The past few weeks we have been busy, with various meetings both on and off the farm. We have hosted another Climate Change Focus Farm meeting. This time it was looking at out beef enterprise and the local beef group was invited to come along, too. An interesting debate took place throughout the day, discussing calving duration and cow age, amongst many other things.

We recently took a trip to the Stirling bull sales and decided to take three prime cattle to the abattoir on the way. Unfortunately a blow-out on the trailer wheel when we were still seven miles from the abattoir, combined with a spare wheel still back at home, resulted in a rather slow and slightly stressful journey. Finally we limped into the abattoir after a detour around a housing estate when the navigation app on the phone took us the wrong way.

We are off to London in a few weeks time to an event organised by QMS to promote Scottish beef. We have been asked to provide some of our beef, which is being prepared by our local butcher, Forsyth's of Peebles. Events such as this one are so important to promote the high quality of beef produced in this country, especially in light of the recent horsemeat revelations.

This is to be our last Farmer Focus article. We have thoroughly enjoyed sharing our farming stories with you over the past few years. Although we will miss racking our brains to decide what to write each month, we will be kept busy with the day-to-day work on the farm, as well as Robert's Nuffield scholarship travels. Let's hope the satnav gets him to where he wants to be.



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