September
Harvest continues after a fraustrating rainy spell (even more fraustrating was watching the forecast reminding us how lovely and hot it was in the South East). We rattle through the cultivating, drilling and rolling of new crops as time is of the essence - getting harvest in is only half the autumn work. We've been very disappointed by the rejection of some malting barley - there's a huge price difference between malting barley and animal feed barley. No exotic holiday this year (again). Memo to self - sell more lamb and beef.
Lambs are weaned from their mothers, another opportunity to check numbers and condition. Some are sent to grazing we have next door at Muirhouselaw. Harriet can ride by on her horse and keep an eye on them there which is handy. Our surplus bullocks are sold to a local butcher (the best butchers source direct from farmers - one step better is for you to buy direct from the farmer!). They're fat little chaps this year which is good. One of our 18 month old rams won first prize at the local show. A nice rosette to inspire greater excellence.

August
The fruit is still going strong though the weather has tested us yet again. Some of our poor raspberries have a terminal root disease that slowly kills the plant so we have a shortage to contend with. It'll take a few years before new plants are fully fruiting. Our shiny new combine is primed for action - it'll be even quicker and cleverer than before, a virtual computerised factory on wheels it guagues vital statistics about yeild, grain size and moisture content. Some even use GPS to guide them - sadly none appear to tell you when you're about to hit a big stone. Our oilseed rape is being harvested to go into our Oleifera cold-pressed rapeseed oil - for sale in all good delis! Malting barley is underway and will hopefully make the exacting grade for brewing and distilling - for sale in all good pubs! The race is on to plant our oilseed rape for next year as warmth is crucial for good germination - right now is when the success of next year's yeild is really determined.

July
Fruit mania has started! We work 24/7 keeping our many PYO customers happy with enough fruit, baskets, tea, cakes and whatever else they require. It's always fun and frantic. This year there is a huge strawberry crop so the kiddies are delighted. Silage is cut and baled to feed the cows next winter.

June
Our fruit has ripened up in the lovely summer warmth so after much debate, we've set our opening date at the end of the month. The lambs are counted to see how lambing went and we take the chance when gathered, to give them fly protection. The young hoggs (next year's breeding ewes) are clipped.

May
Lambing and calving is (almost) completed by the end of the month giving Brian the shepherd a much needed rest as he's been up at 4.30am since March. The cows and calves go out to the hill. Last year's calves return from their indoor wintering at Rutherford and spend the summer out on the open hill too - it's good to be home!
Our lovely little heat wave is tough for the new strawberries so we've turned on our new (well, it went unused for the past two summers...) irrigation system. Jets of water spurted up all over the field, after some muttering and fiddling, it eventually waters the plants. Straw is laid down the rows and it starts looking like a proper fruit field with an excellent show of flowers meaning (hopefully) a bountiful crop. It takes six weeks from flower to fruit so we can tentatively set an opening date for Border Berries.

April
Lambing is in full swing so the ewes have been brought down from the hills into the nearby fields to have their lambs. They return to the hill a few days later - a longer R&R than your average NHS hospital. Those with twins (unusual with our Cheviot hill sheep) stay down in the rich grass fields until July to help their milk.
The crops are really begining to sprout at Rutherford with warmth and rain. We spend an arduous few days planting strawberries which will fruit fully next year - they tend to only last 3 or 4 years so we constantly replace them. We're trying a new late variety to help extend our strawberry season so it fully overlaps with the raspberries - customers always want strawberries!

March
We welcomed back our hoggets (10 month old lambs for sale here in April) from their winter holiday frolicking in the rich dairy pasture of the Solway coast where the fatten up for delicious eating in spring. Some were sent to our local abbatoir for sale on the website, the remainder went to market for a handsome price (things are looking up!).
Our twelve best male tup lambs were kept last autumn as possible breeding candidates. Now we've selected the best four and sold the others.
At Rutherford we've begun fertilizing our autumn crops ready for their growth spurt as the weather warms. Thankfully the dry weather allows us to get on and plant our spring barley, destined (if it makes the grade) for malting. Support us by drinking Scottish whisky and beer!

