They came from outer space

My photo managing software has an automatic red eye removal facility. It doesn't work with goats because unlike humans, goats don't have blood behind their retinas - they have a colloidal complex of mercury and kryptonite, which is why they shrink in the cold.

New duties

OK - so this is mildly amusing. But now the Council have given us a mammoth wheely bin. Bright blue. In it we slavishly put all waste paper (except stuff for lighting the fire), plastic bottles (except those suitable for bottling beer), cans and cardboard (except when we need some mulching).

But it's windy here. Said recycling is generally broadcast over the garden every morning - and collecting it all is getting to be a real pain.

And here are a couple more piccies from Lulu - The Pie. Made from the left over stew we'd had the night before. It was, erm... filling.

Sky larks!

Yay!  The sky larks are here - tweetering away madly - such a lovely sound such a fantastic herald - spring approaches!

Meanwhile googlemail is down.  This appears to be a world-wide event and illustrates the dangers of cloud systems.  Here's hoping they get back soon, that they haven't lost anything in the process - and that all those millions out there who depend on gmail to run their businesses are managing to stay calm this Monday morning.

So while I'm waiting for gmail here are some more piccies from Lulu.

Kite buggy anyone?

We live 'ere.  The cottage at the top, although from here we are completely unaware of the houses below us - except that one of them keeps cockerels and another seems to host alcoholic parties.

Wipers update

Thanks for the comment and emails on the topic of the wipers on the Skoda Fabia.  I've learnt several things:

• Not all Skoda Fabias have the same wiring diagrams.
• Some wiring diagrams and advice is very confusing.
• Our fuses all appear to be fine.
• This means something more serious.
• This means expense.
• Tears and tantrums.  
• It's only when the tide goes out that you discover who's swimming naked.

Daunting task

Sifting through 600 piccies to find the ones to go on the blog is a wee bitty mammoth.  But here are a few to get started.  Cos every journey starts with a step innit.

Christian brought all kinds of techy manly stuff to help us progress the lean-to - you know things like

 ladders and string, and levels and big eff off drills.  Not only does he own such things but he knows how to use them.  It's was a joy to see a craftsman at work. 

 

Lulu took lots of piccies of goats.  

There's one in this lot that 

shows effect of the nasty law requiring goats ears to be tagged.  They invariably rip them out which can't be nice for the goat and makes a mess of their ears.  

Show-goaters are very upset, but for us it's just a bit of a shame.

The goats love pine - and L & C brought tons of the stuff.

Despite spending most of the winter indoors the goats look to be in pretty good condition - no doubt all that turpentine doing the trick.  

Some are also beginning to look very pregnant.  Jussi's morning routine is now to put them on the milking stand and to rub the inside of their legs and udders as they're feeding.  It is hoped this will make them easier to milk when the time comes.  And they're kicking - the kids inside the tummies that is.  Exciting!

But getting ready for the kidding seems to be making us all very busy - at a time when there's lots else going on too.  I can't claim to be rushed off me feet like - but there's definitely plenty to do and the guy who promised the loan of a cement mixer is starting to make excuses noises.

Burst pipe hits Golspie

I think the local rag needs new sub-editors.  This is a fair example really, usually they just write a sentence like "Security fence would make Embo look like a no go area".  The story of Golspie being assailed by flying bits of pipe was on page five - front page reserved for "Yvonne is bodice maker to the clans" (with photograph of very proud looking Yvonne). 

Photographic Record

Lulu and Christian have been and gone.  They were here for a little under 40 hours.  In that time Lulu took over 600 photographs - one every 4 minutes.  On a par with the amount of beer we drank.

Phew!  

Good to have visitors - more due in a couple of weeks so the brewery will be working overtime for a while.

Piccies to be exhibited in the days to come (not all of them obviously).

Well being

When I was at Changeworks I was gently trying to nudge the organisation to be concerned with the wider well being debate as the real solution to the environmental and poverty driven mission of the organisation.  As far as I'm aware the new economics foundation are leading thinkers in this arena and they've just launched a new website here and new report here.

