A snow day

Childishly I have been eagerly watching the forecast and hoping for just enough snow to enjoy but not be a hassle.   My wish came true as we had snow over night last night, leaving us just enough this morning to enjoy.  It is late afternoon now and thawing, so not enough snow to be a nuisance.   It certainly was beautiful. And I had a morning taking photographs which was just a joy.

We are in the middle of the winter routine.  Not just on the farm but in the cottages.  We have SM doing farm and cottage maintenance once a week, CG helping in the gardens once a week, and NP has just started his annual list of indoor jobs.  And this week we have RM doing some fencing jobs.

Farmer is in the feeding regime.  There are 5 lots of sheep outside who are fed every morning - the older ewes currently in the Haunn field; the tups in the field by the house, the Cheviots on the Point and the Herdwicks in the field below the house.   Then the hoggs are all in the shed and they get fed twice a day.  

The 3 Highland bullocks are still indoors but the side door of the shed is open and they have access to the hill park.   They tend to graze way up at the top of the hill park by day and come back to the shed for food when it starts to get dark.

Farmer went to market last week.  We had a few male lambs to sell and some old tups.  We shared the load with a neighbour, and took a few other stragglers for other people too.  The roads were quite slushy that morning so they went for a later boat, and there was lots of snow in Oban!

Feeding the older ewes in the Haunn field.

Toechtamhor catching the sun, with East, Middle and West in the shade, and the Treshnish Isles just poking out from behind Ben Duill.

From the Haunn field back to Treshnish and on to Calgary Beach at the head of the bay.

I find it difficult sometimes to explain how far the cottages are from the sea.

With 4 miles of coastline on the farm, it is never that far away.

The isle of Rum had lots of snow on it this morning.

The snow shows up the farm track to Haunn quite well!

We went up to the top of the hill above Burg to look at the view.  We met RM coming over to continue the fencing.  Hers was the only vehicle to go over this bit of road today.

I went back in the afternoon to see if I could catch the light on the Haunn cottages, but unfortunately the sun went behind the clouds, and it was FREEZING!

This morning's feed bags.

Waiting, waiting.

Rum in the distance, white from top to bottom.

 The hill road.

Beginning to thaw.

The track through the Haunn field was thawing.

Shian and Duill rooves would be good for solar PV!

Hardy Snowdrops in the farmhouse garden.