Looking back and forward

A visit from the Mull based accredited wind turbine installer today, to look at the possible site for a 3rd turbine.  We are currently generating about 80% of our usage (including cottages, office, laundry). With a 3rd turbine we will be able to generate the balance and also enough to cover the Schoolhouse, and the proposed cabin.

Our first turbine, the Proven 6kW, was put up in October 2009. Our expectations were exceeded in the first year, and in the second and third.  The Kingspan 6kW installed last November, identical in all but name, has more than exceeded our expectations - generating about 7,000 kilowatt hours more than the Proven.  

We have had many discussions between ourselves, the installers and others, as to why there is such a big difference between the 2, but we hope now that recent conversations with Kingspan might have pinpointed 2 factors which may explain the 50% difference in output between them.    A bit of work to be done but hopefully it will improve things. 

   

We walked up to the proposed site with N to confirm whether or not it would be suitable or not - looking for 'clean wind'.   It appears to be a good site from that point of view, so we now need to start a planning application…

The first thing we needed to do was to take a photograph from a certain corner on the road to Salen, for the photomontage.  Farmer lent his cap to the top of a 5m pole so that it was more noticeable, and I headed off down the road to take the picture.

There has been some exciting news on the wood chip front… Earlier this week a deal was concluded on the sale of the Crannich Woodfuel business to our local community woodland (North West Mull Community Woodland Company).  Crannich Woodfuel have been great suppliers - very reliable and consistently thoughtful and helpful, so we will miss them - but acquiring their business will be a fantastic opportunity for NWMCWC, helping create job opportunities locally.  It is great news for the mileage factor for us in using their wood chip, as it means eventually that the timber will not only be supplied from 4 miles away but will be chipped there (rather than currently at Crannich) before being delivered here.   We already buy our softwood logs from the community woodland, and they are about to start supplying us with kindling as well.  

We had some visitors the other day who were thinking of installing a biomass boiler, and it was interesting to talk to them about their plans, as well as sparking off some reminiscences for us too, looking back to the process we went through in choosing our system, and the installers, and wondering if we would do any of it differently if we were to do it again.  I was reminded of the extreme fear I felt when our boiler first arrived, wondering how I would ever cope with the technology. But now 4 and a half years later, I suppose a relationship of trust has built up between us and the boiler… it has broken down a few times, but (touch wood) we either know what to do now, or failing that, who to call.  

Farmer has been out checking the tups each day, and this afternoon he used Walter to move some sheep from one field to another.    He is keen to please which is half the battle. 

I went to a busy Producers Market in Dervaig - the pre-Christmas one.  It was mobbed, with a good selection of local produce - pork, sausages, lamb, haggis, Christmas puddings and lots more.  

All that is behind us now

 It was quite a wet start to the year in most places.  We had a little bit of sunshine as we headed south from Oban.  We stayed a night near Callender and then headed for Dumfries via Dumbarton.  Well that was the idea initially. In the end we arrived in Dumbarton having been through the Trossachs, Carbeth (where we glimpsed the people power huts reminding me of seeing the dachas in Poland decades ago), Milngavie, and finally Duntocher.. in other words a serious lapse in map reading on my part.  Mission accomplished in Dumbarton we were free to go.  



The drive down the Dalveen Pass always inspires but it was dark by the time we reached it this time, and all we saw to indicate where we were was the solitary headlights of a vehicle winding its way up to the cottage at the top of the glen at the bottom of the Pass!



On the Saturday we all visited the extraordinary Mauseleum at Durisdeer Church.  It was quite a surprise on a dreich damp afternoon in Dumfries-shire.  



We walked along the Roman Road beyond the village.  Farmer and Artist went further in thickening mist along the Roman Road from Durrisdeer to the Daer Reservoir.  I drove up the Pass to collect them from the Reservoir. It was bleak up there - windy and getting colder, night falling and very nearly dark when they arrived.  The dam seems really massive as the road is below it.  The water works buildings look like something out of Eastern Europe in the 1970's.  Empty buildings with faded painted doors and cracked obscure window panes. Perhaps it isn't like that really, I have just been reading too many spy stories.





Back up the road to Oban and back to Mull.  School started on Monday and suddenly it feels like Christmas was a long time ago.  It is still very dark in the mornings, and I have hurried home each morning without the dog walk on the beach.  

Yesterday the weather picked up and the temperature dropped.  Over the last few days Farmer has been collecting up the sheep and bringing them closer in preparation for taking the tups off.  The blackface sheep have been on the Point all this time.   The Cheviots and Zwartbles have been below the house. 

Being careful (he assured me) Farmer was just going to 'work away at it' on his own. He has Jamie who he knows he can call on but he wanted to quietly work his way through the sheep sorting them out and giving them their annual 'booster' bolus of cobalt and selenium, which we know the soil - and therefore the grazing - is deficient in as well as a fluke treatment and a blue spot on their backs.  He is counting each batch through the fank.  It was lovely and sunny, though cold, this afternoon for the first lot of about 200.   He will do the next lot tomorrow if his back is up to it.  

The view from the fank is pretty good.

As the weather gets a bit colder and everyone is talking up a snow storm, it is a good feeling to have a shipping container full of food for the cows - who are still outside - and the  older ewes and the hoggs.

This year Farmer is going to start scanning some of the sheep again.  We started doing this a year or so after we moved here, but gave up at the point where Farmer's back gave up, and we had to get help in - about 12 years ago.   Originally we did it to really get to know how the sheep were doing throughout their breeding - how many were scanned as being in lamb and then how many lambs were born - we were serious beginners then.  (Farmer would deny it, but he has learned alot over the years!)   It means you can feed a bit extra to those carrying twins and cut out risk of Twin Lamb Disease, and it means the older ewes are in on more sheltered ground.  Any eild (barren) ewes can be put in a separate field which means you don't need to watch and wait for them lambing!  You can only 'feed' (supplementary) ewes who 'know' what the food is.  That is why we train our hoggs to eat ewe nuts and hay!

When the sheep have been through the fank, Farmer opens the gate and lets them out back on to the hill.  They always go to eat the heather, and when I see them out of the kitchen window on the slope above the deer fence, I always think of Jon, the wonderful man who became a great friend of Treshnish when we were starting out in organic sheep.   He didn't believe us when we told him that the sheep ate heather (or seaweed!). Then he saw it for himself.  

Sunrise yesterday morning.

There has been a bit of chat on Twitter about our turbine tonight.  I read the meters again today, and I tweeted that the Kingspan (above) had outperformed the Proven by 50%.  Lots of people have replied with interesting thoughts as to why it might be.  I emailed Kingspan to ask if they have 'done' anything to the turbine since they took them over, and it will be good to hear what they have to say.  Someone suggested that perhaps the Proven was working on restricted power since installation - and I will definitely look into that too.   Watch this space!

The corner of the Haunn field looking towards Calgary. Lovely soft light. 

Shian and Duill in the sunshine.

And the Proven in the sunshine with some wonderful wispy clouds.

The building work is going well.  I hope I haven't spoken too soon.  John has done a lovely job on the taping and filling - a few hours of sanding tomorrow will see that stage finished.  Farmer put a heater on for him this morning and said the room was noticeably warmer.  Good!  That is the whole idea.  Energy saving.  This is the new door into the bedroom from the sitting room - we are waiting for the new bedroom window to arrive and be fitted which will be a great improvement.

Duill bathroom is back to bare walls, but the new bath with over-shower is arriving on Monday.  With the next guest arriving in 3 weeks time, I am a little anxious.... but it will be fine....