February
This month it's a Bluetounge vaccination for the sheep, a nasty new disease from the Netherlands and spread by midges. Unfortunately if it makes it to Scotland, there are plenty of midges to spread it...
We sold four of our two year old Galloway heifers (females that haven't had a calf yet) in the breed sales where a premium is paid for good breeding stock. This is the first time we have tried selling this way, rather than by word of mouth or at local sales. It paid off and we received £650 each.
At Rutherford, the last bit of raspberry tending was completed, then the gooseberries, black and redcurrants were pruned.

January
Our sheep are gathered to receive a winter dose for liver fluke, a nasty worm that's always more severe after a wet year. Hoggets for sale here in April/May are happily grazing down on the haugh (our Tweed riverside field at Rutherford) where they love the watercress causing them to wade up to their bellies in our backwater ditches. Watching exasperated fishermen in the salmon season gives them some light entertainment too. Our lamb and hogget truly have lived contented lives.

At Rutherford, we all went on holiday (making sure someone stayed behind to feed the cattle...). Helping cull the red deer up in Knoydart and snowboarding in Chamonix is how we spend our free time. Due to the terrible value of the pound, we took a suitcase full of lamb chops and venison fillet to Chamonix and barbecued it on the open fire. Absolutely and completely delicious! (see photograph).

December
The last of the calves were weaned and joined their little friends in the big sheds at Rutherford. There they join the bullocks who feast all winter ready to become next autumn's beef.

At Rutherford, the cold weather does a welcome job of freezing the greedy little slugs trying to decimate our crops. One less thing to worry about. It's a quiet time of year when we catch up on paperwork hence choosing it as the end of our financial year. Each morning the cows are fed, on occassion a cheeky little Galloway calf has squeezed into the large haylage feeder and pooed on it. The remainder of hedges are cut (we are responsible for the inside of each field, the council do the roadside) and ditches cleared out.

November
Thank you to those of you who ordered our lovely lamb, we spent a busy few weeks on sales and then packing the lamb for delivery. It’s the end of our whole process.Waving off the boxes in the courier van and is deeply satisfying (also because we treat ourselves to all the little off-cuts like dogs hanging around a butcher shop).

At Unthank, our ewes were brought down off the hill into fields. This reduces the leg work required by the tups to do their job. They were released into the fields around mid-November for 17 days, this gives them time to cover all the ewes in time for May lambing. Each tup wears a belt with a colour block on the underside so we can see which ewes have been covered. We also know which tups are poor performers. Unfortunately we appear to have spent £600 on a tup with zero sex drive (not that uncommon!). Luckily we had a spare. Some of our cows came into the shed for winter and calves were sent to Rutherford where there is plenty of shed space for them.

At Rutherford, the greedy old swans keep guzzling the rape and the slugs guzzle wheat. This keeps our blood pressure up, though devising ways of scaring swans and nuking slugs calms us down. At long last, the job of pruning back the raspberry canes is complete - they look nice and tidy but more importantly, they won't be whipped about and damaged in the winter wind.

October
At Unthank we sent our hoggets to a farm down by the Solway Coast to enjoy a milder winter on rich pasture ready for our spring sale. Our hill is just not suited to over wintering sheep intended for sale in the spring as our grass runs out. This is an age old practice as the remainder of our non-breeding sheep were sold this month. Another farmer makes the profit of selling them to market/butcher as fat lamb. Now we have you to buy them directly from us, we can keep some of them ourselves.

We also bought three new tups (male breeding sheep) for tupping our ewes next month and in turn sold some of our own – this is to ensure we have new blood coming into the stock. Two of our tups have gone to the bonny Isle of Skye – if you’re holidaying there, keep an eye out for two fluffy white Cheviots (white faces amongst the usual Blackface sheep there). Our bull calves are also castrated at this time of year to ensure they put on weight rather than burn off teenage angst with their hormones. In autumn 2010 they’ll be ready for sale at around 30 months of age.

