January sheep work

The full moon setting over the Isle of Coll this morning as I got back from the school run to Calgary.

Farmer has moved the hoggs into the field in front of the house.  It is nice to hear them all gather in anticipation when they hear the quad bike, knowing they are about to be fed.  And what a view!

Soon a silence falls over the field as they all tuck in.

Later the sun rises over the hill, and they find themselves a sunny spot having finished their premium nuts.

N, who helps us (heroically) every winter, has started decorating West Cottage bedroom. It hasn't been painted for a few years and we are using the lovely Newlife Paints we have used for the last 2 winters in Studio, Shian and Duill.  

I and G,  electricians, were working in Toechtamhor, and needed me to go down and agree where the new LED lights should go.

In our GTBS audit last summer, I mentioned to Stuart, their auditor,  that we wanted to further cut our energy consumption as our small scale wind turbines and solar PV were only generating about 80% of our usage.  Rather than install more technology, we wanted to use less.  He advised that we began a programme of changing our light fittings from low energy to LED. I had always resisted this before as I felt it was a waste of the embodied energy in the light bulbs, but after further thought and discussion, we decided it was worth doing.

Tube strip lights are particularly wasteful as Stuart pointed out that the ones we use in the office burn 35 watts where an LED strip light would burn 5 watts.  The farm building uses lots of them and some are in need of repair so they are an obvious place to start, and there are one or two in the office/laundry too.  

I, the electrician, provided the solution for the Haunn cottages, which is to upgrade the low energy ceiling lights to LED with a simple convertor so they are doing that for us this winter too.   We are hoping, little by little, it will make quite a difference to the electricity consumption.

Some showers over Coll on the way back and beautiful sundogs (ice rainbows).

Farmer wanted to take the tups off today as the weather was so good, and to put the ewes through the fank and give them their annual Co-secure supplement 'bullet'. We know the land is deficient in certain minerals (selenium and cobalt) which the sheep need to keep them well. 

It was a beautiful day for it. I don't think I have ever taken photographs in the fank in such lovely light.

Some guests arrived for Shian just as it was getting dark, and it was lovely to see the glow from the sitooterie, and on the horizon, as I walked down to say hello to them.

What I didnt realise is that I could have photographed the Comet if I had aimed the camera a little higher over the farm steading on the way back!  The green glow on the wall is the glow from our Electric Car Charge Point! 

Becoming something else.

Iain T and Iain M kindly came along this afternoon to shear our hoggs.  There had been a shower or two earlier in the day so Farmer was glad he had gathered them from the fields and put them into the shed to keep dry.

The head of the trailer 'race' always has an animal in it, to encourage the others to follow.  They are changed over during the course of the day so they don't have to stand there all day.

Waiting, waiting.  (still hoggs).

Tea time.

And out.  Gimmers now.

Never quite sure who anyone is once they have been sheared, so quite a lot of calling and ranging around trying to work out who is who.

The gimmers will be let away to the hill tomorrow once they have had a fluke treatment.

No calves yet

Something on the formatting on Blogger tonight is acting up so I might end up doing all the writing here if I cant fix it.  It is jumping all over the place.  So apologies for the mess on this posting.  You will have to guess which photograph goes with which words.

Farmer is getting used to the new daily routine now that the cattle shed is full.  The cows seem happy to be indoors.  The other night when we had raging winds it was good to think that they were indoors, and had there been a calving problem Farmer wouldnt have had to go and look in the dark for them.  Mind you, we did have a power cut so he would have been in the dark - but dry at least.  He has started going up to check on them before he turns in, as we expect the first calf any day now.  An appointment for the bull to be examined again has been made so hopefully we will know more then.  

Farmer still managed to find some time to do some baking despite spending alot of time this week with his animals.  This time he made a fruit cake.  It was delicious and didnt last long! 

Work has been continuing well with the cottages. Studio is beginning to look really good.  It was really nice to show it to two of our regular guests who were staying at Haunn last weekend - they have booked 7 out of 8 of the cottages later in the summer for their wedding party and wanted to remind themselves of what it was like inside!  They will use Studio for the wedding feast should it is too wet for the 'marquee'.  

A minor set back, for us, in that the new bedroom window is too small and too high, but the ever helpful builder has ordered a new one, and is going to take this one out and replace it all at the right height before Studio is let at the end of March.  It is only annoying as otherwise Studio would have been finished weeks before then. 

We have completed the first step of Shian's new kitchen - changing the cooker and fridge/freezer positions, putting up some new shelving and installing a new ceramic hob cooker. Relatively small changes but it looks great, and was all ready for guests who arrived yesterday afternoon for a week's holiday.  Next winter will see the bigger phase 2 - which is going to be lovely, sunny and warm. (thats a hint)!  

