elephant in the back of a pickup!! We stayed in some lovely places one was on the beach near a place called Khanom in the south east of Thailand. The people there were really friendly so we promised to give the place a mention on our website as it is not a real tourist area. If you venture there instead of Aberdeenshire we would recommend Loma bar/ restaurant and Cocco Loco restaurant. The photo is one of the beaches near khanom

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I eventually got Meg to stay still so I could take her photo. The biggest problem was she always came to close to see what I was doing so I was getting photos of her nose or if I was lucky her face. If I told her to sit still she looked so sad. The best photo was when she was standing in the yard watching someting else not taking any notice of the camera.

This feed was drawn from the Stonefolds Self Catering Farm Cottages, Turriff website

The lovely weather last week led to some wonderful sunsets and, I am told by other people, sunrises although I was never up to see the sun rise. It also allowed the farmers to catch up with harvest and straw baling. Neil got all the straw we need for the winter brought home and stacked in the shed.

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Our dog, Meg, died suddenly so we had to get a new dog. Even though Meg was 13 years old she was still working the sheep so we did not think about getting a replacement dog. When she died we needed to get sheep into the sheep yards to sort them so we could send some of the older ones to market. As the sheep are usually rounded up with a dog if you go without one they take advantage and run off in the wrong direction making it hard work for Neil and myself. So Neil went to see our friend Hugh, who trains dogs for sheep dog trials, to see if we could borrow a dog for a few weeks while we bought new one. Neil came home with a young dog which Hugh had decided would not be good enough for dog trials but would make a good working farm dog. So now we have a new dog which, despite having the same name Meg, is completely different to our old dog. She is black and white with a smooth coat. She is settling in well, I will put a photo on the news page soon.

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