A mixed week

With all but a handful of in-bye ewes left to lamb, we are half way through, time wise.  The tups are usually with the ewes for 6 weeks (from the end of November until just after New Year) which governs the length of time 'lambing' goes on for - give or take a few days for premature or late lambs! The ewe fertility cycle is 17 days and so we expect 75-80% of our ewes to have lambed by the end of the third week.  This doesn't mean Farmer can put his feet up through.  You still have to check as often for 5 ewes as 50.  However, it is a relief to be able to see that most of the ewes have lambs now, on the hill as well as in bye.

Yesterday was horrendously wet and cold and so Farmer was on the look out for lambs who might have misplaced their mothers (or vice versa) and got too cold.  This morning he has brought a new born  lamb into the house whose mother appeared to have walked off (sometimes happens with gimmers/ewes having their first lambs) and having had a feed, it is currently warming up under the lamp.

I accidently disturbed a greylag goose from her nest on this stoney little beach on the east coast of the island between Salen and Fishnish. Such big eggs!

Coltsfoot.

There is lots of wild garlic around and it is lovely to see the marsh marigold coming up now in sheltered damp spots.  The larch is brilliantly green and the needles at the soft and luscious stage.

Clumps of foxgloves growing. I am NOT looking for the first bracken fronds.  I know some people have seen some, but I don't want to see it.  We will be not looking for it on the 77 hectares that we had aerially treated last summer, but anxiously hoping it will have been successful.

The copse of geans have suffered in the wind, just as they were beginning to flower. The ground underneath is littered with their delicate petals.

Guy has been helping out with a few chores - putting in styles and hanging gates. At last we have a style beside the graveyard.  Cap is moving kennel and Guy has gated the kennels now so that they are more private.  Cap is a very passive unaggressive dog, but quite often dogs (walking through the yard with their owners) would run up to him in his kennel, so now he can be undisturbed as they won't be able to see him. 

Another job which Farmer has been desperately looking for time to do, is cutting back some of the brambles in the in-bye fields.  As I have written about before, with the grazing restrictions at certain times of year, the brambles have really been growing upwards and outwards in several of the herb rich fields. So it is good to have had Guy's time cutting them back a bit. 

Along Loch na Keal.  

Tobermory - Wednesday afternoon sunshine.

The goldfinches are really enjoying the seed feeder. Bird photography is not my forte, but I crept up on this one as I only had a 100mm lens on the camera at the time. 

The RSPB are coming to do a twite survey on the farm next week.  They will be comparing the results of this year's survey with the last one they did here in 1999.  We were 4 years in to the ESA conservation management scheme then,  and 1999 was the year we went organic although we had stopped using artifical fertilisers a few years before that.  Hopefully the survey will show an improvement in numbers!!  I was busy earlier in the week getting some photographs and information ready for Plantlife as they are doing a Case Study on the farm for a paper on farming for wildlife.  

The River Bellart bursting its banks yesterday after a day of rains.

Highland Wood Energy came to service the wood chip boiler this week.  Apart from a cracked grate (which will need replacing at the next service), everything was deemed to be working well, so that was good to hear.

Time for walks and fires

We have enjoyed a lovely family Christmas. And sincerely hope that you have too.  We even had a barbecue on Christmas Day - Farmer cooked our dinner outside in the windblown moon light. Said he enjoyed doing it too.

It feels, in the middle of the short winter days, perfectly natural to want to hibernate and to have no school bus to rush out of the house in the dark for is a real treat. And as the cows are still outside there is no point in Farmer leaving the house to feed them before it is light enough that he can actually see them. Then by 4.00 it feels like fire lighting time again, and in by the fire with the wind raging around the chimneys.

We managed a day out in between the storms. We saw the wild goats at Kingairloch and some snow between Ardgour and Lochaline.

A wild winter walk this morning as the westerly gales were disrupting ferries across the Hebrides.  It was invigorating to say the least.  Watching squalls fly in from Coll and Tiree, obliterating the view as they moved swiftly over molten silvery grey seas. Sheltering like the sheep do behind a knoll until it passes and the sky brightens again and Coll reappears.  The surface of the sea changes colour constantly.  

                              

Ragwort is a constant source of work for the Farmer. In the summer he spends hours at the back-breaking job of pulling it up and disposing of the flowers before they set seed.  It is important for the Cinnabar moth to allow it to flower.  At this time of year the ragworts shoots are lush and green in amongst the stationary grasses which don't grow at all.  The sheep do eat it when it is this small and survive the experience! I think the ill effects are accumulative so in sheep they aren't deadly, which is just as well as it would be impossible to keep them away from it.

This dump in an inaccessibly gully predates our arrival at Treshnish.  It is a relic from the Hebridean farming past and days before council dustcarts. Sheets of tin and old bits of machinery frozen in time tumbling down the slope.

And we walk along the raised beach edge and down onto the Ensay burn beach, with its finely smoothed pebbles and stones which echo under your feet as you walk. Farmer was interested to find a bag of Emergency Drinking Water. 

 

The kelp line.

  The blue line. Of a flipflop carried up the burn from the sea in the storm.

Perhaps an unusual subject for a festive photograph but this is the proof that using the correct medicines helps improve bio-diversity.  We avoid medicines with certain ingredients which are known to harm wildlife.  Here you can see the healthy poo is attracting birds to pick amongst it for insects and bugs.

 

A huge log in the round carried up the beach and into the burn by the sea.

 Fantastically luminous green bottle catches my eye. Years ago, we scoured the beaches after a storm for wooden fishboxes which were treasured.  Now the finds are more contemporary.  As much as I would like to see clean beaches everywhere with no rubbish, no plastic pollution, I do find my eye is pulled to the gaudier bits of plastic that land on the shore. 

Shags sat, as if glued to the spot, as their rocky perch was blasted by the wind and occasionally by spume and froth from the waves below.  Searched for otters in the shallow waters and found rafts of kelp swaying on the surface instead.

Farmer thought this was the back of a chair. I was not so sure.

  Into the hazel wood at the edge of the graveyard field.  The lichens so fresh in contrast to the bare branches. 

These old stands of hazel are unfenced from the field and provide important shelter in some winds for the animals. It was great to see that they are managing to regenerate even though the stock can in theory get in here.

The cattle shed feels empty without the cows although it is full of machinery, feed bags and bags of drying logs for our woodburning stoves.

I haven't done a summary of the year as such on the blog, but sitting by the woodburning stove and looking back, it has been another good one for us.  We have enjoyed seeing all the familiar faces who arrive and depart each season, playing an important part in the calendar of our year - and we have equally enjoyed meeting the guests who stayed with us for the first time this year too! The cottages and farm are inextricably, holistically, linked and your visits help us to continue to look after the land and the bio-diversity dependent on farming in this way.  Thank you all.

We wish you all a very Happy New Year!