Colours

I sort of expected changing colours to be a feature around here - but yesterday was completely amazing. The white of the dusting of frozen snow, the watery red of the sun and the reds and browns of heather and dead bracken and the blacks and greys of the rocks. Stunning.

For most of the day it was beautifully sunny and calm and around -6C. It snowed and then rained briefly around sunset and then froze again.

Jussi managed to return Muppet but it was a hairy journey - especially around Crask and Altnaharra where the warming and plunging of the temperature had made a lot of the road thick sheet ice. But she managed it.

Meanwhile Ailsa and I took a walk to the loch - here are some piccies. The loch was frozen and we had a lot of fun skimming ice across it listening it sing.

Hello Durness - are you there?

We've had a lot of jets flying around this week - they've been buzzing about bombing the range near Durness (again) - we hear the deep rumble of the explosions. The jets scare the shit out of the goats, (although in the Borders it seems the sheep aren't bothered).

This cloud mushroomed over in the west this morning. Do you think someone got a little over-excited playing their war games?

Sunrise 08:37, Sunset 15:32

COLD this morning. Here is a picture of the cats water (please add apostrophes at will).

Jussi and Ailsa went out at 6 to feed the goats - I made the fire so they could breakfast by a crackling blaze and then sat out with me morning cuppa cha. So the stunning piece of art below is entitled "Morning Cuppa". I drank it around 7am - still in me jimjams and wrapped in my dressing gown and one of the cats - watching the dawning glow.

Jussi is away now taking Muppet back. The roads she's taken are very small and we are hoping they'll be gritted - she could have taken the long way round via Thurso on bigger roads but there seems to be lots of fog on the east coast so not much better. We were sad to see Muppet go. In the spring we'll be sending goats (kids) to slaughter - I think that is going to be very difficult!

My job today was to continue with the raised bed for the fruit trees - but I can't get the spade to cut through the soil - it's frozen solid - so I'm leaving it for a while. I'll make beer instead - we've got visitors in a couple of weeks arriving under the false impression that there's lots to drink. If I get it started now it might be passable betime they arrive. He's from Cologne anyway - what does he know about beer?

Friday night 13

What is it about nails in doors that makes them so lifeless?

Anyway despite it being so quiet we learned of the problems pickled song bird eater has staying on his feet and from a guy who's tied up his boat for the winter - cos although on a perfect night like tonight - that sea's like glass - and he could spend the night pulling up creels and make £1500 easy - he prefers to stay around at home being a 'general c*nt'.

General c*nt is a common term hereabouts. There's something about it I find endearing.

We walked home from the pub with Ailsa, naming the constellations and spotting shooting stars. It was cold - very crisp under foot - and wonderful.

Friend Gary

I have a friend, Gary. He's the sort of friend you hear very little from - far too busy to keep in touch. But I've had a good sized email from him today. His job involves jetting between Yorkshire, where he lives, and Canada and India trying to coordinate a big project he's working on.

He writes:
in the last 2 years the only time I have been at home for 6weeks in one stretch was when I had to have surgery to remove my gallbladder.......I have 500k air miles with KLM but would swap them for a couple of months of zero travel

And there was me thinking I used to work too hard.

I'm hoping he comes to visit next summer - though you can see the chances are pretty slim. Here's a picture of his boys, Bailey, Cale and Nathan. I'm thinking they'd look pretty darn good knee deep in goat shit!

Sunrise 08:33, sunset 15:34

Yesterday morning Jussi was up at 6 and I couldn't get back to sleep because of the dazzling starlight. Nice.

Today it's slightly less windy than yesterday, but noticeably colder. It is also raining spasmodically and I'm wimping out from raised bed building to give my back a rest and to stay warm. I might go out later - but just now the warmth and crackle of the fire has me in its possession.

Land grab

I went to a meeting this week to discuss the purchase, by the community, of several thousand hectares (about 30 square miles) of land and forestry from the Forestry Commission. The land would be bought by a non-profit distributing company owned and run by the community with finance raised on the back of it's charitable status.

With the land under the control of the community we could ensure that any exploitation of it benefits the community. This is a great idea in theory, and frankly I don't care whether or not it works in practice! The land would belong to the community in perpetuity - eventually they'd get it right.

