Tuesday 31 August 2010

Haylage

We're into a run of good weather, two beautiful days behind us and the forecast promising sunshine until Saturday. This is the sun rising across the shoulder of Ben Hiant at 6.50 this morning: as the autumn comes, it will progressively rise further and further to the right until it's coming up over Loch Sunart.

With this weather the Millburn Camerons are out making haylage in several of the fields below the road along Ormsaigbeg - and, no, nor had the Diary ever heard of haylage before. Gillespie, our postie, tells me it's grass which has dried beyond silage but not quite as far as hay, that it has to be baled like silage, and that it's very good food for horses. Yesterday's cuttings were being turned this morning, with a buzzard and a small flock of seagulls taking a keen interest.

In many of the fields this is the second grass crop this summer, one cut before we lost our first sunny spell in July, just before the schools broke up, and this one, just after the schools have gone back.

All this opportune haylage-making is possible because the Camerons have invested heavily in efficient, modern farm machinery like this tractor. The dark knoll beyond it is the site of the ruins of Caistel Dubh nan Cliar, earlier post here. In the distance, across a tranquil Sound, stand the telecommunications masts above Glengorm.

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