Across some of the most beautiful and remote landscapes
of the British Isles...
There's not many views like that.
It's absolutely stunning.
..Scotland's farmers work day and night producing our milk...
Go on. ..and our meat.
Trying out new ideas...
If a buffalo doesn't want to do something,
you're going to find it very difficult.
Hey!
..and striving to turn a profit in tough economic times.
We're struggling. We are definitely struggling.
New rosette.
Over the course of a year, six very different families
let cameras onto their farms...
Everything that could've gone wrong there, went wrong.
The idea of lying on a beach, bliss.
..to share their struggles...
We have to get her out, or she's going to die.
..and their triumphs.
Thank you. It's not about the pay cheque, it's about the lifestyle.
Summer has arrived in Scotland.
The sun is shining, temperatures are rising
and the work's hotting up for farmers.
No, I do, I like the summer.
Really enjoy the summer holidays, cows are outside.
I love the fact you're looking out your window
and the cows are out happily grazing.
What do they say? Make hay when the sun's shining?
So you just try and get as much done you can.
Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland.
Spring showers and an early summer heatwave have worked their magic
on these fertile coastal fields, producing young grass,
rich in protein and sugars.
For dairy farmers, the Roan family,
this lush pasture is perfect fodder for their 320 dairy cows.
But this bumper crop of summer grass
must feed the herd through winter, too.
For that, it needs to be turned into silage.
That's the finished product. That's silage.
And that's got nice texture and a lovely smell.
If I was a cow... Even not a cow, I could nearly eat it myself,
so I could. There's nothing fancy about it,
it's just grass which has been cut, packed in, fermented,
left for four or five weeks, minimum,
and then it's a nice silage-y, edible product.
That's silage represents our milk production for next winter.
No matter how much other feeding we use, basically,
if the silage is good, the cows will inherently milk much better.
You want to make rocket fuel, basically,
that will feed your cows well over the winter.
So, yeah, there's quite a lot riding on it.
You want to cut it at the right time,
cos you want as good a crop as you can get.
Rain is forecast in three days' time.
With over 300 acres of grass to harvest,
Team Roan needs to run like clockwork.
We're all working together, everybody's together, that's right.
And everybody's a member of the team.
Steven's in the fields mowing...
Keep your fingers crossed that the weather's going to hold.
..Stuart's maintaining the equipment...
They haven't invented a machine yet that doesn't break down at some point, so...
..and dad Derek's making the rows.
The old man's job to do the rowing up.
It's not too fast, it's not too noisy and nobody else bothers me.
In the rush to bring in the harvest, a kind of madness can take hold.
Silage fever, everybody goes down with silage fever.
A well-known condition that I don't think there's a cure for.
It can be pretty stressful
because you just know that it really is critical
that you make as good a quality crop as you can.
If you get caught out with breakdowns or with bad weather,
it's going to cost you money in the long run.
Steven's getting through ten acres an hour.
They'll need to keep up this pace for ten hours a day.
Fingers crossed, the weather and the machinery hold out.
While silage fever grips the south...
..135 miles north-west on the Isle of Mull,
summer has cast its spell on Janet and Alistair's farm.
So, last calf born last night.
Wee heifer calf to Hazel.
COW MOOS
Big stretch.
New life is popping up everywhere.
Not all of it planned.
This hen's just turned up today with a load of chicks.
It's like they get freedom and then she's gone off and been broody
and just brought us back a load of chicks.
And there's some summer surprises from the sheep, too.
We've had a lodger for a couple of days.
Just a wee lamb-y. Not that you can see it
because the dogs just love to watch the lambs. Don't you, guys?
So we call it lamb TV.
The last of the laid lambs now safely delivered,
Janet is able to indulge in an unusual hobby.
Yay, good girl!
Are you training her or is she training you?
We're training each other, I think.
Good girl.
All the way up.
Good girl.
So, Shep? Shep, what do you think of it?
LAUGHTER
Janet and Alistair do paid work to prop up their fragile finances.
A profitable contract to manage livestock
on the nearby Ardalanish estate means two trips to the mainland.
So the plan today is we're going to head over to the east coast,
over to Aberdeenshire, pick up the Ardalanish hogs
that have been away wintering and then bring them home tomorrow.
Right, come on, dog.
Now that the warmer weather has arrived,
the hogs, or young sheep, can come home.
We put them away there just at the beginning of the winter
when they were just lambs and they've been there all winter.
We'll go get them now.
Picking them up will mean an overnight stay away from the farm.
It's so rare that we get away. So it is nice when it happens.