But one of the objectives of the meeting was to garner some ideas of what to do with the land - what sort of business to establish. The community company already owns some forest and has it's own saw mill, and they have 'added value' to the timber by making flat pack bird boxes. Ideas didn't flow too freely at the meeting.

What businesses would you set up? Do you know of any examples of similar enterprises from around the world?

Philosophy fry up

It's a very nice day today. Little wind and no rain or snow. I can't claim it's warm but warmth means nothing when you're being active anyway (most of the time - remind me to write a post about hunter's reflex some day). So I've been out at last, trying to finish that raised bed for the fruit trees, digging holes and wheel barrowing - hard work - oxygen gasping stuff.

Why?

I came across this quote somewhere - can't remember where but it went something like:

Live each day as if you'll die tomorrow. Farm each day as if you'll live forever.

I find this quite inspiring. The improvements we can make on this little croft are so small, so minutely incremental that it's easy to wonder why and avoid things cos, well really it aint gonna make much difference is it?

Then I came across this (here):

A quote from the Bhagavad Gita, an epic Hindu poem:

“To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction.”

I find this one quite challenging, though I do understand it in the context of trying to make changes to avert climate change.

But this is just pure madness isn't it? (here):

“Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance, self-control, diligence, strength of will, content, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know.” - Charles Kingsley (1819 - 1875)

I object to being forced to work - to do things I don't want to do, but I am content with doing unpleasant things because they are contributing to a bigger picture. I think there's a big difference.

Morning post

Two emails of note this morning - one from Chris who's working in Manhatten for a few days. Amongst other things he sent me this poem by Norman MacCaig which he recommends reading aloud over a bottle of whisky. Must buy some whisky.

The second was from Gwennie who sent me some gorgeous piccies of her children. In the absence of permission to post those piccies here is Gwennie herself.

Green Water by Norman MacCaig

Green pool – green pool, the first I ever saw.

An Asiatic swarming of green life

Curdled the clear, the crystal with no flaw,

Soggily see-sawing, a soup of woods,

A brew of sappy stems, emulsion of

Peagreenest mosses – slipslopping under hoods

And howdahs of great clouds whose herds stood still

Over the sliding wind – a wind too small

To heave a cloud on like a glittering hill

But large enough to glaze with glints not green

The broth of greenness till the crystal showed

As liquid diamond lost when scarcely seen

But traitor to it all, till one could stare

At this very self of greenness and see there

The source of all clouds humped high in the air.

Hogger wogger bogger

Eeeeeh lass it's cold. I checked the temperature in our bedroom this morning - using the digital thermometer I bought myself for beer making (which has yet to thrill to the hidden secrets of a goat anus): 6.4C (That's F cold in fahrenheit).

So here's a quick post to praise the hogger wogger bogger! Oh praise to the hogger wogger bogger hogger wogger bogger hogger wogger bogger. Oh praise to the hogger wogger bogger.

(Confession of a plagiarist)

Morning chores

Jussi gets up at 6 in the morning. I don't. Jussi will be taking Muppet back to Aberdeenshire soon - not this weekend - the weather is too bad for travelling. I have to learn the ins and outs of the feeding routine so I can do this for her while she's away. So I was up this morning.

We'd had a fair bit of snow overnight. At 6am, with a slivver of a moon high overhead, it was all whitish greys and blacks and really rather splendid. And windy. The dusty snow giving a good impersonation of sand blasting me delicate wee cheeks.

As I got up to the croft my glasses flew off. So there I was in the dark grovelling around in the snow trying to find my glasses. Jussi and Ailsa helped, lantern in hand, but it was hopelessly dark and the strong wind meant they could be miles away. After 'helping' to feed the goats I headed back to find a spare pair I've had for years and never worn. A reward for wanton consumerism past methinks. Ailsa says my 'new' glasses are funny - kinda mad scientist like she thinks.

Friday night 12

In which we learnt the joys of eating pickled song birds and, if you can handle 6 divided by 3, how you've cracked mathematics.

A quiet night. Bitterly cold. When I mentioned this a neighbour went a wee bitty balistic. COLD! THIS ISN"T COLD. I'LL SHOW YOU COLD - at which point he was dragged away - on account of it being way past his tea time.

But it was good to get out again.

Steady 'n' Snow

This week has been fairly consistently windy. Not windy enough to blow you off yer feet, but certainly strong enough to know about it.

