After losing his polytunnel during high winds on the Isle of Mull, farmer Iain MacKay served up a timely reminder of farming resilience.

Speaking to The Scottish Farmer about the clean-up operation, Iain took the opportunity to raise the importance of farmers confiding in others when difficulties arise.

"We put the polytunnel up three years ago, with support from the Sea Eagle Management Scheme and we're now coming into our third lambing with it," he explained. "We use it primarily to negate predation from sea eagles, which has worked quite well and we also use it for overwintering ewe hoggs, as hogg winterings are hard to get hold of and expensive because of SUSSS."

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Mr MacKay, who runs a herd of Highland cattle and Cheviot sheep at Torloisk Farm on an extensive hill system, explained that he used to away winter 400 odd hoggs on the mainland every year, but when these places were lost, the polytunnel was the next route.

During the high winds over the weekend, Iain was on his way to feed the 180 ewe hoggs and 20 tup lambs who had been sheltering in the polytunnel, to find it had completely blown over.

"Normally, my nature is to be quite reactive when things like this happen, but my heart just sank at the thought of where I was going to put several tonnes of hay stored in the polytunnel, and what I was going to do with the hoggs," he said.

"The tarpaulin had blown off and the metal frame has been completely twisted, so we're not sure if any of it will be salvageable."

He spent the day, with help from his neighbour and daughter, moving the hay and hoggs out of the polytunnel and shared a photo of the damage on Facebook.

After receiving numerous encouraging messages and comments of support and sharing their own experiences, Iain reflected that it had been good to share the good and the bad stories of everyday working life, as it reminded people that they aren't alone with the challenges they faced.

"We all know those people who appear to always be doing well, getting top prices for beasts, boasting of great calving percentages and so on – it was good to keep it real," he said.

"One of the things I learnt from taking part in the Monitor Farm programme was to be honest, get on the phone and confide. When you're out here on your own and things happen, you often feel like it is just happening to you, but it is often not the case."

Commenting on some of the challenges ahead, he said it was a bit like his polytunnel – farmers always find a way through. "I'm an eternal optimist," he continued.

"The issues being reported might sound endless, but prices are rising for livestock, we have a very good product, and we need to remember that we have been resilient as farmers for hundreds of years and that isn't about to change.

"Over the past year, society is starting to slowly wake up to the fragility of our food supply chains and the realisation that we can't just rely on imports. Our product is and will always be in demand."

Concluding, he said: "Farming has to be about optimising what we have, not necessarily maximising our output. We need to find the system that suits our individual farms and start building our resilience."