It’s the last blog of the month and so time for another photo dump! March has been a relatively quiet month, with the Paddocks shut and fewer visitors around, but it’s still felt very busy for us herders! Generally only four members of staff work each day throughout March. The mornings are taken up by two herders heading out to find and move the free ranging herd, and the other two herders lead the Hill Trip at 11am. So, by the time we’ve all had lunch the afternoons seem to totally fly by. We also had some very snowy and wintery weather in the middle of the month, making our lives a little more interesting and keeping us on our toes! Hopefully, we’ve managed to tick off all the important jobs in time for the Easter Holidays which kick off on the 1st of April.
1st of March: Sunny has spent the majority of January and February free ranging in the hills with the big boys. He and a few other youngsters were brought off the hill on the last day of February and spent a few days in the Paddocks. So of course it was only right Sunny got an invite to dinner!! 2nd of March: Sheena and Lotti take some routine temperatures. Whilst we don’t expect any at this time of year, it’s good handling practice for the reindeer to make sure we can still catch them whilst they’re out free ranging. In this photo it’s Beret’s turn, but Holy Moley is patiently waiting for her go, anything to be allowed into the white bag! 3rd of March: Can you spot Fiona leading the herd at the front? Meanwhile I’m being “sheep dog” at the back, making sure everybody follows. Vienna and her calf Kulfi are the last two reindeer… as usual!6th of March: Snow again! This time I’m at the front of the herd leading them in to the visit location, whilst Andi is gently encouraging them at the back. Here we have the beautiful Lace and if you look VERY closely you might be able to spot a golden eagle in the sky above the herd! 7th of March: After demolishing lots of hand feed, Pumpkin is in need of a wee rest!7th of March: 99 and Tub, two ten-month-old calves having a play fight!8th of March: What a day!! Popsicle and her mum Caterpillar looking gorgeous in the snow.9th of March: Another cracking blue bird day! Here’s Merida and Beret saying hello,12th of March: Solero chilling out after a Hill Trip whilst people enjoy milling around the herd in the background.13th of March: A very wintery Hill Trip for me and Cameron! This is why we tell people they need full waterproofs and walking boots/wellies at this time of year.14th of March: Moving the herd in a snow storm.14th of March: The morning ritual of allowing the calves to feed out of the bags first, whilst we prevent older reindeer from sneaking in (yes you, Holy Moley).15th of March: Can’t resist including this picture of Lolly (Oatcake’s calf). What a cutie. 18th of March: Leading the herd in to position for the Hill Trip, the fab trio at the front leading the way as always- Lace, Fly and Sika!19th of March: Sorbet, Cornetto and his mum Helsinki posing in the sun!20th of March: What a glorious morning to go retrieve and deposit the herd ready for the Hill Trip!23rd of March: Sisters Suebi and Turtle hanging out together, strong family resemblance between these two! 24th of March: Moving the herd with Hen on a very atmospheric morning. The reindeer were particularly lazy today, they did not come to our call, so we got a great morning work out walking up to them!27th of March: There are a few cows on the hill who are now beginning to grow their antlers for 2023. This is Ryvita who is showing off her wee velvet buds. 28th of March: Morven (currently looking a bit lopsided) and her calf Mochi waiting for the food to be put out.
A few years back I replied to an email from a lady who had visited Glenmore from the USA back in 1969, and had been put up for the night in Reindeer House by Mikel Utsi. She remembered meeting a pure white reindeer in the pen behind the house (what is now the Paddocks), and from our herd records I could tell this must have been Snowflake, one of the first ‘leucistic’ reindeer in the Cairngorm herd.
Snowflake outside Reindeer House in 1970.
We corresponded a bit and Sharon, who is an author and public speaker, then came back to visit Scotland again that summer, returning to the Reindeer Centre once more, and has stayed in touch since through becoming an adopter (picking a descendant of Snowflake as her adoptee!). Her unexpected encounter with a reindeer back in the 60s sparked a life-long interest , and she has gone on to write a book about her early travels and her time since spent amongst reindeer herders all over the world. She wrote a wee blog for us too a couple of years back too.
In 2019 Sharon gave lectures on reindeer on Viking ocean cruises, using a mixture of photos she has taken and ones we have provided, and in 2022 the lecture was recorded for Viking TV. And here it is!
Winter is always one of the best times of year with the reindeer. They are completely free range and we head out daily, locate and feed them so we keep a good management on the herd. It’s probably the time of year we get the most exercise too – a morning work out to find reindeer and bring them into closer proximity of our Hill Trips is a favourite amongst all the herders.
The top followers this winter have to be Okapi, Lace and Fly, usual suspects. However, with a greedy family often some of the first ones all running down together are Hopscotch with daughters Juniper and Kipling, and their calves Fab and Tub so it certainly is a family affair!
Lace is often at the front – a natural leader.Emmental, leading the way, with Lace not too far behind.Hopscotch, Tub and Kipling – unsurprisingly impatiently waiting next to the feed bags.Despite casting her antlers earlier in the winter, and aged almost 16 years old, Fly remains a dominant leader in the herd. Such a good lass!!