Back down south, the Roans are in the grip of silage fever.
RADIO: BBC Radio Scotland news.
Let's get the weather forecast now with Gillian Smart.
And scorching is the forecast for today and tomorrow.
Is that a real term? It is. It is now.
But it will break down into thundery showers on Saturday,
so make the most of the sunshine today and tomorrow
is the message for today. We've still got some cloud...
They've got just two days to get their first batch of silage in
before the weather breaks.
Derek's job is to tidy up the grass into neat rows,
ready for the harvester or chopper.
This one is the rowing-up machine, which puts three rows from the mower
into one nice big row for the chopper to pick up.
Yeah, I like doing the rowing up, it's the sort of job...
To get the corners right and get the bits tidy and then when Stuart's
on the chopper, it's nice when he says, "Oh, that was easy
"because the rows were good," and, you know, you put the row
in the right place round about a tree or something like that.
So it's the sort of thing anybody can do,
but I like to think it's worth doing a wee bit tidier.
Making hay while the sun shines
has been the practice of farmers for centuries.
But times are changing.
More reliable for farmers, and often more nutritious for animals,
silage has replaced hay as the mainstay of winter feed.
Most farms roundabout here would change from haymaking to silage
maybe about, kind of, 40 to 50 years ago.
Mainly because silage can be made in wetter weather than hay can
and you can do silage in a much shorter window of time.
You see, this is when I sit and do my thinking.
I get locked in my own wee world.
It's quite therapeutic.
You can drive back up, you see that row, you think, "Is it straight?
"Was there a bit I missed? Has it not been properly cut?"
And then you don't fall asleep, or you ram into that electricity pole.
The chopper scoops up Derek's neat rows,
chops the grass and spits it into the trailer.
When a trailer is full,
it's emptied into the silage pit and another takes its place.
Everyone must work together, like links in a chain.
But three hours in, a link breaks.
It's stopped working. It's not... The grass is not going in.
This roller's stopped driving, it's not taking the grass in.
So something went wrong inside this end gearbox,
a tooth or gear chewed up or shaft broken, or something, so...
Don't know till we get in there
and then it's hoping that the local dealer has the right parts.
That's pretty annoying. It's just what happens.
They don't break down when you're not using them, so it's...
They only break down when you want them to go, so...
Everything has come to a halt. Like, everything.
So we're all kind of in limbo,
waiting to see if we can get the bit fixed and get started again.
But it just kind of sets you back, so it'll be a late night...
..which isn't great cos you've still got early starts.
For now, everyone has to down tools.
The grass stays in its rows, the silage pit is far from full
and the clock is ticking.
In the far north, summer has reached Sutherland and the days are long.
But for Highland crofter, Robin Calvert,
the dry weather is not good news.
Leave it, Maggie, leave it, Maggie.
Still very, very short grass.
It's just not growing. Nothing's growing as it should do at all.
What did they used to say? Rain in May for hay.
We've had no rain since about second week of April, something like that.
Robin and wife Penny's 110 acre smallholding provides
most of their food and fuel.
But to bring in money,
they sell their croft-reared meat and pies at local events.
With the summer season about to kick off, there's much to prepare.
I have animals lined up for various events.
We need to get them down the abattoir, then we need to get them back.
They'll need plenty of time to hang so the meat's in tiptop condition.
The Taste Of Grampian Show is approaching.
It's the couple's best chance of making money this year.
In the summertime, we do the great big shows
and we're selling maybe 500 pies and that's where the real profit lies.
But it's a lot of hard work.
Penny's on her way to pick up pie cases
in a roadside rendezvous on the A9.
We cook our pies in pre-formed pie cases
and we buy those from a company in Elgin and they deliver on the A9,
if you go and collect at strategic points.
And my daughter's always saying it's a clandestine arrangement
with a white van on the A9.
They always giggle about it.
And here we are at the Mound which is the most beautiful place.
I saw four ospreys in one go last year.
Just amazing.
It's a nice place to have to wait,
but I tell you, in the winter, it's blooming cold.
Good morning, Penny, how are you doing? I'm doing fine, thank you.
Two of each. Two of each. Yes.
For Penny, this show will mean two full days' work,
filling and baking pies.
Right, then. That's great, thanks very much.
No bother on that. See you later. See you, then.
That's the two boxes of pie cases.
Get them into a freezer so that they're still fresh.
Back at the croft, everyone's enjoying the summer weather.
But for some, their days in the sun are numbered.
Penny's pie cases need filling.
And for that, she needs croft-reared mutton and Highland cattle beef.
