Shear hell! Summer was so soggy I couldn’t give my sheep a proper trim
WHEN sheep farmer Glenys Macmillan and her husband moved to the Highlands 38 years ago, they were well aware of the region’s reputation for being a bit soggy.
But even they were left stunned after their farm was named as the wettest place in Scotland this summer.
And 70-year-old Mrs Macmillan told how this summer’s downpours left even the 200 sheep at her farm so sodden that they could not use the shearing machine to clip them.
The unseasonal weather has seen their farm, at Achnagart in Glen Shiel, Rossshire, deluged with a record 28in (727mm) of rain.
According to the Met Office, this summer’s rainfall is the highest since records for the area began in 1967.
And it was a washout for the rest of Scotland too, with rainfall 70 per cent higher than average in the parts of the Central Belt.
Mrs Macmillan lives with her husband Donald, 79, on the farm, which has its own weather station.
She said: ‘I’ve lived here since 1979 and this is the wettest summer I can remember.
‘It’s been pretty continuous rainfall. We’ve got 200 sheep and they’ve been so wet and waterlogged that we’re behind with the shearing.
‘The sheep are too wet to machine shear so I have to use hand shears.’
The previous rainfall record for the area was set in 1985 when 27in (709mm) fell in the same period, from June 1 to August 30.
Bizarrely, the village of Drumnadrochit in Inverness-shire, which is only 40 miles from the Macmillan’s farm, was the driest place in the country in July.
Mrs Macmillan, who has four children, is the fourth generation of the family to run the farm, which was owned by her husband’s uncle before them.
They will hand over the reins to their son Malcolm, 38, in the coming months.
Mrs Macmillan, whose three other children are Eilidh, 42, Ross, 40, and Ngaire, 36, added: ‘I was born in New Zealand and came to work in farming on the West Coast of Scotland when I was 23. I worked locally before I met my husband, Donald, and moved here in 1979.
‘My husband took over the farm from his uncle, who started the Met Office weather station here in June 1967. One of our sons is now taking the farm over from us, meaning it has been in the family for five generations.
‘We normally get some decent summer days here, so when it’s not raining there is outstanding beauty around us.
‘Our grandchildren like coming to visit but they found it a bit wet this summer.’
The Met Office said that the recent wet weather was the result of storms in the US state of Florida, which is braced for the arrival of Hurricane Irma.
It’s Scotland’s fifth-wettest summer since records began in 1910.
Met Office forecaster Rachael Adshead said: ‘The thing about this year is that there was no real summer to speak of.
‘Even in past bad summers, there have still normally been a few good weeks. But this year was different. It was just plain bad all the way through.’
‘The wettest summer I can remember’