This morning the wind has dropped, turned into the North, and brought snow. Just a steady fluttering, not enough to give more cover than a dusting. Quite nice really. It's due to get worse but I think we'll get off more lightly than 'the interior' and Grampian.

And I've lit the fire - so I've moved office back downstairs and am sitting here listening to the crackle of the logs and getting gently smoked. Today is my deadline for submitting the work, and this weekend we hope to return Muppet (weather permitting), so, apart from the smoke, we'll be able to breathe again.

Business planning

One of the causes of the gloom on Saturday was the fact that Jussi finally managed to link up with a local keeper of goats.

It had taken a long time. This woman seemed to be avoiding us and Jussi had made several attempts over the summer.

Jussi had met her before we moved and we knew that she was struggling to keep her goats happy. On Saturday we learned the depth of this woman's problems, summed up by: "I've given up, I'm just waiting for them to die".

We are fully aware that our chances of making a success of this life are marginal, and we are aware that goats may not thrive here - and we know that we need to be flexible. This seems like a good idea.

Washing up liquid

Service is everything. We ordered some wood for the fire in the 'dining room' - we prefer wood to coal for numerous reasons - including the fact that the fire doesn't draw well, especially when the fire dies down, and this sets off the carbon monoxide detector. Apart from the fact that this is ear-splitting, one does worry. Anyway - it's easier to get a wood fire to either spark up, or die completely than it is with any other fuel.

So we ordered a bulk supply with specific and emphasised delivery instructions, which were ignored.

This meant that much of yesterday was spent with a wheelbarrow shifting the wood the three or four hundred metres to where we wanted it.

Of the many greatest inventions the world has ever seen, the wheelbarrow must be up there with the best. It's a superb machine. The amount of work it enables you to do is staggering. Of great labour saving inventions it's up there with washing up liquid. No really - I mean it.

Feeling better

Yesterday's blog was going to be a tirade. A blasphemous rant. You see the whole of last week was windy wet and cold. And I mean really windy, really wet and really cold. I didn't mind too much - I was working at my desk, and although the cold meant I had to wrap up somewhat ridiculously, at least I was in doors.

But the weekend - well - I wanted to get outside and get some physical graft in. The day started pleasantly enough with a walk to the post office with Ailsa. It was fun battling against the wind. But the walk back got us drenched and frozen through. By the time I'd got changed and warmed a moroseness had slumped itself atop of me and , I'm afraid, I surrendered to it.

Sometimes,in fact most times, the weather outside is nothing like as bad as it feels it is when you're inside. And the best cure for this sort of paralysis is simply to get out.

Today though has been stunning. (All things are relative). The sun has almost been out almost all day, there's almost no hint of wind, and no rain. So we've all had a day of thoroughly good hard work. And we all feel better for it.

Tom's photofest

Thanks Tom!
For more detail click on the piccies.







Generally I think less is more but I've been a bit scant on photographs of late so let's binge!

Sunrise 08:00 sunset 16:00

It'll be a full moon tonight, but I was out at about 11pm last night and the moon was stunning. It was almost as bright as day only strangely colourless and eerie. You just don't get that effect in cities with all the street lights and all, and you can never appreciate just how wonderful moonlight is.

We are entering the season of Leonids and the full moon will interfere with their show - although Jussi should be OK - at 6 in the morning the moon has long since set and there should be shooting stars aplenty. (She saw one this morning - I was still in bed).

Tom has returned home and sent us some of the wonderful piccies he took hereabouts. This is Ben Loyal.

The romance of Highland Homeworking

So here I am working away. Fully layered with thermals and hot water bottle (the best cure for cold feet). Is this because I'm too mean to put the heating on? Not really - there is a panel heater on (low - just to take the sharpest of Jack Frosts teeth out) - but the heater doesn't really help - there's enough thermal mass in the furniture and walls to keep everything nicely refrigerated - unless the heating is on for a long time - but that would be wasteful.

Of course when we've rebuilt our house such scenes will be no more. Our wonderful renewable energy powered heating system in super-insulated house - everything will be toasty. So far we haven't managed to get the plans completed. They've been almost finished for a long long time, but some things just take so long - no matter how many kittens you throw down the telephone line.

I'm plugged in to iTunes - another great cure for cold feet - and I have to hand it to Apple - Genius is genius. My current listening is based around Underworlds cowgirl (Irish pub in Kyoto mix).

