September calm

When you walk through the woodland from the cattle grid by the Ensay Burn, you can see the colours are changing. The Rosebay willow herb is living up to its name, its red and gold leaves looking like a fireweed.  The heather is beginning to fade. 

Spiders webs float on clumps of heather and the spider hangs still.  A nearby heather stalk hold a previous kill wrapped in a gossamer shroud of spider silk.

After a grey day the sun appears as it slowly drops into the water over Coll casting its welcome glow on everything in its way.

The sunrooms on Duill and Shian holiday cottages catch the evening light throughout the summer.

Farmer and I enjoy a beer watching the sun go down.

Waiting for the lights

Saturday night forecast looked promising for the Aurora Borealis.  I stayed up.  The skies clouded over so the moon lit clouds were all I saw.

Farmer had 15 or so bales left to finish, I went to muddle up the wrapper settings help for a while.  The Rene Descartes cable laying ship was still working away, off shore, churning up the bottom by the looks of the turquoise waters - sand and water colour mixed? Not usually streakily turquoise in those bits of the Treshnish sea view.

There is a basking shark at Calgary, well worth visiting for a close encounter sometime this month.

We went there for tea and cake this afternoon. I walked home with Coco. It was a lovely walk.

The full moon rose over the brow of the hill tonight and looked majestic.

Making silage while the sun shines

The rust on the blades wears off when the mower goes mowing.  Yesterday Farmer mowed our field and the field at Calgary and a field over near Salen.

Farmer 'rowed up' the Calgary field once he had done ours this morning ready for the baler. 

Patches of heather slowly fading now, but the bog is still vital in colour.

The other Farmer appears with an enormous baler and makes 75 bales. His machine makes a heavier denser bale than ours (used to) so this is probably equivalent to about 100 bales, meaning we have nearly 200 days worth of silage/food in the winter store now. Excellent work Farmer!  Here is the baler finishing the last bales.  

A Red Admiral, newly emerged I think, as its wings look so fresh but crumpled.  It sat for such a long time in the one place.

On the school run, the campers at Calgary were getting ready to party by the sounds of things! A huge party, with gazebos, and loo tents, and jet skis.  

Back home a party of a more sedate kind as the hens huddle waiting to get out of their run.  They are still laying really well. 17 eggs today!

Sunlight this evening on the buoys hanging on the gate post.

Light pouring in through the garden shed windows.

All we need now is dry weather for the wrapping.

85% moon rising over Shian this evening.

I could hardly ask the guests to move their cars...

Farmer putting everything away for the night.

And a sunset to delight.

September already

A fine pen of lambs (not ours) at last weeks sale in Oban.  Our prices were up £7 on the appalling price we got last year, so we were pleased about that.  We have put the rest of this year's lambs down in the field below the house, so that they can re-gain condition having been weaned.  We will sell them in a few weeks time.

The Black Park is still bathed in a Devils bit scabious glow, the cattle will go in there soon.

The cable layer, called the Rene Descartes, has been in the bay for the last few days.  Farmer was interested to know what they were doing.  We know it is for fibre optic cable going to Tiree, apparently dug in to one metre below the sea bed.   And that they leave their lights on overnight - as seen from our garden gate, when they moored just off Treshnish 2 nights ago.

It was Daughter's birthday yesterday (14) and so we used it as an excuse for both of us to take her to the school bus, and to then walk on the beach.  It was Walter's first time on the beach. (he is a working dog after all...?) He wasn't sure about the waves.

Shian and Duill are looking so smart with the new windows, doors and sunrooms.  Seen here in the late afternoon sun, as Farmer was cutting our late cut bird friendly silage - now that we are into September!

This will be turned this afternoon or tomorrow morning to let the air through, before being baled for us by a neighbour.  Farmer is doing a favour in return, by moving the fields at Calgary for them, and in a minute he is off to Crannich to mow a field there for them.  The baler they use is so much bigger than ours, it is not able to get into all the wee corners that Farmer likes to mow.

The mower picks up rust where the grass gets stuck to the blades in between uses.

Bracken cutting in the turbine field.  We had planned to do 30 acres of aerial bracken control this summer, and were very disappointed to find that the helicopter company had run out of time, within the weather and seasonal window for bracken treatment, and were no longer able to come to Mull. They assured us they will come to Mull at the beginning of the season next year.

Our summer visitors will be on the move soon. These two have recently fledged from the workshop nest.   We think the advanced age of our remaining farm cat, Thimphu, has had a beneficial effect on the numbers of swallows this summer.

And in the veg garden, safe from slugs, the cardoons are flowering.