It's been brought through winter and it's been well fed and brought on
and kept happy and in good condition and now it's ready to...
go, to fulfil its role on the meat counter, you know.
HE LAUGHS
Which is, oh, a sad end for the cattle, but I say
the way you can equate that is by giving them a good life
on the way past, which I think they get here.
None of them have ever complained, anyhow.
Let's go and get one.
Close this one, Pen.
Robin needs to split one cow off from the others
and coax her into the pen to load her on to the trailer.
Go on.
When moving animals, you've got to think the way they do,
cos you only get one chance.
Go on.
And, after that, you're fighting them.
It's this one we want.
I know. This one at the front here.
He manages to draw her down to the pen...
Follow it on, Pen. Push it on.
..but with an extra cow and three chickens in tow,
he's got more than he bargained for...
Come on. Get that gate. Well done.
..and another chancer slips in.
Sorry, I got a few more. Oh, God.
We could have done without those two.
Right, you operate that gate, I'm going to push it through.
Come on, old girl.
HE MAKES SWISHING SOUND
That's it, thanks.
Robin splits off the cow he needs.
Well, lady, let's have you.
It's your big day.
Come on, in you go.
That way. On you go.
Through. Through you go.
Go on, you can do it.
That's it, come on.
On you go.
That's one.
Hup, hup, hup!
Now for the sheep.
Right, let me in there, Pen.
Let me in. Let me in.
We're going to lose them on the gate.
Luckily, Meg nips round to cover the gate.
PENNY: Ah, he's done this before.
Well done.
Right, I'm getting off.
I don't want this sitting in a hot trailer
any longer than I have to.
These seven animals will come back as carcasses...
..which Robin and Penny can turn into much-needed cash for the croft.
Put the quad back, and then we're done.
Further down the east coast, in Fife,
another cattle farmer is ramping up for the event season...
..but on a much bigger scale.
Come on, you big lump. Up, you.
Stevie Mitchell's water buffalo spend summer in the fields.
This is the time of year when the buffalo thrive probably the best.
They do much better out at grass than they do over the winter.
But today, 48 of his young bulls are in the shed.
Stevie and stockman Eddie must make some difficult decisions.
I think this one is not a bad size, Stevie.
He's looking good. Yeah.
They're choosing the next four animals to go for slaughter.
Probably the least favourite job of what we do,
but we've got to pick out four bulls
that are a combination of things.
The oldest four, as well as, obviously, the ones that are
the biggest four. So a kind of compromise between the two.
The one coming towards you - see?
We just work hard to make sure they've got the best possible life
when they're on this farm.
This one? I think so - 704.
But we couldn't keep any animals if we didn't have an income.
EDDIE WHISTLES
That 704 is probably quite close to as good as you'll get
in a buffalo, in my opinion.
He's got a bit of shape to him, plenty of shoulder,
quite a thick back,
so he would be one I'm particularly proud of.
We'll go and look for one more big one.
Sending these animals off,
that pays the bills to allow us to make next year's winter feed,
etc, etc, so it's a conveyor belt,
but, unfortunately, the time does come
that we do have to send them away.
In the summer months,
Stevie doubles his weekly delivery of bulls to the abattoir
to meet extra demand.
Gently, Eddie. Gently, gently.
This time of year, obviously, this is when we are at our busiest,
with our events, and our customers are at their busiest, too.
And it's barbecue season,
so we tend to see a wee increase in sales from that.
Come on, move your bum. Good boy.
Like Robin, Stevie has his own on-site butchery,
but Stevie's hi-tech operation is fast.
It cost £200,000 to set up
and is staffed by nine full-time butchers.
They're not normally as quiet as this,
they must be shy with the camera. This is John, he's...
A nutcase. ..a nutcase, so we're all in charge of what's going on.
He's just about retire, unfortunately, so...
But we've got Ian. They do the majority of the boning out.
When the animals come in as whole carcasses,
they break that carcass down into each section.
Just one buffalo carcass will produce 450 burgers of prime meat.
We reckon we make somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 burgers a year now.
That's 33 tonnes of buffalo burgers a year,
approximately.
Which is quite a lot, when you think about it like that.
They won't go uneaten.
This year, Stevie's catering at 50 events.
And this weekend, he's at Perth races.
Right, so we won't take all this today.
Just put ten of the minute steak in.
My personality is probably I usually take too much,
so I'm now learning just to be more conservative
because, obviously, you don't...
The key thing is not to have waste, so...
Right, so burgers are in.
He's taking 400 burgers and 12 kilos of minute steaks.