At Rutherford we managed to drill the rest of our wheat, a perilous task in waterlogged fields. You may have noticed rather a lot of big muddy holes where farm machinery has sunk this year. Our sport has been trying to keep the Queen’s lovely swans from devouring our rape seedlings. We run at them wailing and hooting telling them to fly over to the Duke of Sutherland’s ground opposite, they can be very obstinate. They are big birds and come in flocks of 50 or more to gobble the very tasty shoots. If you have a nibble, it’s just like a lovely fresh cabbage and can be found in salad bags. The very lengthy task of cutting back our raspberry canes continues.

September
At Rutherford, we eventually gathered our remaining wheat with only three combine breakdowns to hamper our efforts. This is the latest harvest we’ve had since 1985. The raspberry canes are being pruned back, a tedious job which Denise does valiantly right up until Christmas time.
At Unthank, we escaped the worst of the flooding. Tups (our male breeding sheep) were given a good old wash and fleece clip by way of primping and preening for the tup sales in early October. With the right price, they can bring in much needed income for us. Older ewes have been singled out for better grazing in the fields rather than on the hill to help with their final lambing.
Our Galloway bullocks (renowned for their high spirits), were found running rampant on the neighbour’s farm – they’re back home now...
Brian our shepherd has a lovely new collie pup which will give him equal amounts of pleasure and angst as he trains it this winter.

August
Our fruit season came to a soggy end about a week earlier than we had hoped due to the weather. The final insult came when a gale whipped the roof off our smart new marquee in the field. Harvest has begun with our oilseed rape (used for Oleifera cold-pressed rapeseed oil available on our website), oats heading off to become porridge and malting barley off to the whisky distilleries up north. We’ll make a start on the wheat just as soon as the weather is fair enough next month.
Down at Unthank, our hill sheep farm, the lambs have been weaned and future female breeding stock selected to go back to the hill with their mothers. The best of the rest will be fattened in our best fields until the end of October either for Busby Lamb or for our spring hogget. The remainder go to the local market where others with more grazing space can fatten them up over winter to sell themselves.
At last Harriet’s two dun Galloways (a tawny brown cow in contrast to our usual black ones) are both in calf. Currently Harriet is beating them in the baby production stakes. Cattle have the same gestation at human babies so it’s fair running!

28 July
A whole week of fair weather has really helped lift the spirits. The berries are plentiful so everyone is happy. Back at Unthank, the grass is growing well and we’ve managed to clip all the sheep in the fair weather. The rain held off for the crucial silage baling time which is a relief – it is the most nutritious way of feeding our cattle through the winter.

21 July
Sunshine at last! There’s no doubt that a bit of sun makes a berry farm all the more alluring. Harriet’s been baking cakes just as fast as she can to keep up with demand. Word has spread and the good folk of the Borders have been flocking in. Our Busby Beef is on the menu in the form of irresistible salt beef (cured in brine and cooked, just like ham) too.

14 July
Rain, rain and a bit more rain. It hammers down on the roof of our marquee/caravan sales HQ in the pick your own fruit field of Border Berries. The car park has become a mud bath but our customers have been remarkable loyal and resilient in these last two summers of rain. A good breeze helps dry the fruit ready for picking so we’re just about keeping up with demand.

7 July
Just as well we invested in our fancy new irrigation system last spring... What with all the drought warnings in 2006, we thought it a necessity but it seems to have rained each summer since. Never mind, we’ve got all bases covered now as the berries (strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, red and black currants, tayberries and blackberries) have happily ripened just as well albeit 10 days later this year.

30 June
I’ve left the sheep and cattle in the capable hands of Brian the shepherd for the summer and we’re ready to open the Border Berries fruit fields at Harriet’s family farm any day now. Fingers crossed for fair weather.