The last 3 years it's been snow and ice and this year true to form it has been floods. Every year no matter when we plan the annual round up of the Soays from Powhill the weather conspires to make the task more difficult and stressful than it might usually be.

The heavy rains across the region the day before the roundup made persuading the Soay sheep to cross the stream to part way along the site and up to the small enclosure a bit of a challenge, not too mention getting there along flooded roads in the first place! The annual roundup and move to the winter grazing site is always an event which has the potential to take much longer than anticipated as the Soays are not renowned for their co-operation! However with help from Dave and Sarah and despite a couple of minor hiccups they were all successfully gathered in are now happily grazing away on their winter site.

Now all we have to do is catch them up in the spring to take them back there next year!!

Well this years lambs are arriving steadily and winter grazing has started on 2 sites in Durham which require shearlings to graze hem as they are quite 'hard' sites and the younger sheep wouldn't thrive there. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks the rest of the lambs should be in situ and we can get the winter programme fully under way.

Don't forget there are plenty of shearlings available for the box scheme. Should anyone fancy trying one they will be available until the end of November and then there will be a break until the end of March.

Contact us at Flexigraze@northwt.org.uk

After battling with the wet weather all summer we have eventually been able to move some cattle onto Druridge pools. There are less of them than we would have liked but this season has been thrown all over the place by the quantity of rain there has been. Hopefully next year will be better.

Sitting here keeping out of the rain working out the logistics of all the stock movements that need to be done over the next few weeks. It is always tricky at this time of year with the new intake of sheep arriving from the hill farms. We are looking to buy nearly 200 this year to bring the numbers back up to around 300.
With groups of last years animals to move onto the sites with poor quality grazing we have to do some careful planning to ensure that no movement standstills are accidentally broken. It all usually goes smoothly unless there are unplanned for delays, for example there is one bunch that cannot be moved at present as the access routes are underwater. Only an inconvenience but does mean that jobs can keep being pushed back.

Jess and I took some sheep down to the woolly event at Tyne Riverside Country Park a couple of Sundays ago on one of the few sunny days this summer.
The 2 sheep are different breeds, one being a Shetland and the other a Manx Loaghtan.
They drew a lot of attention as did Jess who divided her time between being petted by the numerous visit and keeping an eye on any other dogs passing by.

Some shetland sheep which have been grazing on Prestwick Carr. They take a bit of finding in the 60 acres of woodland but we eventually tracked them down and got them out to the fence. Note Jess in the background making sure they didn't disappear again!

The autumn grazing programme is starting to get underway with a few Highland cattle and some Exmoor ponies out on site already.
We set up an electric fence in the corner of a field the other day in order to train the sheep which will making the pilgrimage to graze on Holy island late this autumn. It is important that they learn to respect an electric fence before they go otherwise they could get out and wander wherever they like including back across the causeway. May be we should teach them to read tide tables as well!