It's great stuff and for me, one of the great exhibitors of the potential of thinking like this is the transition town movement.  If there's one near you get involved! 

Messages

Yesterdays shopping trip passed without incident.  Well except for the fact that the windscreen wipers on the car have taken unauthorised leave of absence.  I mean like they've packed in.  For those of you unfamiliar with the climate up here, it..erm...rains...erm...alot.  So the car is grounded.

Skoda Fabia owners might like to consider where the fuses are.  We don't have a handbook and finding the fuse box approached the realms of impossibility.  I stopped at our friendly (well he earns a lot from us) mechanic in Shebster and it took him quite a while to find them.  Anyway - all the fuses appear to be OK, but of course there are a lot of fuses - and we only think we checked all of them yesterday.   

If you own a Skoda Fabia owners manual I'd be really grateful if you could point me to which fuse drives the wipers? Pretty please.  And while you've got the book open what's that funny lever in the funny little compartment by the driver's right knee labelled 'ON' and what's the funny switch in the glove compartment that appears to have a frost symbol on it?

Anyway Tesco's had big lumps of beef brisket reduced to clear so I bought them and sliced em up for a big stew tonight.  The remainder of this stew will be made into a hot water crust pastry pie tomorrow night.  The remainder of this will be curried.  The remainder of this will be made into an omelet.  That is to say I bought quite a lot of meat.

And if donuts cost 65p for 5 and £1 for 10 - do I save 35p by buying 5 or 30p buying 10?

And when I got home there was a tome from Highland Council building control asking for clarification over forty points with respect to our planned house improvements.  There's something biblical about this eh?  I don't just mean the size of the letter, but forty. 

We want to put a new stair in the house - because the existing one is narrow, steep and rises under the eaves in such a way that lanky sods like me have to put heads between knees to move around at the top of the stairs (OK I exaggerate a bit).  So you think Highland Council would be pleased - but no - they want to ensure that there's enough width and clearance around the stairs to install a chair lift at a later date.  Generally I'm in favour of systems like building controls but surely this is extreme meddling?  For us it risks substantial rethink of the stair space and jeopardises hope of getting a bloody move on on this bloody thing.  Bloody nanny state.

Meanwhile Malcolm has sent a message celebrating the promise of Spring in Dunbar - and, he adds, we should only have a few more months to wait.  Cheers man!

Sunrise 7:40, Sunset 17:22

Me mix concrete for two days.  Me no mix concrete today.  Me sit in car.  Me shop for meat.  Me cook for hungry visitors soon.

Yumm.

Supermarket Representative (2)

Still no offer of employment.  But actually they were £3:99.

Supermarket Representative

I'm not a supermarket representative.  

Yesterday Lidl were selling fruit trees at £4.99 each.  Given you should normally expect to pay around £15 - this is cheap.  So along with our two warming pots of Nutella we took a plum tree - just to see.

I'll be amazed if proper trees from a proper nursery flourish up here - but this tree doesn't stand a ha'pe'th of a chance does it?  Still off to plant it now as a warm up to mixing concrete.

Existentialist buildings

This contains the following sentence:

"In existentialism, the individual's starting point is characterised by what has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world." 

It may be stretching things a bit - but the sentiments expressed in this quote do go someway towards summarising our bewilderment in the face of trying to build a lean-to for the goats.  Nothing is ever as simple as the often complicated 'how to' articles articulate.

It was thus that after a not inconsiderable number of minutes debate on how to forward this project, some days ago, we decided "Oh buggerit, lets just fill these holes with concrete".

Regular readers will know that we checked the weather forecast to be sure that if the conditions were not ideal for the laying of concrete, they would at least be acceptable.  The coldest snap for twenty years then ensued - not good for new concrete.

There was then, yesterday, the first of what I suspect will be many 'moments of truths'.  The unveiling of the concrete.  Amazingly, it has set hard as rock.  The Gods are with us.