And a brand-new £1,500 gadget.
I was at a trade show on Sunday and I've ended up buying
the demonstration grill. Don't drop it, Eddie.
STEVIE LAUGHS Right.
The salesman's promised Stevie high-speed burgers.
He set us up a programme to cook them inside two minutes,
which would be quite amazing, really,
cos when we do them on the barbecues, you're talking
sort of seven...seven minutes to cook a burger,
so it's a lot, lot quicker.
Now, all he needs is a hungry crowd.
I'll take the instructions as well, just in case I need them.
OK. Boys and their toys.
HE LAUGHS Most farmers love tractors and stuff -
I end up with grills and barbecues.
Two ferries, 200 miles
and seven hours after leaving Mull...
..Janet and Alastair have arrived in Aberdeenshire...
..much to the excitement of the dogs.
Shush.
The Ardalanish ewes are ready to go home.
There's only one problem.
We have sheep on that side of the road and we want to put them all
in together into this field, cos this is where we'll load them from.
It makes me nervous, this bit. Yeah. I worry about it a bit.
Once they're across here, I feel I can relax,
even though we've still got to pen them and load them,
I don't mind that bit.
It's the danger of people, dogs, sheep getting hit by a car.
That'll do, bud. Bud, that'll do. Here.
Come on. Here.
These girls, a mixture of Hebrideans and Scottish Blackfaces,
have spent the cold winter months here.
WHISTLES That'll do.
A lot of people will winter their hogs away from the west coast
and they'll move them over onto east coast places
and even down to the Borders and things, just to good grass.
Put their sheep on it and it helps them grow for a wee bit.
Janet's in charge of just keeping them there
while I get the gates open, the pick-up moved,
and everything organised for coming across.
Janet's sister, Hazel, lives near Aberdeen
and has come down to lend a hand.
While she helps Alastair control traffic...
Pip, come here. Pip!
..it's down to Janet to control the dogs.
Hello, Pip. SHE SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY
Pip, come round here!
They've managed to get the sheep to the gate...
Stop all cars.
..but something is spooking them.
There's a bank immediately outside of the gate,
so the first thing they see is just this solid wall
and they have to jump up it and then come across the road.
Lie down.
The sheep don't fancy at this time.
Right. Right. Give me a try at it, then.
Bud, here. Bud! Here.
I've got this side, you just watch the back.
Sit.
Alastair gets them to the gate again.
You just have to wait until one of them looks at it.
Then, finally, one of them will notice it
and try it, and that's it done.
When it happens, it happens fast.
Stay. Stay.
Stay. Heel. Brea, don't you...
Heel, heel. Lie down. Lie down.
Heel. Heel.
Heel. Stop. Keep them stopped. Heel.
Heel. OK, they can go now.
Now, they need to be loaded onto the trailer.
I'll let you bring them down, then.
You've got the keen dogs.
Come here. Lie down there.
WHISTLES Bud, that'll do. Bud, that'll do.
Left, Brea.
But as Janet and Alastair gather them in,
they spot something unusual.
Lie down.
In a field full of girls, there's a surprise lamb.
Goodness. This is a very...
not very good accident.
Little tiny boy.
Its mum is last year's lamb, and it shouldn't have seen a boy at all...
since October. It's a miracle!
Of the wrong kind.
He's tiny. He's really empty, he's really...
been too young to lamb, really.
She's not got any milk on her.
I mean, there's... Well, probably a little bit, but it's not...
It's just keeping him alive and no more. Yeah.
He's staying alive, and that's it.
But we'll get some... Baby formula. ..baby formula in a bottle
from the supermarket on the way home.
That'll be the way to do it. That'll give it a bit of milk.
She's been a really good mum, she didn't want to leave it at all.
I thought she was being stubborn. Then she kept looking down
at her feet, and I thought, "What's she looking at?"
And I was like, "Surely..." And then... "Surely to God, no."
I still can't fathom how it's happened. No.
Mum and baby get to ride in comfort in the pick-up.
Lie down.
And as they gather in the rest of the sheep,
the mystery of the miracle lamb is solved.
Yep. Has he got his...? Bits and everything.
Janet's found a rogue ram.
Is he marked for a girl?
Yeah, yeah, lamb log mark with...
boy bits.
So we must have made a mistake when we took the notch out of his ear.
At birth, female sheep are given an ear notch.
This male, or tup, got mistaken for a girl.
He probably had little girlie horns cos he's quite a little boy
when we moved him up here.
We never checked underneath because the lug marks should be right.
Hopefully, there'll be no more pregnancies.
