Extremes

By the time I finished the last blog post, I looked out of the window again and ended up staying up until nearly 2am taking a few more photographs.  When I finally went to bed, the light show seemed even stronger but at that point tiredness prevailed and I went to sleep with the northern lights playing their light tunes through the window.   What an amazing experience.   The skies are so unpolluted, it really gives us a good opportunity for star gazing and spotting the northern lights. 

Then we had a day of wild storms.

The surgical operation on the innards of the wind turbine were not wholly successful the other day, so a return trip yesterday to re-programme it again - but again unfortunately, it was unsuccessful.  It has now been switched off as the engineer has gone off to sing in the National MOD.  He will hopefully be back on Monday.

The rowan trees are beginning to thin out now.  The wind burned off quite a lot of leaf, and I did watch a hooded crow fly past the office window yesterday with a huge bunch of rowans in its beak.

Hazel nuts.

This morning dawned bright and clear, and beautifully still.  One of those very magical days.

I found this duck in the garden.

 And this hoverfly was at Calgary. Loch Cuin was mirror calm this afternoon.

It is the Mull Rally this weekend, and my occasional forays away from the farm this week have seen a build up of cars and campers.  The roads quite busy at night as the teams recce the routes.   They will all be relieved about the weather as the forecast is good.

Farmer finished his 3 day spraying course.  And passed his exams.  Next year he will go and spend some time spraying the garden escape cotoneaster that threatens the Slender Scotch Burnet Moth habitat near Kilninian.

The cows came in for blood testing this week as we are trying to establish whether we are free of certain cattle viruses.  At the same time, Farmer was able to treat them against ticks and fluke by injection. This evening they were all spread out in the Black Park field grazing happily as the sun was setting.

These lovely animals are our new heifers.  They will arrive on the farm in a months time.  We quarantine new animals on to the farm to make sure they settle in okay before joining the rest of the herd or flock.

Farmer goes back to school

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.

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. 

Warm and dry start to the month of October

The unaltered image of the bracken along side the road to Calgary this afternoon. The glorious orange colour was so strong.

Some blooms hanging on in the garden as if it is not October, but July.

And the leaves are fast disappearing from the trees around the farmhouse but elsewhere on more sheltered parts of the island the autumn colours are beautiful.

As I write the first night of the Mull Rally is racing round the corners between here and Calgary. Long powerful headlights light up the sky. It is the only time of year when we can hear traffic noise at the house - and tonight the wind is blowing the noise straight at us, but it is a novelty.

No school for two weeks starting today. And so Farmer's daughter and friend spent alot of time outside climbing trees and watching Farmer dig a big hole in the garden with the digger.

Calgary campsite was full of Rally spectactors, camping and enjoying the sun, but no one on the beach - for this moment anyway.