Gosh, these months are flying! It’s now October – six months into my monthly farming diary for the Gazette - and I hope you are enjoying an insight into what we farmers do.

I would like to thank all the people who have written to me – it is good to know that what I ‘yap’ on about is helping people understand farming practice and also farming slang!

This month is all about the three ‘T’s. The first ‘T’ is for tups, also known as rams, or pronounced as tips (male sheep).

We breed Swaledale tups but mostly Rough Fell tups. The boys are selected at birth, and if they have good breeding and the right colours they will not be castrated. They are left to see how they grow. We will keep two or three ‘swales’ and ten to 12 ‘roughs.’ They stay outside and are brought up with the weather lambs - you have to keep them away from the girls because, although they are still babies, they know what their bits are for!

Last year’s lambs, which are now known as shearlings, are brought closer to home so we can look after them for the last few weeks before the sale day.

We feed them, as this gets them in a good condition and ready for when they start tupping, or mating.

A day or two before the sale, we wash their faces and legs. The tups can scratch and fight at this time of year so they are checked quite often.

As well as selling tups, we have to look at buying them. In our flock, we only use a tup three or four times and then he is sold, otherwise he could end up tupping his own relatives (inbreeding).

Our Swaledale tups are sold at Broughton Auction Mart, and we try to buy our ‘swale’ tups at Kirkby Stephen Auction.

The Rough Fells are sold at Kendal Auction Mart and we buy there on the same day – it’s a very tiring day. My husband Brian has to tell potential buyers about the tups we are selling and we also have to find a tup or two that we want to buy.

Looking around the tups brings us on to the second ‘T’ - teeth. As well as the tups looking good on the outside, you have to check his teeth - the top gums in his mouth must sit flush on the bottom teeth.

And then we are on to ‘T’ number 3 - testicles. We like him to have a clean bag and two stones.

When the tups are loused to the sheep they are marked with raddle - an oil based solution - between their front legs. This is done so that we can look at the sheep’s bottoms and tell whether they have been tupped (mated) or not.

After ten days we change the colour, and seven days after that the colour is changed again, so we can tell which batch of sheep will lamb in which week. Each tup will have around 40 to 60 ewes.

Anyway I must get on – this afternoon we are clipping wool off the ewe’s tails. This is done to make life easier for the tups. Well, we know how males like anything easy! Also, the sheep are dosed for fluke and worms, and dosed with vitamins.