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.

One door closes

Farmer was invited to help gather on the Isle of Eorsa last week.  Eorsa is the teardrop shaped uninhabited island in Loch na Keal.   There is no house - though there is a 'hotel' shed for shelter!  

There have been sheep on the island for generations.  It is hard work having a flock of sheep that you can only access via a boat in good weather.  The ewes thrive despite that and Eorsa produces good healthy lambs.  But finally Iain Thomson 'the singing shepherd' has decided to call it a day.   He tried to find someone else locally to take the ewes on and continue the tradition but there was no one who was able to do it.    So the gather on Friday was to take not only the lambs off but the ewes as well. 

Iain.

On their way out there, with A and his dogs.

Eorsa. From the Gribun side.

 

From Eorsa to Inch Kenneth with Gribun on the left of the photograph.

Looking up Loch na Keal.

In the fank.

Sorting lambs and ewes.

Looking for the barge.

Tea time.

Loading the barge.

On the barge.

Farmer took this photographs on his phone.   The day went well, and they had to wait for the tides, so it was dark by the time they landed back on Mull.   They will be sold later on in the week.

For Iain, the Eorsa door closes and a new door opens.  We wish him well!  

Slipping by

I have had a bit of a blog break, as we (Farmer and family) had a holiday at the beginning of the month.   As always we headed off to Barra, leaving Treshnish hot, sunny and basking in the sunshine.

We cut the holiday short by a few days to get home so Farmer could get organised for the shearers coming to clip all the ewes.   It takes about 4 days of sorting, gathering in the ewes and lambs from different fields and the hill; putting them all through the fank so that the lambs get their vaccinations and anti tick treatments; and then watching the forecast as the ewes need to be dry to be sheared.   If it is forecast for rain they go in the shed for the night.

It was forecast to rain slightly and because we can, the ewes went in to the shed, and the lambs were left in the field.   It can be a noisy time whilst the ewes and lambs are temporarily parted, and then when they find each other again.

R and E arrived and set up the shearing trailer at 7am.  All in all they sheared 433 ewes and were finished by mid afternoon.  It is so impressive watching them do it.  Calming and gently handling each animal but with strength too to counter any wriggling.

The warm/dry/hot weather has affected the fields too.  The grasses have all gone to seed and the fields look quite brown.  Underneath the sea of seedbeds though there are colours to be discovered.  There is plenty of Eyebright, Red clover, Red bartsia and Black medick.   The Knapweed, Meadowsweet and Devils bit scabious are just beginning to come out.

The Common spotted orchids are still out, but interestingly when you look up close they are not as lush this year.  There is usually almost a shine to them but they look slightly dry this summer!

Last weekend we did another plant count on the Machair at Calgary.  It is looking amazing and it was great to find more species in abundance than last year.  I have never seen so many Harebells.

At the beginning of the week we had a professional photographer from London here who was photographing the Coronation Meadow.  For a book about the Coronation Meadows Project.  It is very exciting to be part of it and I look forward to seeing his photographs!

It is great to have the support of the RSPB in helping keep the message about walking dogs on leads during ground nesting bird season!  Our local RSPB officer dropped off these signs for us while we were on holiday and Prasad kindly put them up.

Cap, our oldest dog and head of the team.  He has retired now and is slightly confused sometimes, but otherwise in good health, loving nothing better than riding in the buggy.

The field below the house is being grazed by the Herdies, Cheviots and Zwartbles.  It can be quite difficult to find them.

The plan once the shearing was finished was to start mowing the bracken.  However the fine weather over the last few months and some historical plumbing seem to have put paid to that.   Beware - a long story coming up!

The day after our holiday Farmer noticed the alarm light was on at the borehole.  This meant that the tanks were not full to the brim.  Yikes!  First off, we thought that the pump wasn't working, and I frantically started searching the internet for an alternative.  We had deliberately calculated the size of the tanks to ensure we had at least a week's worth of water, in case the pump stopped working.

But hmm.. it wasn't the pump.   The borehole itself was taking longer to refill itself between pumping, than earlier in the spring so the dry weather has affected it too.  (You learn something every day, I didn't think it would be affected by the weather, but apparently they can be!)   We changed the settings on the pump timer and gave it longer to refill.  We cut down the time the pump ran so as not to damage the pump.  

The levels in the tank keep dropping.   Even at night when most folk are asleep in their beds and not using water.   We realised we must have a leak.  And that it was a big one, as each day the levels in the borehole tanks continued to drop.

To cut a long story short.. we realised that we have 2 leaks, one on each system.   One system does Shian Duill and our house.  The other does the laundry, Shieling and Studio.  It was not leaking from the borehole down to the filtration system, and it was not leaking from the filters to the water storage.

For 3 days Farmer dug and dug. Each night getting more despondent.  

Understanding guests tolerated the water being cut off between midnight and 5am.  We have all cut back on how much water we used.  In our house, baths are certainly more infrequent and a lot shallower - and deligently shared!  Today I took the cottage laundry to Tobermory to have it done there to save water.   So far we have not run out!

This afternoon Farmer is looking a bit more relaxed as he thinks he has found the main leak, the one losing the most water.  Tonight he will test the system again and see what happens.  Hopefully the level in the tanks will not go down over night.

And tomorrow he will try and locate the leak on the other system.

In between all that stress we have had moments of calm.  JL came rushing in one evening to say he had spotted dolphins below the house and so we all went down to the edge of the raised beach to see them.

Unfortunately they had gone by the time we got there, but we spent some time sea-watching and admiring JL's beautiful cows.