Lots of lambs

I feel slightly uneasy blogging lots of photographs of life at Treshnish at this current time, when so many many people are experiencing a very different lockdown from us.  As well as living in this beautiful place, our working life largely goes on as it always does - farming and troubleshooting, and despite not having any guests there is still plenty to keep us busy, including a mystery leak on the biomass district heating scheme...  But I have had positive feedback from guests and followers on Instagram and Facebook saying they really enjoy my posts and find it helps them.  So that has persuaded me that it is okay to continue, so here we are.  Catching up on the blog.

The weather during lambing has been amazing. Some years Farmer has got through 3 sets of waterproofs before lunchtime.  This year he has barely worn them.

The Cuckoos are back, and it is glorious to hear them. We only have 2 pairs of Swallows in the shed, same number as last year, but nothing like as many as 2 years ago, which is very sad.  The Curlews are nesting up on the hill again near the Common gull colony and it is lovely to hear them.   Farmer has been seeing a couple of Sea eagles most days along the coast, we think they must be immatures.  There seem to be a good number of Wheatears this year.

More photographs to follow.

Keep safe and well.

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!  

An August autumn

All of a sudden it is late summer.   Early autumn.  The rowans are dripping with red berries and the heather has been flowering for weeks.

Farmer is busy getting ready to gather for lamb sales.

The Salen Show has been and gone.  A lovely day was had, and a second place and a third place (yellow and blue) were brought home.

A few years ago there were one or two Goldenrod in the Black Park, now the bank is covered in them.

Boreholes and lambs

Farmer found the body of a Great Tit lying on the floor in the farm steading, under a window.  How sad.

Lambing is well underway now, with most of the ewes expecting twins having lambed safely.  The singles are always slower, but numbers are rising steadily.  Farmer is out before 6am - there are often lambs born early in the morning so it is a good time to pick up if there is a problem. Then off and on during the day he will check the fields at different times and always makes sure he gets along the coast at least once.  He gets in around 9pm from the last check of the day.

As the lambs get older they begin to be quite playful. It is sweet to see them chasing each other around the field, jumping off rocks and behaving like children rediscovering the freedom of the great outdoors.

The fields are beginning to green up slowly despite the cold weather.  It may not have been wet but we have had a few days of bitterly cold winds, which is not kind to new born lambs so the emergency ward in the cattle shed has had a few patients over the last few days.

This is Alice, Teenager's pet lamb.  She was scanned for twins but has got only one lamb.  It is mostly likely to have been a scanning error, because Farmer would have found the other lamb dead.   Alice was born in 2009.

The ewes with numbers on are the first time lambers (called gimmers before the birth and ewes after the birth). Farmer had them in the cattle shed where he could keep an eye on them, as sometimes they need a bit of midwifery.

They are all very used to being fed so when he drives into the field on the quad bike, they desert their lambs and chase after him - confusion reigns!  Now the lambs are a few days older it is easier for them to keep tabs on where their mothers have done, but occasionally they get mis-mothered, and lonely lambs have to be returned to their mothers.

Like this one here.  One of No 10's twin lambs.

In other news..

Yesterday we had the annual SRUC visit from the Countryside Management students.

We are digging a borehole to make a new water supply for the Treshnish Cottages.   In the last blog I posted a photograph of some huge machinery stuck on the hill beyond the cattle shed.   Well, eventually JC (from Argyll Geo-thermal) managed to get it all up the hill and started to drill for water.   The yellow compressor alone weighs 8 Tonnes.

Two days ago, JC called us up to watch as he blew the pipes through to let water out!  It has got a bit of a way to go before we can drink it, but it is exciting to know he has found it.  The grey particles are dust particles within the pipe.  The whole length of pipe is blown out many times to allow the water to clear before testing. 

Today we went up to the drilling site again, and JC pointed out the different seams the drill has gone through.  You can see the different layers of red and grey rock.  The aim is to find water in a grey seam.

It will be a long time before it starts to come out of our taps as there is a huge amount to be done first -  lots of cleaning, measuring, testing, digging in pipework, connecting new tanks, connecting new filters, and more testing...! 

Another blow through of the pipes.

Listening for water.  It sounds like a tap gushing now.