Harvest

With the weather we're having, getting in the harvest is likely to be more chancy in this part of the world so it was good to see the barley being reaped in late afternoon sunshine in the Dairy Park. A local who stood with us watching - the tractor was being driven by his nephew, who rents the field off the Sutherland Estate - told us that, until last year, this extensive field was never put down to an arable crop. We've noticed that other fields have seen similar changes: large parts of the farm at Golspie Tower, once pasture, are this year down to oats. In today's worrisome world, one imagines that farmers have been urged to increase their cereal production.

The crop in the Dairy Field was barley, perhaps destined to become the national drink. 

Our walk along the front towards Dunrobin Castle usually offers plenty of interest but yesterday's produced little except a few terns fishing just off the beach and this large, hairy brown caterpillar which, rather tentatively, I would identify as the caterpillar of the fox moth.