After months of tramping daily across a barren moorscape, the undergrowth has recently come to life on the hill. After the cotton grass began to subside last week, other flowers have emerged to lurk amongst the downy wreckage of fluff. The most noticeable has been wild cranberry, which grows in two or three quite large Continue reading

What with the most appalling bad weather over the past 24 hours, it is hardly surprising that some damage should have been caused. Driving onto the Chayne this afternoon, I spotted a beam of wood resting on the stones beneath the old bridge. Getting out of the car to investigate, I found that it was Continue reading

I frequently write on this blog that the Chayne is run down, neglected and in poor condition. On the whole, these are probably exaggerations. Like so many farms across the country’s uplands, the Chayne suffers from a general lack of financial investment, and while it could stand to be greatly improved, the land itself is Continue reading

The blaeberry has begun to flower again after a long winter. Comparing my dates, these flowers are out somewhere between ten days and a week earlier than they were last year. The hot weather over the last few weeks has really hurried everything along, and it shouldn’t be long before these stiff pink flowers become Continue reading

As the first lambs arrive, I need to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of vermin which is always associated with lambing. Crows are whetting their beaks in anticipation of juicy eyeballs, and foxes have already started filching the first of the new arrivals. If I can make a good impact on those thieving devils over Continue reading

It has been a few months since I started to fell trees in the windbreak above the farm buildings with the intention of generating some interesting new undergrowth, and I now have a pleasant reminder of one particularly massive tree felled during that process. The huge larch which had its demise documented in this blog Continue reading

Having spent a couple of days gathering bags of foot-long willow cuttings from across the county, I soaked them in a bucketful of water overnight last night and took them up to the Chayne this morning. Overlooked by the blackcock as he perched near the top of a chestnut tree, I crisscrossed the bog, jamming Continue reading

For someone who pretends to be a grouse keeper, I really do know an embarrassingly small amount about the classic areas of that profession. I had actually never seen heather being burned until Monday afternoon, when I was invited to attend a workshop of muirburn by the Heather Trust on the Candacraig estate near Braemar Continue reading

Langholm has to be the most famous grouse moor in Scotland. Sadly, it is not really famous for the right reasons. Controversy surrounding the issue of raptors saw the moor being used for demonstration purposes in the 1990s which caused a horrible crash in grouse numbers. The project was designed to advance the argument between Continue reading