Winter feeding

February.  Farmer is on full scale feeding duties.

Once in a Blue Moon

Ice on Loch Cuin at Dervaig on Hogmonay. The courageous driver of the gritting lorry made it as far as the quarry above our turning on Wednesday, so we were able to get out to Dervaig before the shops shut for New Year!

Hogmonay Eve brought a blue moon and a partial lunar eclipse. Seemed like an auspicious signal for the end of the year and of the decade. It was bright and starry - except when I got the camera out to photograph it, a cloud appeared out of nowhere and obscured the shadow on the moon!

The shortest day is now nearly 2 weeks behind us. This prolonged cold spell brings the bonus of sunshine and brilliant blue skies, and clear starry nights. Crunchy iced snow underfoot makes walking on the hill a magical experience. Frozen burns and bog, cascades of thick creamy grey ice tumbling down rock. Red spongy mosses forming hard clumps of colour capped with ice. Sheltered spots with tell tale signs of where deer have been lying, scrubby trees with damaged trunks from stags rubbing them.

We walked up to first foot our neighbours yesterday afternoon. A foursome of brightly breasted bullfinches danced along in front of us as we went along the farm track towards Ensay, dropping onto deer posts, then moving off just as we got close enough for a really good look, and then they did it all over again, and again until we parted company at the edge of the birch woodland. We followed along side the road up the hill towards their house, across the Ensay Bridge, thick thick ice still covering the road. As we neared the house a pair of golden eagles floated slowly overhead.

And as the sun was setting and we started to walk home, the hill glowing softly pink in the sunset light, a Sea Eagle flew eastwards from the Crackaig direction, low and sharply silhouetted against the fading sky. And on the Sitheans, the grassy 'fairy knolls', we found the sad remains of a red grouse. Covies of grouse on the hill are one of our favourite sightings during the year, and getting rarer.

Duill, one of the Treshnish Cottages, looking towards Calgary in sunset light January 2010.

Winter jobs

We are enjoying some winter weather - nothing like the chaos everywhere else, but enough for the last day of school to be cancelled (didn't hear any complaints about that) and the postponement of the Christmas play.

Our Christmas guests came from as far afield as Plymouth - but all arrived safely to warm and cosy cottages. We took extra bags of logs down to Haunn this morning so that everyone can keep their stoves going in the cold weather.

Now that the hoggs are well trained 'to the bag', and the cows are enjoying their hill cobs, the winter feeding routine is well established. And the dogs are always keen to check for missed food as the troughs are turned over when the feeding is finished. Alice, the ex pet lamb, is a bit of a ringleader so the gates into the cattle shed have to be kept shut at all times otherwise she is in there like a shot looking for a bit of extra feed or hay, and bringing her mates with her.

The Farmer has been putting up a new fence on the Point, which will give him another field to lamb in. He came back at dusk earlier in the week, disappointed that he had not had a camera with him as he had a very close sighting of the Sea Eagle, which flew very low over him and the dogs while he was working out on the Point. A pair of Golden Eagles seem to hang around near the Treshnish Old Schoolhouse. It is amazing how often we come past and they are up floating above the wood on the thermals.

There hasn't been enough snow to think about bringing the cows in yet. They have been grazing from the herb rich Black Park into the Haunn field and there is still plenty of roughage for them even with the light snow lying on the ground today. Without calves to protect, they barely notice us as we walk past them on the way down to Haunn.

We have had some amazing skies - and some breathtaking sunsets. Here are two taken about a week ago - one taken from the Calgary direction of the sunset over Treshnish Point and the other taken near Duill looking towards the track disappearing into the field where the Haunn Cottages are.

WISHING YOU A HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A MERRY NEW YEAR