They don’t want to make our job too easy through. In January the reindeer often come to a call. We bellow our wee lungs out and the reindeer come running. But in February they like to make us walk, so most often two herders will head out and as good as get to where the reindeer are before turning round – one herder leads whilst the other walks at the back to keep them moving. Otherwise, they’d probably just lie down and we wouldn’t get very far.
Hiking out to the reindeer on the skyline.
On one occasion in January Lotti and I skied out to retrieve the herd. Always a treat getting out on skis and topped off with ski-ing for work… well it doesn’t get much better than that. More recently there hasn’t been so much snow, just a lot of wind so even if it doesn’t look cold outside that wind chill can get pretty brutal.
Fiona leading the herd down on her skis ready for a Hill Trip. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it!Lotti, having a totally miserable time at work!
The reindeer are so good though, without fail they plod down behind us herders ready to meet and greet our many half term tourists wanting to visit them. Chief hand feeders at the moment are – Kipling, Juniper, Holy Moley, Okapi, Pumpkin, Marple, Brie, Ryvita…
Old girl Okapi is a hand feed enthusiast!Ryvita, another lover of hand feed, eagerly waiting for our visitors to arrive!
Once the visitors have enjoyed spending time with the reindeer the herd wander back out into the mountains and it happens all over again the next day.
A while back I interviewed a few of my colleagues with some questions relating to the Christmas season. The first half of this blog can be read here. But onward…
THE SMELL YOU MOST ASSOCIATE WITH CHRISTMAS? With this question, I just wanted to check that everyone else had the same – as far as I’m concerned – very obvious answer. Turns out they do. Every. Single. One. ‘I think we all know the smell associated with Christmas…’. ‘Reindeer pee, obviously!’
Maybe I should elaborate though, for the uninitiated. Whilst we do our best to keep our leadropes clean, they invariably end up on the ground at times. Whilst the reindeer don’t actually actively pee on them (unless you’re really unlucky), they tend to stand on the ends regularly (lay a rope over a reindeer’s back, whilst catching another, and they often shake it off). We keep the straw beds in our sheds, at our temporary bases we stay at, and in our lorries as clean as possible at all times, but it is as certain as death and taxes that the ropes always end up smelling of pee from the reindeer’s feet and the straw. Lotti: ‘Reindeer pee on the leadropes. Particularly when drying out in the caravan…’
Ferreting out all the ‘smart’ red leadropes and halters from storage at the start of November, ready for distribution between the team kits. Mostly smelling of washing powder at this stage, but probably best not to sniff them too closely.
Tilly adds ‘Once Christmas is over I wash all the halters and ropes and even if everyone has been really careful not to let the ropes fall on the ground, they still have a very distinct smell of urea’. There were some additional contributions too – both Andi and I cite Tilly’s washing powder as the second smell that instantly brings Christmas to mind, from our red jumpers that we wear at events. Fiona added damp lorry cabs and Joe included mince pies. Along with ropes smelling of reindeer pee. None of this ‘winter spices’ Christmas nonsense.
FAVOURITE FOOD ON CHRISTMAS DAY: I was just being nosy, to be honest. Fiona: ‘The soup and sandwiches from Nethy Hotel – we feel like we’ve earned them [Nethy Hotel provide lunch for us during our last events of the year on Christmas Day]! Who doesn’t like free food! Plus a variety of meat from our farm.’ Generally somewhat carnivorous, Tilly surprised me with ‘sprouts’ (but roasted in the oven). For Lotti and Ruth it was the roast tatties, and the same for me too (as long as gravy and redcurrant jelly are liberally applied). For Andi it was pigs in blankets, and Joe, anything involving smoked salmon.
This was our Christmas party last year, rather than Christmas Day itself, but look at all that yummy food! On the left are Joe, Lotti, myself and Andi, and on the right are Fiona and Tilly. Ruth is in the stripey t-shirt 5th from the right. The only photo I could find with all my interviewees in it!
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT OF CHRISTMAS (PAST OR PRESENT): This was a bit of an unfair question really, but I couldn’t think of a different way to phrase it. Most memorable moments of our Christmas seasons tend to be those when everything goes tits-up, most of which aren’t necessarily things we’re going to brag about! So this is the slightly sanitized version of ‘most memorable – and publishable – moment of Christmas’ Fiona: ‘Oh god. There’s so many – probably, to go back a few years, the Harrods event in London. All the other attractions would disappear at the end and we were always left to make our own way back to the lorry with 6 reindeer, past all the people going about their day to day business. Waiting for the green man at zebra crossing s!’
One of the Harrods parades, a good few years ago now. Photo by Kim Alston
For Andi the memory wasn’t necessarily a specific one, rather one that happens from time to time at events: ‘The best experience from parades is walking with the reindeer following a pipe band, with them all walking in time. It gives me chills every time.’ I know this feeling well too.