We then hastily progressed towards our next moment of truth.  Have the holes been sunk and filled in the right place?  Many of you will suspect that there is something amiss about the order of events here, but suffice to say the order is a result of the disorder of the inconsiderable number of minutes debate on how to proceed.  It is a fact that Jussi and I find it easier to identify faults in the others' plans than to see the merits, which results in a sort of lowest-common-denominator-progress , in this case "fill holes with concrete".

But so far it looks as though the absurdist gods are benign, with a twitch of tweeking.  (Absurdism may be atheistic - but I can't be bothered to find out and, anyway, I don't really care.  This isn't a philosophy class).

We are now building a corner form into which the concrete will be poured, for the lowest corner.  The main aim of this is to conserve concrete, because moment of truth three revealed that the foundation trenches have been dug in slightly the wrong place (a consequence of the twitch of tweeking), and have now had to be widened.

The building of this form is inhibited by extreme meanness. Early settlers in the Americas built excellent homes from the plentiful supply of good timber they found around them.  But if they bent a nail they would painstakingly extract it, straighten it, and try again.  Thus do we hunt down not just redundant nails from building projects past, but scrag ends of wood (and string and bags and and and) also.

Nutella is on special offer at Lidl at the moment.  Ailsa is loving it.

There endeth the philosophy lesson.

Visitors

They came; they laughed and played; they went.

Some families don't want an internet presence because of all you weirdos out there.  But here is an edited photographic record of the good times we had.  

It's stopped snowing now but the heavy frosts continue.  Today I might peak a look at our lean-to foundations and think about building the forms for the wall trenches.  But somehow I doubt I'll get further than think.  

We live here!

The snow and the weather has been dramatic and wonderful.  While we've got visitors there's not much time to relate stories - but here are some piccies.

Morning

Everyone arrived safely, the school is closed so we can all be together - happy days.

Waiting for Tadg

Red sky in the morning

One day, when I grow up, I'll work out how to get this camera to take really good piccies that really show you the drama of the skies.

This morning the whole of the sky was pink, red or orange, solidly in the east and streakily in the west.  The snow covered hills in the west stood proud like, erm, big globs of pink blancmange (*and **).

Shepherds warning - and sure enough it has now started to snow.  Our visitors fae Dunbar overnighted in Inverness and hopefully will be here around lunchtime - Snow Ploughs willing.

* Note to self - dump the poetic aspirations

**  In Old French, blancmanger was a noun that simply meant 'food'.  I can't imagine a less appropriate meaning for todays blancmange.

Rebecca The Heroic

We have been delighted to welcome Rebecca to our humble abode this weekend.  She made it, all the way from Auchtermuchty.  The usual route was closed at Crask, so she had to get here via Thurso.  The question now is - will she ever leave?  Although most of the snow has cleared it is very icy (there's solid blocks of ice on the inside of the double glazing this morning).  Once she's on the main roads it'll be OK - but it's the mile or so to the road that's the problem.  In particular there is a 10m stretch of 2 inch thick ice at the top of Paddy's Brae.

Last night Jussi and Rebecca set to mending the goat coats.  You'll notice (from the scant dress) how warm it was in front of the roaring fire.  In fact we recorded a staggering 17.8C at the time this picture was taken.

Our visitors from Dunbar have confirmed their intention to get here.  They've phoned to say they left at 6am this morning and, four hours later, have almost made it to the outskirts of Dunbar.  I hope they were joking.

Moseying the blogosphere

Since God continues to sneeze into his cocaine, there's little to do* except wander the digital back roads.

Here are a couple of things that've entertained me of late.  This three minute video is astonishing.

I found it through this joyous celebration of the spineless - there are lots of other links worth exploring in it too.  Thanks to Lulu for sending me the link.

In a completely different vein I found this to be a fascinating set of writings.

Meanwhile, as I was lying in bed this morning, I felt waves of smugness washing over me.  Not my smugness you understand, but the smugness of Chelsea Tractor owners who, with all this weather, must be feeling all self-justified about their anti-social ways.  

