Glensaugh has been snow free for about two weeks which has allowed us to return to our normal winter routine and has created some time for added value work.

We recently sold our old stock bull, Balthayock Perry who we bought in 2001 for about £2,000. We used him for service during nine seasons and not having fallen foul of the usual ills of bad feet or arthritis we were able to sell him through the auction ring in Forfar where he made £1,010. While one should never become attached to commercial stock he had become something of a bovine celebrity and he will therefore be missed around the farm.

One of our regular winter jobs is tree planting. Further in-fill planting has been done in the Birnie Burn area. This has proved a difficult site; some of the soils are very fertile which has led to overgrowth of species such as birch, while other parts of the site are exposed and stony. Key to successful establishment is weed control and we are making efforts to apply herbicides at the right time to ensure that this area can be finally “signed off” in 2010. The ethos of planting every year is now fairly well embedded and is a good fit with our aim to begin harvesting biomass for heating purposes. Our biomass grant application is at the “critical” stage and is undergoing final horse trading before submission to the assessment committee.