Pen escapes featured highly for Ruth and Joe… ‘Aztec effortlessly leaping the pen fence at Gleneagles in pursuit of food…’.‘All the reindeer jumping out the pen once! They were very easy to catch and return though – with a big bag of lichen!’. And continuing with the theme of errant reindeer, Lotti came up with a classic from a few years back: ‘Probably when me and Mel tried to let four calves follow the adults up the hill to the enclosure in the dark to re-join the herd, and promptly lost them into the darkness…’.
Memory I wish I’d seen the most belonged to Tilly: ‘When we didn’t have a Santa for the parade on Christmas Eve at Newtonmore and I was the substitute…’. For myself, I have so many, many memories. Some good, some bad. But an affecting one which will stay with me forever is one I’ve written about in the past in a previous blog, so won’t repeat again here.
And finally, REINDEER YOU’D CHOOSE IF SANTA NEEDED A RUDOLPH REPLACEMENT?I guess this could be rather similar to favourite reindeer to work with at Christmas, but not necessarily. Sometimes favourites are those with naughty streaks, and presumably Santa would need a pretty reliable reindeer on loan if Rudolph is side-lined? Lotti agreed: ‘I would say that Frost would be a good Rudolph replacement, as he’s an excellent sleigh-puller, and in summer he does sometimes get a slightly sunburnt nose, giving it a red tinge!’. I agree with the reliability being very important – Origami would be my choice. He is pretty professional for Christmas events – he knows his job and gets on with it.
Likewise Tilly: ‘Well it would need to be a reindeer who is confident and happy to be at the front leading the way, so I think Aztec, with a ‘carrot’/lichen dangling in front of his nose!’. Another vote for Aztec came from Ruth: ‘I would send Aztec as he’s the most nimble – see my answer for the previous question! Or maybe Dr Seuss? Although I wouldn’t want Santa to steal Dr Seuss, so maybe not…’. Segueing neatly on to Andi: ‘Dr Seuss – he’s distinctive, charismatic, can hold his own in a new group of reindeer, and has a pink nose – perhaps it would glow with a little help from Santa…’.
Aztec might be nimble at times, but a lot of the time he’s rather lazy! Seen here busy cleaning his hoof in a care home garden on a visit in November.
Fiona reckoned Santa might prefer a certain type of reindeer, like a ‘hand-reared one, like Grunter or Sunny. They are happy with human company and happier being by themselves if need be.’. Joe hummed and harred a bit. ‘…umm. Kind of before my time, but Topi was amazing. Olympic is far too lazy… Scolty! He’d do a solid job.’
So there we go. My overall impression from writing these two blogs is that it’s impossible to give straightforward answers to any questions involving Christmas, even though everyone valiantly tried. I still only wrote down a very small section of what was said though, as many answers were nonpunishable!
Over the Christmas period Sunny, our hand reared calf of 2022, was out and about joining in with our Christmas tour. He join me on most of my events and was a great hit with the public. Sometimes if we had a one of our older Christmas reindeer who was in training or just preferred being tucked in at the back of the sleigh and not so exposed to big crowds then Sunny would stride forward on the outside and what a great job he did too!
We sometimes stayed overnight at one of our farm bases away form home between events so we would have to take his milk with us so he could get his morning bottle of warm milk. He was such a mummies boy but lets face it both him and I liked that. Sometimes it would be myself out on a team with either Lotti or Ruth. This was his favourite as it was predominantly the three of us who put the most time into raising him so he was quite happy!
Often we would take a more timid calf who needed the training alongside Sunny as he’s such a good role model. Saying that sometimes they were best buds and other times they would push each other around. Much like small children claiming to be best friends one minute and worst enemies the next.
So a short and sweet blog but here are a few photos of his adventures over the Christmas period. Enjoy! Cos I did!
Sunny all set and ready for his event, just tapping his hoof and waiting for Fiona!Usually reindeer are transported in our wee truck or one of our hired Christmas lorries, but this is not always necessary for Sunny! He’s so used to human company and very familiar with riding in the back of a van (it’s how he used to get up on to the hill each day over the summer) he’s happy chilling out in the back to get to Aviemore. He met the other members of the team there as they were arriving with Tilly from the farm.Fiona and Sunny off to the display pen in Aviemore, waiting for Tilly and the reindeer to arrive from the farm.Sunny plodding along on the outside of the sleigh, doing a super job of making sure 2.5 year old Hemp stays nice and relaxed on his inside.Sunny (closest to camera) and the rest of the team relaxing in a pen after the parade in Aberfeldy. Sunny takes napping very seriously!Before an event, Sunny and the team, relaxing in Dunkeld.Sunny and Fiona in Strathaven.A normal December evening in Reindeer House! On the nights Sunny stayed in the Paddocks he would sometimes spend a wee bit of time in the house. To be fair to Sunny, the red sign behind him does say “Reindeer Parking Only”.Oh, Sunny!Sunny helping Fiona organise the new 2023 calendar..And after all his Christmas duties were over Sunny was put out on the free range with the boys, and also some cows and calves so he had good company, including his best buddy Zoom.
