Jonathan: This afternoon I drove down north to Aird in Benbecula to collect eight sheep I’d agreed to buy.  One Hebridean from Catherine: we already have five ewes from her flock and very nice they are too; but this time it’s a wedder – a castrated male intended solely for the butcher.  The others were from her neighbour Alasdair – a model crofter if ever there was one. These too are wedders, but whilst six are Hebrideans, one is a cross of a Hebridean on a Boreray ewe, and so has white fleece.  Though now 6 months old and with lovely long fleeces, they are still just youngsters really, and very cute.  We’ll be growing them on for another year, when they will go into the freezer as hogget lamb for sale from Xmas 2012 and into summer 2013.  They travelled extremely well: with a generous layer of fresh straw in the trailer, they were reasonably comfortable, despite the dreadful weather. Arrived at the croft D and I took details from their ear tags, dosed them against fluke and ticks etc, checked their feet (trimming as necessary) and then let them out into the field. A lot of bleating from those first out back to their friends still in the trailer, but otherwise they got straight on with what’s important to a sheep – eating. Both D and I are very pleased with the good shape and weight of these lambs, even the two smaller ones (one Heb and the BorererayX), so hopefully we’ll improve on that over the coming year.   Here’s me with the BoreraryX.