The Chairman of the Grazings Committee

A very important man. When we bought the croft there was a lot of too-ing and fro-ing over the common grazings and it turns out that it's not quite as sorted out as we thought. So we continue to pursue the vendors, the Crofters Commission and others to resolve a few outstanding issues. Meeting the chairman of the Grazings Committee was an important part of this.

Once he'd finished his scornful tirade against goats he was quite helpful. As was his 90 year old mother who, once she'd got over her disappointment that we didn't want a whisky, was far more inclined to be encouraging and who gave us lots of useful information about what they used to do in the old days.

Generations eh? All over the (western) world the young uns dismiss the wisdom of their elders. One of the strengths of the Transition Town movement is that they say to go out and listen to older folk and learn now, before it is forgotten, what they used to do - especially with respect to farming. Amongst other things we learnt from the old lady that keeping goats used to be quite common around here, that whins (seen as weeds now) were introduced because of their nutritional value - you can grind them and feed them to animals (we already knew that goats love them).

A useful meeting.