Farmer has gone back to school this week. He always thought he had grandfather rights over his ability to use a knapsack sprayer, should he need to, to control the bracken in areas he can't cut. Well, apparently these grandfather rights are going to expire in 2014. Butterfly Conservation Scotland and Coille Alba got together and have been funded to run a course, whereby the students, about 12 of them, do the training for free, in exchange for some voluntary work later on, utilising their new found skills. So off down to Craignure he goes - Monday Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
We had good weather again on Saturday. Mild and sunny. The cows have the range all the way from the farm to the Haunn field, but funnily enough they prefer the Haunn field.
The fuchsia is still flowering beautifully outside East Cottage, buzzing with bees too.
We have a new arrival coming next week who Farmer will have to train up to help. He is called Walter. More news after the weekend...
The hoggs are also ranging but they seem to like the hill park best. The red deer stags are roaring a lot now, Farmer heard them above the Haunn cottages.
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The Greenland Wheatear was still around.
Trip to Tobermory at low tide Sunday. A damp wet windy day, until the sun...
set...
The nerines were left over from the previous owner and provide some strong colour in the veg garden.
Today was chip arrival day. Thank goodness we only asked for 10 cubic metres, we normally get 12! There would not have been room. It has been so mild we have not used as much as usual.
And this afternoon, Nigel and David from Mullwind came to tinker with the minuscule chip in the Proven turbine (just about 4 years old now amazingly), to see if reprogramming a new chip will improve its performance, and bring it closer to the second turbine which was installed last November, and produces a lot more electricity.
Just taking the dog out before bed.... a bit of a glow above the clouds....
Half an hour later still out there - this bottom photograph has a dash of headlight in it from a rally car practising for the rally this weekend.
I was invited to write the first guest post on the new Higher Nature Value Farming website, which was a great honour, and I laboured over it for weeks. I finally built up courage to submit it this week, and it was published yesterday. Even if you don't read my blogpost, it is a great looking website, full of interesting information about farming with nature in mind.