The Neils are busy working away in Duill bathroom.  The Mermaid panels are installed as is the new bath, and our first guests arrive on Thursday!  So only the shower, the loo and the basin to finish then.  Easy!  

John, our architect, is coming over to see us on Thursday next week, when we will be looking at plans for our eco-camping/glamping project, which will open in April 2014. This is a really exciting project for us, not just because it is on a fabulous site with great views - but it will be low-impact in every way.  It will be appropriate in scale so as not to impinge on the balance already here (both in human and wildlife terms!); it will enable us to re-use/upcycle materials we already have in stock; utilise local & natural building materials; create an interesting new wildlife habitat and finally have a turf roof!  Watch this space!

We have some tups with bad eyes. This is a highly infectious infection so Farmer has seperated them from the others and brought them in to the wee shelter in the Stack Yard so that he can treat them more easily.   Farmer has been ordering some additional 'cake' for the sheep as we are going to scan this year - in a week or so's time.  I will blog about it soon!  The price of animal feed has gone through the roof, and it is worrying to think what the prices will be for our lambs next year.  We are still looking around for a new bull and they are alot of money. 

 

 

There have been some great skies. I guess because of the storms. Windy and wild at times. Rough seas. Dark grey skies. The neighbours tups found good shelter down in the lowest bit of the field to the left of the track down to the bridge onto Treshnish.  And then these perfect still moments with pale puffy clouds catching the sunrise light glowing over Coll or the dying sunset light on the Treshnish Islands.

Wood chip arrived for the boiler.  Always good to know we have a full load in store when the weather is unpredictable!

Farmer, accompanied by Jan and Cap, checking the hoggs - their favourite pastime is to get stuck in brambles at this time of year.  Nice little green shots to entice them into the throttling briars. And it takes a fright at best to get them out or a sharp penknife to cut the briars away from their wool at worst.

 

 

 

I can't do anything to make this display any better, and dont really like publishing it like this.  Hopefully it will be better next time.   

Hoggs, whelks, nuts and nights out.

Another busy week passes, as the days get shorter. We had a brush publicity - the RSPB Award still attracting attention. The builder has departed from the farmhouse renovation having done a fantastic job, and we are in the novel position of having wood-chip heating whenever we want it, and even when we don't - but we are waiting for the plumber to come and finish off, and install a final thermostat so that we can control it all better! The boiler has been making us scratch our heads recently, with one or two minor faults - on pumps and valves on the plumbing side, rather than the boiler itself - and thankfully for those times we have been able to switch over to the fossil fuel so the our guests have been warm. I am as stingy as before on how much heating we have on in the house, as when you see that trailer full of wood-chip arriving, it is plain to see how much we consume in keeping our house, the office/laundry and the four Treshnish Cottages warm. A frightening amount!

We have had clear skies under a huge bright moon for several days, and good tides and kind weather for whelk picking. Several folk from around and about have been out picking the shoreline whelks. A back breaking job - and they earn every penny. Access to the shore is on foot in most places, so not only do they bend down for each and every one they pick, but they know in order to get them to their market, they have to carry each orange string bag full of them back up to wherever they left their car. A few seasons ago, Farmer was surprised to see a pile of whelk bags, representing all that work (and hard earned cash) left lying. Every time he went past he expected them to have gone, but they were left and ended up rotting. Sometimes the whelk pickers come in by boat. Last year a tent with food and sleeping bags was abandoned along the shoreline by Port Haunn, and we surmised this was from a mobile pair of 'whelkers'.

In November the hoggs (weaned ewe lambs kept for breeding) come in to the cattle shed to learn about 'nuts'. This especially formulated mix of flaked grains, peas and molasses is an important supplementary food for sheep, but unfortunately seeing it in a trough is not an automatic signal for the hoggs to know that they can or should eat it.

During our first lambing back in 1995, some of the older ewes contracted twin lamb disease (where they need extra food to regain condition, and quickly) but as they did not know how to 'feed' we could not get them to put on the extra bodily condition they needed. As a result we decided that from then on we would 'teach' our hoggs to 'feed'. In animal welfare terms this is a godsend, as it means you can nurse an animal more successfully back to health by bringing them in and knowing that they can 'feed' whilst you administer to them.

The 2011 hoggs have been causing us concern this week - we lost 2 to unknown causes. As in previous years, they were taken off their mothers when the main crop of lambs were sold, vaccinated, and set to graze the in-bye ground. Every day they have been checked and occasionally one has been cut out of the brambles, but other wise no problems - or so we thought.