The work is assessing grant applications from the voluntary sector on behalf of a grant giving body wanting to promote social enterprise and environmental initiatives. My job is to undertake a detailed assessment to help guide the panel of the grant giving body. Sometimes I find myself being quite damning about these applications and I worry that sometimes this is more to do with my physical discomfort than the quality of the application. But of course I take care to check and assess what I'm writing and to be as fair as possible.

When I had proper job I wrote or oversaw hundreds of grant applications and I know how time consuming they are, and how frustrating funders can be. They ask stupid questions, are very poor at giving you an understanding of what they want to know, and don't give enough room on grant application forms to explain anything properly. On the other side of the fence my biggest gripe now is the sweeping statement. Things akin to 'give us the money and the world will be a better place'. Ok - but why, how, when, how will you know..... Ho hum.

Tom and Mhairi

We've had visitors this weekend and the weather was dutifully dramatic without being grim. It was cold, it was windy, but the sun was out for most of it.

Tom helped me finish the framing for the raised bed I'm building for the fruit trees and then helped me get the soil I'd dug up from the 'loch' into it. His help was massive - two people doing that sort of work have an impact which is far greater than halving the effort.

And Mhairi helped Jussi to clear out the remains of the Nissen hut. They're returning home today in their camper van with gales and snow forecast along the way. Safe home guys!

The weekend also saw the return of the fencers, after a four week absence - and they've made great progress too. Hopefully we'll see then again before Christmas.

It's back to consultancy work for me now. I've set up office in the bedroom so I can concentrate on the work - though truth be told the main thing I'm concentrating on is how cold my toes are and just how wild the driving rain sounds against the velux windows.

Jussi is having to spend time with Crystal who has decided it's her turn to be a bit ill. She'll be fine with a bit of tlc and a couple of drenches to boost her rumen.

Ashden Directory

Google analytics gives me the power to see how many visitors are coming to the blog, and some limited information as to how they are arriving.

I noticed today that I have regular visits from the Ashden Directory. I'm flattered - really - but I can't see how they are coming from that site (and this) to me.

Post election fenzy

Wasting time on the internet is one of the unexpected benefits of this new life. It's easy to resist it, but I enjoy following people's rants and contortions as they battle with modern consumerist dilemmas.

And the election of Obama has set a lot of things alight. ISPs must be desperately trying to buy more storage to accommodate the blizzard of posts/rants/petitions and all that has sprung up in the last couple of days.

These are links to positive things. There are also a load of blogs expressing deep dismay and fear over what Obama will bring. I'll try to find a few worth reading - but really I'm supposed to be working.

A petition to Obama

Dig up the white house lawn

And here is an American tied in knots trying to understand what is going on and what it means to him

And here is an open letter from Alice Walker (author of such as "The Color Purple") to Obama. I like this because of how it expressed what his victory means to so many, but also her wisdom, understanding and insight into what leadership is. (and also the comment about smiles of scissors - fantastic imagery).

Cheese

The cheese making continues albeit at a much lower volume as Bonnie dries off and the winter sets in. But this week Jussi opened a ripened Camembert type cheese she made a few weeks ago. Now that is proper high cheese man. All runny and creamy and goaty and scrum.

Meanwhile there's a herby fresh cheese we'd put aside to give to the manure lady - but we never got round to it. Jussi claims it's matured into a stunning example of the cheese makers art. So far I'm a tad too squeamish to eat a fresh cheese that aint fresh no more - it's my microbiological training don't you know. Still, Jussi appears to be in good health so I may try some for lunch - after I've polished off the remains of the rather spectacular leek potato and parsnip soup I rustled up yesterday.

Sorry - this is supposed to be about cheese. Yesterday was less successful. Judging by the language I think Jussi was trying to make blue cheese.

Blue Tongue is a disease that doesn't affect us in these parts - but apparently we have to vaccinate against it anyway. This may be another impact of climate change. As the climate warms the vectors of the disease are spreading northwards. Should I send the vet bill to George W?

Sunrise 07:44, Sunset 16:15

Yep - it's getting darker. In fact, when it's cloudy, it starts to feel like dusk just after lunch. There's worse to come.

And here are some not very good piccies of Epic.

