AN Indian summer after a dismally wet August is very welcome to allow us to catch up on all the late summer jobs.

Dartmoor looks spectacular in the late summer to autumn with the changing colours and an abundance of fruit and nuts in the hedge rows.

Local farmers all managed to harvest a large quantity of forage this year although some could be a bit better quality, which throws up the question about how hard the winter weather is going to be; an old farming adage says if there is a plenty — it will all be needed as it will be a harsh winter.

The prices for our lambs, which are being sold through the late summer and the autumn has been disappointingly low from the very first sales. We had a good lambing percentage this spring and there is no shortage of lambs this year. In addition because many lamb carcasses are exported, the weaker Euro has lowered the price further.

The beef price is just holding its own with no exceptional prices. Many of us think there is not enough publicity to encourage lamb consumption. It is very versatile to cook and your local butcher will cut the joints to your requirements with advice on cooking, so give it a go the next time you want a change of menu.

 The autumn stock sales are now in full swing with all their hustle and bustle.

Dartmoor and the rest of Devon is one of the heaviest livestock breeding areas in the country. The sales are particularly important to show off the livestock reared on Dartmoor and its foot hills, many of which will be finished as good butcher’s beasts or lambs, or go as breeding replacements to farms in other parts of the country.

 To get cattle to market they have to have a successful tuberculin (TB) movement test, which I have said before is a nail-biting time for the farmer.

DEFRA has brought out yet another consultation paper on the spread of TB with more testing of cattle suggested to stop the disease spreading whilst the cull of culprits is still so slow to be started.

I, and several other farmers consider there should be targeted culls on badger setts where the sets are tested for TB and if that sett is positive all the badgers would be culled probably by gassing.

On the other hand if the badger sett was not positive the badgers would be left with no culling of that sett. That policy was how the badger population was dealt with before the badger was made a protected animal.

The true country folk knew how to deal with wildlife, with a sensible balance of keeping the wild animals healthy through selective culling and TB outbreaks in cattle were kept under control, which was a simple but effective method.

Domestic and other animals that live beside the target badger cull should also be tested to see if they are TB carriers because we really don’t know if other animals are culprit carriers and it is simply unjustifiable to only concentrate on slaughtering cattle without solving the whole problem.

Road traffic accidents on the moorland roads continue to be a problem with an ever increasing running total of 63 being killed so far this year. Luminous paint on the animal is being trialled this year and is kindly sponsored by the Dartmoor Livestock Protection Society.

This trial is in its early stage, but we anticipate it will help drivers to see animals on the roads at night so we wait to see if it helps the situation.

The important message is that drivers must stick to the 40mph speed limit — most accidents are caused by vehicles going faster that the speed limit.

The pony gathering on the moor has mainly taken place with the annual drift sale which was held at Chagford on October 8 in glorious sunshine. A successful sale was held, with coloured ponies being in good demand with many buyers taking ponies home to train as children’s riding ponies and for driving and agility, which is becoming a new trend.

Gathering of ponies has been good and the weather has helped being sunny and with good visibility.

‘Drifting’ is what pony gathering is called and is an amazing long standing part of Dartmoor’s culture with the dates being the same every year for the different areas to be gathered.

Every family who owns ponies and grazes the moor starts from a certain point on the moor at a set time and this procedure is set in stone and expected of each family to ‘man their posts’ and not be late!

 Gathering begins with people on horseback and quad bikes rounding up the ponies.

Everyone works as part of the team (heaven forbid if you take it in your head to do your own thing!). The tradition gets passed down from one generation to the next and is definitely a skill and a challenge to outwit the ponies who sometimes try to get away from the gather.

The riders must know the lie of the land, which gets more challenging each year with the encroachment of scrub to ride and negotiate over. I started riding with my father on pony drifts at the age of six.

Before quad bikes everyone rode horses to gather their animals on the moor. Due to suffering from a broken leg this year it was the first year I haven’t ridden other than one year when my daughter was born, so I saw the whole thing happen from a different perspective on foot.

I watched the winding and twisting of the ponies drifting down from the hills, going at speed through the rocks, which I think is an amazing sight. It’s like a waterfall flowing down over rocks, with the lead pony usually being a wise old mare leading the herd. The mares all instinctively know the time has come for their foals to be weaned and they run to the gathering points.

This year made me realise what a wonderful tourist attraction the ponies are and if you just happened to be passing when everything was in full flight it would leave a stranger to the area with a strong memory of Dartmoor at its best.

Sheep and cattle are generally gathered by their owners at a more sedate speed but whatever type of animal you are gathering, if on horseback, it is perfect training for riding. It’s a very different experience riding the open spaces of the moor from riding in an enclosed sand school.

My children and their friends were all good riders through being members of the local Spooners Pony Club, which gave them the discipline for riding ponies but they also rode on the moor gathering the livestock. They often rode together and jumped gorse bushes and ditches and learnt to cross rivers and generally have great fun galloping and jumping together as well as hunting.

If they fell off their pony their friends would catch the pony and they would have to get on again to get home. I know they all loved the experiences of riding together on great adventures and they never came to any harm except a few knocks and bumps but that’s how life is and even now we still laugh at what they all used to get up to.

Back to gathering, the sheep will be next on the calendar and all the sheep are gathered off the moor in time for what is known in the Dartmoor farming calendar as ‘clear days’, which lasts for two weeks in each section or part of the moor.

All of the commons of Dartmoor have to be cleared of all of the sheep starting on midnight on November 7 in the south part of the moor and the north part of the moor starting on November 14. This then leaves the whole of the moor clear of sheep for one week between November 14 to 21. This allows the sheep to be sorted into batches to run with the rams and importantly for the ewes to have a full MOT health check before they go into their next breeding cycle.

It is very strange to see the moor empty of sheep during this period when there is definitely a feeling of emptiness and loss on the moor. 

Cattle are next to sort and gather this is generally done by the latest at Christmas time. Again health checks are carried out, calves are weaned, so it is a noisy time. There is nothing more continuous and monotoned than a cow shouting out for her calf. The further the cow is taken away from the calf the quicker she forgets ‘her baby’ and if she cannot hear the calf shouting for mother, she is more likely to settle and just get on with eating some grass!

By Christmas the Dartmoor farming calendar becomes settled into the daily grind of winter feeding and doing the same as on the dairy farms — scraping dung from the yards!

The lambs, calves and most of the foals are all weaned by this time and their mothers are well into the next breeding cycle. The whole calendar starts again; a new year looms with thoughts on what the next year will throw at us.

The question of the UK being in or out of Europe is especially on many people’s minds for many different reasons.