A batch of underweight summer lambs wouldn't be welcome.
In the back, good girl.
Oh, sorry, I got caught on your lead.
With a ferry to catch, it's back on the road.
Thank you, Hazel. Thank you.
But first, they need to make a pit stop.
Stay. Someone is hungry.
First time for Janet and I, buying baby supplies.
Hopefully the last time.
Just trying to find something that would work for a lamb, not a baby.
Just it's so tiny.
This is replacement breast milk.
It'll have enough goodness to keep the lamb happy, or hopefully...
As long as it'll take it. Don't know how it will be.
That feels warm. Ready? What do I do with...? I don't know.
You're a woman - you should know. No.
There's not your maternal instinct kicking in.
Hello. Let's see what you think of...
Oh, it is quite big in your mouth.
What do you think of that?
Oh, yeah, it looks like it likes that. Yeah.
That's perked you up, hasn't it?
It's a bit of a relief that it's starting to feed there
because it was looking quite weak when we saw it
and she's not got much milk.
She loves it to bits, but it wasn't looking terribly great.
Look how cute he is!
But we won't have a chance to stop till we get to the ferry again,
otherwise we might miss the ferry,
so it'll have to hang on till then, if Janet can stop cuddling it.
I'll put you back with your mum, eh?
She's still lying down. Good girl.
With baby on board, it's time to make a move.
Oh, no, we didn't get any diapers!
180 miles south...
..there's silence in the silage fields.
The harvest ground to a halt nearly six hours ago,
but finally, there's some good news for the Roans.
Stewart has sourced the replacement part for the chopper.
This roller's not driving because
the teeth on this gear here have chewed up.
That's the new one.
It's supposed to have teeth like that which grip into the gearbox.
This one's gone all smooth, so there's no drive in this roller,
so trying to unbolt this coupler, but the bolts won't come out,
so I'm having to weld nuts onto the end of them,
to then use that heat to make the bolt come out.
Yeah, we're getting there.
Not far away now. Half an hour or so, it should...should be finished.
Finally, they get it working.
But they've lost half a day.
It's 7pm.
There's 150 acres of silage still to be lifted.
So the chopper will have to be pushed to its limits.
Yeah, I'm pleased to get it going again.
It's... Obviously when this stops, everything stops.
Then you've got a queue of people all wondering what's happening,
when you're going, and it's a bit stressful.
So just keep watching the forecast,
see what Carol and Judith have got to say about the weather.
I'm always interested in what either of them have got on the forecast.
But after just 20 minutes of chopping,
disaster strikes again.
Is there not smoke rising there somewhere?
Well, look, you can see it. Aye.
It's underneath here. That's red hot.
Yeah, there's smoke there.
His brake calliper's sticking.
The brakes have jammed and overheated.
The brake disc is molten hot.
A bucket of water here.
We need to watch this doesn't go on fire.
There's nothing to be done but wait for them to cool.
Oh, jeez, oh!
This is a bit frustrating.
We got one problem fixed, and then it's another problem now.
Aye, have you got a screwdriver there, or a spanner, or anything?
We must have lost six or seven hours, anyway,
so hopefully they'll get it going again.
It's frustrating, but these things happen,
and we'll just have to do what we can.
An hour later, the chopper's running.
The silage pit is filling,
and the family is making the most of the long daylight hours.
I'll be quite keen to get as much in as we can
before it gets dark, just cos we lost a lot of time earlier on today.
But it's nice and dry, nice and warm,
it should certainly be good stuff that we're making.
It's nine in the evening.
Are you not tired? I am.
BOY: I'll be tired next year!
Come on, bed.
Mummy, I'll be tired next...
Oi, come on, we need to go in, it's school tomorrow.
What's the point of school?
What do you mean, what's the point of school?
Cos of the setback, it's making it a very long night and...
just when you've got other things to deal with,
it just makes it a very long day.
When you've got the milk business as well to run,
it just adds extra pressure on.
Everybody will be crabbit tomorrow.
I'll be crabbit, they'll be crabbit, Stephen'll be crabbit.
But that's just farming life, that's just what it's like.
I'll race you to the top. Right... Come on!
You either shut up and put up, or you get out.
On farms across the UK,
it's not just the machinery that can overheat.
In hot, sunny weather, farmers must keep a watchful eye
on their livestock.
Come on!
For a dairy cow, anything over 20 degrees can affect their milk yield,
as the more they eat, the hotter they become.
In summer, sheep are shorn, but their thick coats help protect them
not just from the cold, but also the summer sun,
so they need plenty of shade.