This invasion of smugness was so pervasive that I had to get up (bedroom temperature 6.1C this morning (42F)) and have a shower.  After the shower I opened the bathroom window while I got dried.  The not so gentle waft of breeze carrying little hail stones was erm invigorating.  I feel cleansed.

*OK - there's lots to do but it's very hard to find the motivation to do it.

Skools out

The school is closed again today.  But the snow is yukky and the ground wet.  Not too pleasant really.

Meanwhile we're on tenterhooks.  Will our visitor arrive from Auchtermuchty tomorrow?  Will our visitors arrive from Dunbar next week?  Will we be able to get to the shops so we can feed our visitors next week?  Mmmmm.

We have to concede that it is highly unlikely that our concrete will be curing properly - even if the hay was insulating before - now there's a sort of freezing thaw I doubt it's doing it's job.  What do you do with crumbling concrete?  Will we be able to sell the crumbling stuff as poor mans pumice?

Will my toes ever be warm again?

It's snow time!

Well it's hit us at last.  It doesn't look that impressive but it was enough for the school to close.  This meant I had to go sledging with Ailsa.  Well worth giving up work for.

And while we're at it

Here is a piccy of a stolen tree and a piccy of our kitchen.  

We're hording straw - sometime in the next few weeks we have to completely muck out and clean down the stables in preparation for kidding - and then lay a good depth of clean straw.

We pay a premium for small bales - but it's a lot easier to handle.  We buy large round bales when we can use them straight away or when we have the space to unbale and store them - but we can't store round bales. 

Romantic visions

After Lulu's comment about wanting more piccies - we've had an email from a certain gentleman requesting pictures of the lean-to construction.  So here are some piccies - Lulu of course meant more piccies of goats and we're a bit nervous of responding to the certain gentleman because we fear he'll point out all the errors were making.  But hey.

Positioning piccies amongst text is far from easy in the blog programme (and for some reason I've lost the ability to change font - so that's the corporate house style blown!).  But here is:

A positioning shot - 

looking up our new fence towards our new gates.  The lean-to will be on the right.

An ariel shot of the work so far and a somewhat seasickness inducing closer view.  

All we've done is make 

three holes for the front of the lean-to and half filled them with cement.  These will be were we'll eventually place the timber posts that will support most of the structure.  

We didn't build forms - other than packing with good sized stones.  Once these have set we'll build proper forms along the foundation trench.  Most of this trench runs directly onto bedrock, where it's not bedrock it's on what in my archaeological days I called 'natural' - and it's compacted glacial sands with large erratic inclusions.*

Block work.  

When the foundation trench is cured, we intend to build it up with block work - to - oooh I dunno - yay high - and then the wooden structure will be built onto that (and securely fastened to it).  There are lots of blocks kicking about, but one source will be the gable end of the nissen hut that collapsed in the autumn.  

On dry days I entertain myself with lump hammer, bolster and wrecking bar breaking up the sections of wall and trying to clean off complete blocks to be re-used.  Part blocks might be beaten to a pulp to provide a foundation for the flooring of the lean-to - or they might border some of the smaller raised beds or I might make a 1:50 model of the Taj Mahal.  You never know.

*Does that sound impressive?  I don't know what I'm talking about really.

Big Gob

It's...erm... just started to snow.

No snow

We don't want snow - I mean we need the weather to stay reasonably warm for the concrete.  But apart from that a bit of snow might be quite nice.  I mean what's the point of coming all the way up here and not getting snow?

No doubt our time will come.

Meanwhile there's lots of pretty piccies of snow on the blogs I look in on - and the news coverage of the weather has me in stitches every night - the most entertaining thing that's been on telly for many a year.

I mean live coverage from Council gritty lorry depots and empty hospital car parks - it doesn't get any better than that.

