Update on the Moors fire

Well the fire is finally out, though we woke to no power and the smell of smouldering heather and a fine breezy. This afternoon the fire tenders were still damping down on the moor. It would appear that the fire is as a result of the game keepers doing controlled fire burning of the heather on Thursday.
This mornng was a sheep managing day. First we (Deefa, Tim and I) moved the marauding munchers on to the common land, moved Ghilli and Grommet temporarily into the Allotment, moved the new girls into the barn so we could weighed, wormed and heptovac'd them. They went through the weigh scales and up into the sheep crush with very little encouragement. Certainly made life easy. We then moved them back to their field, followed by Ghilli and Grommet. Ghilli runs full pelt back into his paddock whereas Grommet goes at his own pace, it is totally beneath him to run, unless it suits him!!!!
The weather is still holding and the swallows are still here. Last year they were gone by the beginning of September. It looks like the fine weather is to continue into next week and for some this is causing problems with their grass as it is not growing. Our neighbour has sold his young calves to a local finishing unit early as he's running out of grass and I've started to notice ring feeders out in fields with silage in them for the beef cattle. Hopefully tomorrow Tim will be out with the topper, on a high setting, to take off the dry grass stalks where the sheep have been grazing over the last week or so, so that the new grass that is slowly coming through isn't choked and is fresh again for when the sheep go back into these fields.