On Mull, the Ardalanish Estate sheep have arrived home.
Dukey, leave the sheepies alone.
And for farmers like Janet and Alistair,
summer plus sheep equals only one thing...
..shearing.
I'm getting ready to shear the hogs
we brought back from Aberdeen the other day.
So I've got to set up my shearing race.
And it works.
Come on, in around...
Alistair will be head stylist, while Janet is on crowd control.
Woolly jumpers.
But there's trouble in 'pen.
ALISTAIR CHUCKLES
He's curious.
She's called Chirpy cos she was a hand-raised chick.
She's been laying in the sheep hay heck, and she's very upset now
that there's sheep trying to eat out of it.
CHICKEN CLUCKS LOUDLY
JANET CHUCKLES
Vicious! Chicken versus sheep.
The reason we shear them is cos their wool grows
and if you don't shear them, they'll just keep compiling
fleece after fleece and fleece on top of them.
And it's perfect for maggots and things like that to live in,
which then the maggot will start eating their flesh and kill them.
Most farmers shear their sheep in early summer
before the fly population takes hold.
It's mainly about welfare.
There is a market for wool, but not a very lucrative one.
These ones, the white ones, they're blackfaces -
they'll mostly end up as carpets
because their wool's not very high quality.
In with the fleece, these really... little bit thicker white hairs,
they're a bad thing.
So they won't take a dye and they're really coarse.
These are the things that make your jumper itchy.
Whereas this stuff, this is the nice stuff that's soft and...
These ones are the Hebridean sheep, and...
..their wool is quite soft, it's long and it's hard wearing.
They're used to make the tweed.
A Hebridean fleece itself is worth very little - just 39p per kilo.
But the Ardalanish Estate weaves its own wool into bespoke products,
maximising their return.
Weaver Katrina Crosby knows what makes a good fleece.
They're absolutely gorgeous.
Very little matting and just...
..you just look at it and it comes apart.
They're really clean.
Little bit of straw and grass.
But they're sheep, it's what they do.
She will weave the yarn from these fleeces here on the island.
I'm sorting them into colour.
In our mill, we use natural colour,
sheep fleeces of the British native breeds, so Hebridean, Manx Loaghtan,
which is kind of a cinnamon colour, and then Shetland,
which is an interesting sheep.
I think sheep are very interesting.
They... Like a labrador dog comes in three colours,
Shetland sheep come in about 40 different variations.
We make everything from tweed...
..right down to scarves and blankets and...
..pashmina-style wraps and things like that.
While Alistair finishes the last sheep,
Katrina meets a future supplier.
Their surprise lamb.
Once the ladies are shorn...
..they're released back into the field
to enjoy the rest of the summer.
With hopefully no more surprise births.
Whether it's weaving wool into tweed or turning buffalo into burgers,
farmers are increasingly selling their produce direct to the public.
And with each sale, they're boosting their profits.
In Sutherland, it's a big day for Penny and Robin.
We're going to Thainstone market in Inverurie, near Aberdeen,
where they have the most enormous food fair.
And people come from all over Scotland.
Those chives are gorgeous, aren't they?
The couple's been working hard
to get their meat and pies ready in time.
But it's not just the biggest food festival of their year.
It means a night away from the croft.
No falling out. No howling.
Be good. All right?
We've packed the pies, packed the meats.
It's major. Just such a lot of things to think about.
Your phone's in the car. No, it's in my...
I've moved it. You've moved it. I'll just double-check I've got it.
Glasses. Have you got your pills? Yes, and yours.
I'll get you a large bucket for the pills, if you want.
DOG BARKS
Oh, shut up, Maggie, be good.
Penny has Parkinson's disease,
so scheduling downtime is key to the weekend's success.
Just got to make sure tomorrow that we get set up and then you can
go and have a really good rest before it gets busy. Yeah.
And then do what you can.
If you can't... Yeah, if you can't keep going,
or if you'll feel you're getting tired
or wobbly or something, then you'll just have to knock off
and find somewhere to go for a snooze.
Don't fight it, you know.
No, I've learned not to fight it. It just makes it worse.
It's been useful, it's been really appreciated, but if you're...
finding it hard going, just disappear.
And every time you disappear, come back with a cup of tea.
That sounds all right.
Don't do yourself an injury.
Around 500 small-scale farmers across Scotland
now sell direct to customers at food markets.
Where have you been since I last saw you, then?
In Scotland. Pie chiller, meat chiller.
Meat chiller. Pay for everything here.
The Taste of Grampian is expected to pull in 14,000 people.
