At Glensaugh we are in the “quiet” holiday period when cattle and sheep are grazing contentedly, silage is all made and living should be easy. Against this backdrop summer maintenance is continuing. The desludging of the waste water lagoon after about fifteen years of service was a necessary but unpleasant task. A mixture of rotten leaves and floating vegetation was sucked out by vacuum tanker, which should keep things under control for another few years. It is a good reminder that when we build infrastructure we have to remember to maintain it, and that left to nature everything we build will eventually be colonised by vegetation and ultimately destroyed.

A more pleasant job was the completion of the new water tank [right]. The overflow (which also doubles as a garden feature for Bows Cottage) discharges about 8,000 litres of water per day into the drainage system of the adjoining field. A day was spent with one of our local digger contractors tracing and diverting drains to make this work properly. Now that we have more water than we need the next challenge is to bring this up to a potable standard and switch our domestic supplies on to this system. Glensaugh Lodge will be the first to go, where we already enjoy the benefits of unlimited irrigation water in the garden.

When we have a digger on site we usually tackle a list of jobs. On this occasion we also undertook the repair to the bank of the burn near the Clatterin Brig, which had become badly scoured during recent spates. Using only locally won natural stone we have re-profiled the bank to safeguard our march fence and allow us to put in place a permanent water gate to prevent livestock escaping. Nature will finish the job here as the stabilised bank is colonised by plant life.

I will be on holiday until mid August. Having completed a good number of farm jobs I can leave with a clear conscience. Only the garden, which has flourished in this warm wet summer, now stands in the way of our family holiday.