The last 4 tups went out yesterday. Tupping started 3 weeks ago and the ewes will stay in the fields for another 3 weeks - grazing tools, cleaning up the pasture after the cows. We had a bit of hail before dark, which is still lying, this morning, on the frozen ground. We have been lucky that there has been no snow here, so we have not had the problems associated with hill sheep or cattle wintering outside and heavy snow. I read the Tarset Shepherd's harrowing tale of getting animals safely off the hill, and realised how very lucky we have been to escape the weather that the rest of the country have had.
The Council have closed the Hill Road from Torloisk to Dervaig and the Glen Road from Aros Bridge to Dervaig. We have been quite surprised that they have intermittently gritted the road from Calgary to Torloisk which is usually the last one to receive any attention. We must not complain though as it keeps access to Treshnish open.
The school fight continues... we were due a visit from the Councillor/Spokesperson for Transport on Tuesday. He was going to sit in on a 'real time' school run to verify the actual journey time (as opposed to timing it in a Ford Fiesta, which is what the Council staff did for the Proposal papers). Much of Monday was spent on the phone discussing whether or not the 'run' should go ahead - and why? Because the road was so treacherous. It was cancelled.
Panic in Tobermory because the shelves in the Co-op are emptying fast, and the lorry didn't come yesterday and won't come today either.
Light relief. Stopped to take photographs on my way to Dervaig yesterday. Thin ice on Loch Cuin, up to the high tide mark. Silent still air. Cockerel crowing at Shepherd's Cottage. High pitched cracking from splitting sheets of ice as the tide slowly withdrew out to sea, leaving the curled up over rock paper thin ice high and dry.