Recently some of them seemed to have lost their usual 'bloom', their coats were 'stairy' - suffering from something but we were not sure what. The locum vet came to the rescue - she came over one evening and took blood samples so that we can find out what was wrong - as they are indoors just now learning how to feed this was quite straightforward. They had been given a combined fluke and worm medicine as soon as we realised something was wrong, and thankfully, they are now beginning to look better. And the sweet smelling 'nuts' are disappearing fast from the troughs. We will keep them in so that we can re-test or treat them as necessary and then they will go back out to the fields. As far as we can, we try to run a clean grazing system but with the extra flock on the in-bye now (the cheviots) it is more difficult to juggle within our new grazing management plan. This is obviously something we need to monitor more carefully, as we don't want the balance between animal welfare/good health and grazing regime/Conservation to get out of kilter.

The hill ewes have been gathered, and are in the fields waiting for the tups to go out with them. Farmer is still off work, though he is recovering well! The Contractors and Jamie did the gather, and picked up 2 'roughies' (unshorn ewes) and left another along the shore (on a particularly difficult part of the coast, where it is safer to leave the ewe than try risking getting a dog too close, in case she goes over the edge). Being a 'roughie' means that you have avoided coming in at shearing time and at spaining time (when the lambs are taken off). Bracken cover makes it easy for them to hide, as well as there being tricky hidden bits along our 4 miles of coastline.

Middle Cottage in November sunshine, with the 2010 corncrake nesting ground in the foreground. I have decided I would like to be on holiday here at the moment. The weather has been good for the last week or so. The island is quiet. The light at this time of year changes all the time - providing great opportunities for photographers. Lots of wildlife around. We have had visitors staying in 4 of the cottages this week, enjoying short breaks, winter weeks and special offers. A friend of ours is staying in East Cottage. She is an artist and has been out every day with her huge bundle of materials, ready for all weathers, working in the elements, and coming back to the cottage when she is too cold or light falls. We spent the evening there on Saturday, delicious meal, glasses of wine by the fireside, so warm and toasty. Coming out to fresh air and the short walk to the car, in the dimly starlit stillness of the sky, quite magical, and it was so very quiet.

Daughter's school at Ulva Ferry held a Bring and Buy Sale for Children In Need on Friday. They raised a whopping £271 in an hour and a half. The community was so generous bringing lovely items to sell, we think we will have to hold another sale at a weekend so that we can sell it all! One mum does fantastic face painting, and Farmer came home sporting a very colourful dolphin on his face. By the time he got home he had forgotten about it and went off to show in the guests who arrived to stay in the Studio!

We had a nerve-wracking day on Tuesday. Mark Stephens from Radio Scotland Out of Doors came to interview us. We stuttered our way through his questions and hopefully didn't make too much of a fool of ourselves. Dread hearing it on the radio though! Once that was over, we met up with Leianna from RSPB Scotland who had come across to make a short film (thankfully only minutes long) for the Oxford Farming Conference in January. Dave Sexton came over to be interviewed by Mark too. Dave is our local RSPB officer, and once Mark left, Dave used a flip camera, for some 'informal' filming, whilst Leianna did the more official interviewing and filming. There was an air of unreality to the whole thing particularly with 2 of them pointing cameras at us! But it was lovely to have an excuse to show them round the farm again, not that there were many flowers to look at (it is November) but the weather was fantastic and Treshnish was looking very beautiful - full sunshine and clear views.

There are still lots of European blackbirds around, with their black beaks. There are 2 of them in this brave sycamore in the farmhouse garden.

Screen Machine has been on Mull for a few days, so we had another night out this weekend - going to see Jane Eyre in Tobermory. We ate at Cafe Fish who have won the Good Food Guide Fish Restaurant of the Year 2012 - it feels very 'seaside', sitting above the ticket office on the Calmac pier, looking out on twinkling lights across the Bay through the rain streaked window panes, eating freshly caught seafood. I still do a double take when the lights come up at the end of a film and you are not in a large multiplex cinema but in the back of a lorry in Tobermory car park.

On Tuesday the last of the 2011 lambs go to Oban Market. The end of another sheep year. The Contractors, whose help has been invaluable over the last few years, are off to pastures anew in the New Year. We are extremely grateful to them for their help and we wish them well. We are lucky to have found Jamie to help us in the future.

Thank you to everyone who has been asking how the Farmer's recovery is going. He is well on the mend now. Still a long way off being able to work but happily walking a few miles again - and not in pain.