Goatlings in Training

Four of my goats in kid are first kidders. They're going to have a bit of a shock when it comes to milking. I've asked around and apparently you can help them along quite a bit if you practice before the event. So I've started their training.
The first thing is to get them used to the milking stand. With Simon's help I managed to separate one at a time from the rest of the herd and coaxed her onto the stand with wee tastes of treats with a bucket of treats waiting to be eaten on the stand. The main problem was keeping the rest of them happy when they could clearly hear some eating being done. Simon sang to them which seemed to keep them occupied. And they all did beautifully. I'm so proud of them!
Hopefully, after a few more sessions like this, they'll be happy with the stand and I can start locking them into it. Once they've learnt not to mind being locked in, I'll start stroking their back legs so they get used to me rummaging around there. The plan is that they will learn not to kick when I milk them. Here's hoping!

Cuddling aggregate

Never ever ever lay concrete when it's cold.  By cold we mean temperature averaging below 5C over a three day period, and with no half day period being over 10C over a 7 day period.

But if you must then do things like cuddle your aggregate, use hot water and wrap it in a nice warm electric blanket.

But never lay concrete when it's freezing.

Anyway - whatever - we've laid the first part of the concrete foundations for a lean-to.  The forecast is it'll not freeze - and we've got it all wrapped up in slightly rotting hay so hopefully we'll be OK.  It's not as if the foundations need to carry lots of weight anyway.  And we're in a hurry.

If we've got it all wrong, instead of something hard we'll have something crumbly and we'll have to start again.  We'll know in a week or so.  

Civil unrest

While the rest of the world riots over the economic crisis and the use of foreign labour, here in the highlands we can see the first signs of our special home grown riots.  Spring is getting closer.

Five pines and a ton of cement

On Saturday we went to get some hay from a man in New Zealand.  On the way we passed a plantation of Scots Pine and we stopped off to stretch our legs.  I guess the pines were twenty years or so old and we busied ourselves picking up fresh wind-fallen twigs and branches for the goats.  But then I noticed that some there were a few rooted seedlings.  Now this might be theft - but I reckoned these little trees had no value and really, were just getting in the way - so they are now transplanted onto our croft where hopefully, in years to come, they'll provide shelter from the wind and treats for the goats (they love 'em).

After getting a round bale into the van we headed off and got a ton of mixed gravel and sand, and five bags of cement, several old pallets and other 'useful' bits of wood.  All this makes for a heavy van - but it managed up and down the steep hills with absolutely no problem.

This week we'll get the footings set for the lean-to we're building for the goats.

Death of a friend

We've learnt, rather belatedly, of the death of one of the regulars featured in this blog.  He died on January 7th (Old New Years Day) after a short viral illness, according to his obituary in the local newspaper.

We liked him, he was encouraging towards us and what we are trying to achieve, and we will miss him greatly.

He features in this blog, sometimes obliquely, in Friday Night 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14.  (If you want to read them the quickest way is to search for Friday Night).

He was a good man.

Friday Night 17

Local conversations were dominated by news of yet another crofter being banned from driving due to being caught drunk behind the wheel.  This will make crofting virtually impossible for him, and life in general, for him and his family, extremely difficult - there's not much you can do up here without the ability to jump into a car.  There was little sympathy for him and it didn't stop customers having a few and then driving home.

Meanwhile we met some new characters - including a man hailing from 'Ull and a man who is not a freemason.  Not a Freemason was under the impression all managers are freemasons - and wasn't at all happy about it.  

It was clear that Not a Freemason is held in high esteem by all the assembled - we caught him at the end of a fairly long binge session - and he was clearly not at his best.  His drunkeness made him over-familiar and unaware of personal space, which is fine - you'd never enter a pub around here if you were sensitive to this - but it was a bit over-bearing (I mean hand on thigh, forehead presssed into cheek).  Especially when he moved onto the whisky - whilst merrily telling us that he never drinks whisky cos it makes him violent.  But he remained good humoured enough - and determined to show us his ballet moves - until his friends dragged him off home while the pub furniture was still intact.