Twixt and tween

There is quite a relaxed sense of 'down time' in the Treshnish farmhouse this week. Farmer is still busy with the daily chores of feeding the cows and bedding them up now they are indoors, and being in between Christmas and New Year there are no builders at work and not much office activity!  The hoggs have been moved from the park beside the cattle shed to below the house, so that the 4 gates between Treshnish and Haunn can be left open for our New Year guests.

With the 3 stirks (bullocks), the 2 Luing heifers in addition to the cows and the bull, they are munching more than one bale of silage a day at the moment, so a bit of barley straw makes a good afternoon snack, before the next bale is brought in from the stack yard.

This two are mother and daughter.  Aberdeen Angus crossed with Highland Shorthorn.  A beautiful dun colour.

Troughs turned up after the hoggs have been fed.  Hopefully the wind won't blow them too far over night.

Farmer had to remove brambles from Brownie's coat this afternoon and so Daughter took this photograph for the blog.

The major winter work is about to start after New Year.  Duill and Shian are both getting a bit of a makeover: improved insulation to keep them cosy and a small, simple, unheated 'sit-ootery' - somewhere to sit and enjoy the views, whatever the weather!  Duill's sunroom will be an amazing place from which to watch whatever wildlife is enjoying the little lochan.

We went to the top of the Ensay Burn waterfall yesterday to see how it looked after the rains.  Good for hydro-electricity today?!

The restoration of the lochan

Boarding is put up, ready for cement.

Concerned for this gull's nest, so we moved it, to higher, drier ground as once the repaired dam began to fill up this would be under water.  

James carried the ready mix up the hill in his dumper, and then used the digger bucket to fill the mould.

Leave to harden off.

Traces of peat underneath, before it begins to refill.

Securing the over-flow, which threatened, initially, to float.



Job done. Repairing this has been something the Farmer has wanted to do for years and years.

It begins to fill.

And fill.

Not long before mallards are back.

The gulls have stayed put in their usual haunts throughout the repair works, so we are hopeful that they are breeding as normal.  We have seen the occasional nest, at the far end of the lochan.  We don't take the dogs up there at the moment, and quite often hear their alarm call and lots of diving and mobbing as if protecting themselves from predators of sorts.

An exciting project to have completed, and I will post photographs from now on as and when things start developing.