That's very kind of you. Thank you for that.
That's all right, no worries.
Come and get a pie for your lunch tomorrow. Yeah, I will do.
Robin and Penny will be competing with 156 other stalls.
We can get in there, can't we? Yeah.
So space is a little tight.
SHE LAUGHS
You're going to get the buttons all caught up in it.
And making a profit is not guaranteed.
Your fees are 400-odd.
You pay for petrol to get here.
Overnight stay.
So you've got to sell £800 or £900 worth of goods
before you're making a profit.
And we're only small.
It's definitely getting broader, is that gap.
It's show time for Penny and Robin.
Pies are £4 a piece, three for a tenner,
same price they've been for five years.
Fellow crofter Maddie has been drafted in to help.
Maddie's main job is working on that board with gloves,
keeping samples going on that plate there.
I've got the A team today.
It's Crofters Unanimous.
Or Crofters Anonymous.
Or, Help, We're Crofters!
Before the crowds get too big...
I'll pull and you let go.
Ooh!
..the Well-Hung Lamb Company needs a well-hung banner.
This is more difficult than it looks. There we go.
"Hang it outside," he said. "It'll be easy," he said.
To me, to you, to me, to you.
It's supposed to be well-hung!
Fingers crossed, their selling techniques
are better than their hanging.
Just needs Robin to come out and say, "No, I want it over there."
Further down the east coast, 90 miles away,
Stevie's placing his bets on a burger stall
for Ladies Day at Perth Racecourse.
It's like blessed, this racecourse, for weather, somehow.
It always seems to bring good weather
whenever we come up to Perth, it's great.
Events like this one account for 30% of Stevie's buffalo meat income.
Sorted.
He's brought along two glamorous assistants.
Dale does the majority of our events with us.
He's also our baker,
so he makes all the steak pies and the butchery during the week,
and then Connor, who's actually our apprentice butcher.
Today, they're test-driving Stevie's impulse buy.
A hi-tech, high-speed grill.
And Stevie's got high expectations.
Three burgers on. If it does what it says it will,
it will pay for itself incredibly quickly.
I mean, despite being very expensive.
Two minutes.
A machine that cooks burgers in two minutes, not seven,
means 360 burgers an hour.
A fast-food upgrade for Stevie's operation.
Ten seconds to go. Can't wait to see this.
They look good. They look really good. That's amazing, aye.
Two minutes.
Our lives just changed.
I actually think it's better.
It's kept it really juicy inside.
Genuinely, I'm not saying this,
it's possibly the nicest buffalo burger I've ever had.
When I seen it, I thought, "Ah, no."
I didn't think it would work. I occasionally have a good idea.
I'm actually really excited to see
what the public make of the burgers now.
£4 a pack, please.
In Inverurie, the crowds are building.
Robin's on a roll and is aiming for a sell-out.
That's a crofter's pie, have you had a crofter's pie before?
They're made from real crofters.
It's never too late, you know.
It's Highland cattle beef and mutton mixed together.
There's a lot of browsing people at the moment,
but they'll start buying this afternoon, I'm not worried.
£15.50 for cash, please.
While trading is quiet...
There we go. Thank you very much indeed. I hope you enjoy that now.
..Penny takes time out in the Land Rover.
I think Penny's having a nap.
I think she was flagging a little bit, so she...
I don't think she'll be too much longer.
The pipe band started up just as she went off,
so I don't know how much sleep she'll have actually got.
PIPE BAND PLAYS
I had a wonderful hour being able to sleep.
It's a question of working out
how long I can function before I need a rest.
You've just got to realise that, having Parkinson's,
your body condition is different every two hours
and it can swing enormously.
We make them so they're good cold like that,
they're even better warmed up.
Or they freeze perfectly.
They're on offer today at £4 a piece, or three for a tenner.
We've still got a few left.
After a quiet morning...
That's ten you're giving me. Thank you now.
..the crowds have descended.
I'm having great fun, they are good fun, these events, you know.
Caught up on a lot of people today.
Seen a lot of folk I haven't seen in a long time.
Oh, I'm having great fun now, yes.
Second half of the day, and we've only got a couple of hours to go.
You've come off the wobbles, haven't you? I've come off the wobbles.
Thank you very much indeed.
If you want to reheat them, the instructions are on the back.
Real meat. Real meat.
They're on offer today at £4 a piece or three for a tenner.
The crofter's pies are a hit.
Seven boxes of pies sold today so far.
About 30 in a box.
You enjoy that.
Thank you now.
Finally, after a late flurry of customers...
