Calgary beach clean

Farmer doesn't get days off unless he is actually away from Treshnish - even on a Sunday, especially when there is livestock needing to be fed.  And now that lambing is imminent the start of the working day is even earlier..  The ewes down below are coming to the food quite eagerly but Farmer says they are not running as fast as they are getting heavier in lamb!  D day is tomorrow.

A walk down below with friends from Iona.

After lunch the Calgary beach clean.  We were 20 minutes late, and there were already a lot of people there, fanning out across the beach with flapping bin bags.  We racked seaweed into piles off the campsite and Daughter painted her coat a bench, before we headed off to the sands with our bags to fill.

We were rewarded with tea and home baking, before heading home.

Endings and beginnings

Beginnings of spring.

Our first lambs born yesterday morning, orphaned shortly afterwards.  Luckily Farmer was on hand and brought them home for bottled colostrum and bottled lamb milk, which they are hungrily noisily enjoying.

Ending of the aurora season... the days are getting wonderfully longer, which I really enjoy, bringing the sunset skies over the Isle of Coll and early morning sunrises - but also taking away the visual delight of the northern lights.

Last night was one of the season's last nights, utterly magical.

Errands to run

Its April. The cows are out. The sun is out. Primroses are beginning to glow pale yellow in safe spots away from browsing animals and the pretty celandine are showing their shiny yellow faces in the fields.  

The first lambs arrived a week early, yesterday morning.  Tragically they were orphaned within a few minutes of being born, so they are now on the bottle.  Their little feet are still not quite properly formed, but they are able to walk, full of life and hungry for food. 

There have been moments in Farmer's evenings for entertainment - we saw Nouri Mint Seymali at An Tobar on Tuesday night - an excellent evening out.

Yesterday we had errands to run in Craignure and down on the Ross of Mull.  I like these sorts of jobs especially when the sun is shining as beautifully as it was yesterday.  I even managed to stop and catch a tin shed on the way.  Once the meeting in Craignure was over we drove down to Kintra.  We were collecting a cable which we need to use in order to try and get to the bottom of why the older of the two turbines is not producing the same amount of electricity from the same amount of wind as its younger neighbour.

Having collected the cable, we had time to visit another of the wonderful Ross of Mull beaches. This time we chose Scoor beach near Bunessan. It is about a mile walk from the car park and down a steep steep slope to the beach, but well worth it.

There was no one there but us.

We had Coco with us so knew we wouldn't be able to walk to Kilvickeon as the cows had calves there, and the route we took over Scoor farm didn't go through any fields with lambs in them, so it was fine.  There were no sheep to be seen on the beach or the slopes around it so Coco had a bit of a run on the low tide sands, and then back on the lead for the walk back to the car.

The sun is shining again this morning and errands will only take me as far as Calgary today!

Bank holiday weekends

For the Farmer it is just like any other weekend.  For the family and friends it is blissful having a more relaxed timetable during the day, and being able to chill out a bit.  We have friends staying so we dragged Farmer away from his chores yesterday afternoon and headed for the beach.  

Earlier in the week we had some sunshine - and beautifully calm school run dog walks on the beach at Calgary.

One afternoon, Farmer had to go and check the tups - I went with him. The hares have been slightly put off by Coco being off the lead and so are not venturing into the garden as much as they did last year, so it was really nice to see 2 different pairs, one of them had a lot more white than the others so we knew we were not seeing the same pair twice!

Pellets and primroses.

Brownie is not afraid of coming up to say hello.

After the lovely beach walk yesterday afternoon in the mist, I went to see if I could see the hares again.  

There was a blood moon yesterday for those who were in the right place to see it.  I did get a lovely view of the fullness of the moon but through the mist and it wasnt red!  

Later before I went to bed I went to let Coco out and saw my first ever moonbow.  What a magical magical sight.  I am so grateful once again that we have such wonderful dark skies here.  It lingered much longer than a rainbow normally does, or perhaps that was because there wasn't much of a wind, but I stood outside for quite some time watching it and listening to the occasional sound of a seabird along the shore.  

March moments