They aren't very good cos they don't really convey the scale of the project. The raised bed is depicted by the fencing posts - the walls will be nissen hut roofing, re-inforced on the outside by rubble, or a low drystane wall if I have time. The soil level will only be raised by about 10 inches now, but the intention is to add to this over the years. It'll be enough to anchor the trees for a while. The nissen roofing walls should keep the rabbits out but I'll need to keep a close eye on this.

The pond is much deeper than it looks - in places the water is waist deep with another foot or so of very soft mud under that. I've started to shelf the edges so if you step into it you go in about a foot - a warning to proceed with care. The barrow run is from here to the trees in the top left. It's 200 metres or so across rough land, up hill.

Yesterday I was digging up old stands of whins and silver birch from the bottom of these holes. I can't tell for sure, but it looks as though they used to be growing here. That means our 'loch' is gradually filling up, and there's probably quite a bit of decent land to be reclaimed if we can figure how to drain it. The soil, although peaty, is good and deep - it would be worth it if we could.

I should be working on it today - but on Monday I received a lot of consultancy work that needs to be done by Nov 21, and I'm sort of feeling I should at least make a dent on that so I can better judge how to manage my time. But then again I might take advantage of the weather using my lack of sleep last night as an excuse for physical rather than mental labour.

Beautiful dawning

What a stunning morning. Calm, still, dazzling and full of promise.

I confess that I missed the dawn - having been up late watching the US elections. What an amazing night - and what an amazing man. There is hope. If this man can be half as great as his rhetoric we might stand a chance.

Here is Obama's victory speech. It's a bit under 20 minutes but worth watching and worth remembering.

Barack Obama has achieved something amazing. Many things in fact. I don't want to 'go off on one' but last night something very special happened. He is a great man. There is hope.

Peaty soil vs soily peat

I'm trying to prepare a bed for a few fruit trees bestowed upon me by Changeworks when I left.

The problem is that the soil isn't deep enough, it's too windy, and the soil is too acid. So I'm building an epic. A raised bed to shame and intimidate all other raised beds. The mother of all raised beds.

Shifting the earth to build a raised bed is always proper graft. But this over-optimistic moron has decided to use soil from bog at the bottom of the main field (this bog is referred to as 'the loch' by a a lady who grew up on the croft). It's a moronic decision because wet soil is heavy soil, it's far closer to peat than soil anyway, and - and this is the really important point - it's over 200 metres away. Carrying all that soil barrow-load by barrow-load up from 'the loch' is some task let me tell you.

Still, when it's done, and limed, and manured, and dug over, we'll have a bed for six or so fruit trees, reasonably sheltered and in years to come we'll be able to feast on the three or four apples that'll begrudgingly brave the wild windy wet. (It's important to have a vision innit).

But I can't help wondering if it'd be better to burn the soil I'm bringing up - it really is something closer to peat - but how do you tell? Oh - and I may be digging a death trap.

It's supposed to be a pond, and some of the peat/soil clarty cloggy stuff is being heaped by the pond to provide for a stand of willows. It'll be lovely obviously - I mean goats really do love willow. But it's quite likely that in a couple of years time the pond will be hidden by rushes and will efficiently assimilate any fool who decides to stroll across the bog/loch thing. Will this blog entry be used in years to come to support a charge of the manslaughter of some innocent ornithologist voraciously consumed by my loch/pond/trap?

Good luck everybody!

US presidential election day. We need a US president who will be bold enough to lead the world in a response to the threat of climate change. Wars and economic shenanigans will affect the billions of us living on the planet, but they are superficial floss in comparison to climate change. It is the only issue that counts.

So should it be McCain or Obama? I don't know - they've both made only a few encouraging noises. Which one believes in the issue most, and is the most likely to show the exceptional courage needed is a call I can't make. McCain has shown considerable courage in his political past, (but Palin??!?!?), Obama is young and idealistic and maybe more willing to really stick his neck out? Only history will tell, and I fear history will tell us that we were let down by the usual self interest.

Personally, I want the democrats to win and I want the US to have a non-white, non-anglo saxon president - for all kinds of reasons I'll not bore you with!

Friday night 11

Yesterday was my birthday. Today I'm hung over.

One of the locals claims he's bought an Australian crocodile for £6000 and he's building a pool for it. Reckons that as it's a freshwater croc it'll not harm anyone and he's looking forward to bringing it into the pub, on a lead, to taunt the bar staff. I thanked him for keeping us entertained over the last few months and said I'd make it to his funeral if I could.