I hope you enjoy that now, thanks now.
..it's time to take stock.
I don't trust myself to add straight today because I've been up too long.
I think it's been a good steady day.
Not brilliant, but I don't think we'll have done
as well as we did last year, for instance.
We haven't sold out. I mean, that's when you're really happy.
They've managed to make a small profit.
But it's been a slog.
This is the culmination of a lot of effort that's gone on
over the last couple of years
to get everything to this stage so we can come here.
That's beef and mutton, mixture of Highland cattle beef.
Selling at events means Robin and Penny can ask a fair price.
But after ten years, it's not getting any easier.
Well, there was a time, a few years back,
we used to do anything up to about 50 days like this a year.
We've cut these down an awful lot,
we're just doing about half a dozen of these a year now.
We've also got an attitude in this house of, "Been there, done that."
When you've taken the best out of a project,
you don't want to drag it out until it gets boring,
you want to leave it in its prime,
so that people have got a good memory of it.
I think that's very important.
While Robin and Penny begin to slow down,
in Perth, Stevie is definitely gearing up.
The gates are open
and over 5,000 well-heeled visitors descend on the grounds.
Yeah, I think this is maybe our fourth Ladies Day.
It's a very entertaining day.
It is one of the most vibrant days at Perth Racecourse.
Quite entertaining.
And your 50. Thanks very much, girls.
The sun's shining and Stevie's steaks are sizzling.
I'm just the cook.
I can't count, you see.
Like Robin and Penny,
he needs to sell enough to cover costs
and hopefully turn a profit by the end of the day.
We're aiming to kind of sell, hopefully, about 300 or 400 burgers
and we'd be quite happy if we sold the same again in ciabattas.
Yes, basically, about 800.
We'd like to serve 800 customers today with a bit of luck.
That would be really good.
With the races in full swing, business is booming at the bookies.
But Stevie's burgers are still under starter's orders.
Maybe not quite as good as I was hoping for,
but I'm always a little bit...
I need to learn to be less optimistic, maybe.
MUSIC PLAYS
What his business needs is a bit of lubrication.
I'm sensing a bit of a change, the alcohol has sunk in
and this will be the time you would expect to get busy.
With a bit of luck.
£5.50, yeah?
Stevie's superfast grill helps him make the most
of the last-minute rush.
Thank you very much. He may not have sold the lot,
but he's still pocketed a profit of £2,000.
The day's been good, really. A lot of happy people. We've...
We've sold quite a lot of stuff, really, so quite happy.
Amazing! Definitely! THEY CHEER
Back down in Dumfries and Galloway, the silage harvest is finally over.
So, how are you feeling? How's today went, Steven?
That's all the... Is it on, aye? Yeah.
That's all the silage finished on this farm,
that's first cut finished this year.
You can see we've got...
..this pit's nice and full.
There's about 140 acres in that pit and it should be nice and dry stuff.
And there's a bit in this pit as well.
So, no, all in all, very pleased.
The Roans have harvested 2,200 tonnes,
six months' worth of food for the farm's dairy herd.
How much time is it?
Half past nine? Ten o'clock?
Quarter to ten. Quarter to ten.
On a Saturday night. On a Saturday night, yeah.
For now, the hard work's over.
Time for some fun in the sun.
Take a few metres of silage sheets...
..add water...
Stop soaking Mummy!
..and washing-up liquid.
I'm making it really slippy.
So you are!
That was a good one!
Cos you work and live and breathe it every day,
you're not getting a chance to actually appreciate it.
Just how nice it is living here.
I mean, I always have to remind myself and the kids, like,
we are really privileged.
Look at this.
Who... Who can put a silage sheet in their back garden?
Like, some people can't even hang their washing out.
We are so, so lucky.
That's it!
So, yeah, why would I want to change it?
As long as they're happy, that's the main thing, isn't it?
It's all about them. They're the future.
CHILDREN SHOUT AND LAUGH
Those things in the field and that thing there,
that's what it's all about.
Cows and kids.
Yeah. Not a good combination sometimes,
but that's what it's about.
Watch you don't slip.
THEY ALL LAUGH
What's Mummy going to wash her dishes with now?
Next time...
Oh, you little brute.
..David struggles to hook a stray lamb.
A shepherd's crook, it's not just for helping me walk up that hill.
It's handy for catching the lamb.
It's piglet pandemonium for Aylett and Stuart.
It's like taking your children for their injections.
And Stevie takes fiance, Sarah, on holiday...
to an Italian buffalo farm.
Just like being at a holiday resort, but with buffalo, it's incredible.