Returning from the CLA game fair on Saturday, I noticed a sign to North Wales above the motorway. Having heard that a few black grouse still survive in the Vale of Clwyd and feeling flush enough  to afford the petrol, I decided to stop in and have a visit. Around half of Wales’s surviving black Continue reading

I have become slightly obsessed with blaeberry. It grows in such incredible quantities on the verge of the woodcock strip that I had to take a photograph of it. There is blaeberry all across the entire farm, but in the areas where it hasn’t been grazed, it has grown into fantastic proportions. Someday, the entire Continue reading

I have created heather! Well, I didn’t exactly do it from scratch. Four months ago, I planted a packet of “Speyside Heather Seed” in a tray under my window. After a fortnight, something emerged. I watched its progress avidly, but it soon emerged that it was some weed or other. A slug ate it and Continue reading

It has now been six months since I started thinning out the woodcock strip and the effect that that work has had on the blaeberry has been really fantastic. As I brashed  the trees, strained stalks emerged from the needles underneath the bottom branches. Most of the blaeberry appeared to have died away, but there Continue reading

While the first batch of oats I planted have come to nothing at all, the second experimental strips seem to be flourishing. I was starting to worry over the past few days that it had been too dry for the young plants, but now the rain has finally come, they are looking quite promising again. Continue reading

Walking around the boundary fence last night, I had both eyes constantly peeled for the vixen who barked at me last week. As the light failed, I turned for home and set off through an area of meadow land to the west of the Chayne. When I started this project in October, the entire farm Continue reading

I am learning the hard way about arable farming. When I sowed oats in the shepherd’s garden a fortnight ago, I didn’t do a terrifically good job of raking in the seeds. As a result, chaffinches and goldfinches seem to have made light work of the spilt food, tucking into it with great delight and Continue reading

My oat empire is expanding. Despite the fact that chaffinches have pecked away at the majority of the oats I sowed last week, the sky is the limit for the size of area that I can plant up with cereal crops. The major downside to the Chayne is the fact that nothing at all has Continue reading

One of many suggestions to come from my recent meeting with John Cowan was the idea of putting in a so called “sacrificial crop” for the benefit of the black grouse. Despite being so much rarer than red grouse, blackcock actually seem to be rather easier to look after than their famous cousins. Historically, they Continue reading

It was great fun to head up north and have a look about, but how things were going at the Chayne was always on my mind when I was away. I now have so many little irons in the fire across the farm that I have been on tenterhooks to see how they have all Continue reading