Thrawst

I was lying in bed this morning listening to the sheets of snow sliding off the roof. Ah the thaw at last. Then it started to rain - oh yuk - still it should speed up the thaw. Then the rain started to sound hard - I mean hard, not heavy. Ah. More snow. No thaw. And now it's freezing again so I've decided to invent a new word for a frozen thaw. Oh and the wind has picked up too - so even if it is warmer - which I doubt - it feels a lot colder.

Due to the kindness of neighbours we got our hay yesterday. It was more adventuresome than we had anticipated on account of the hay being in a barn whose doors were frozen shut and whose hay was hidden behind a clatter of clutter (can you give a collective noun to a noun of collection I wonder?).

We even had a snow plough yesterday. And this morning a local JCB has been out trying to clear the roads a bit more - though I still don't think we'll be venturing out for a few days yet - the compacted re-frozen ice turns it's nose up at a smattering of salt 'n' grit unless there's a decent amount of traffic to drive it in.

In another world...

Yesterday I ventured to the shops and as a special winter treat bought myself a Guardian. This is a treat we don't allow ourselves very often and I think it is over a year since I sat and read this rag. We get the Sunday Herald - it has a mildly intelligent and leftist leaning opinion section - and a TV section that is usually correct.*

Anyway - reading the Guardian was such a joy.**

So here are some random facts I gleaned from yesterday's paper:

On December 14th, worldwide, the on-line store Amazon sold 110 items per second.

And British internet start-up company onenewspage is supposed to taking on Google in the arena of free on-line news services. Maybe. But ha! - you try finding onenewspage by googling it - you wont get very far cos google have stopped tracking it.

And the networking site Facebook now has over 350 million users and expects this to be over 500 million by the end of 2010.

And there I was going to launch into a tirade about the power these seemingly innocent companies are being handed as we lemmings throw ourselves at their mercy. Myself included. But tirade is off cos Jussi wants to talk doors. Is this a metaphor?

*One really irritating aspect of life in Scotland is how BBC Scotland screw up the TV schedules, randomly and thoroughly illogically and .... rant rant rant

**I mean don't get me wrong - I love Scotland and a' - I've been here nigh on 25 years - but Scotland is too small a market to be able to produce anything of the standard of the English broadsheets

's no hay

Surrounded by farms and crofts as we are, there's very little hay to be had. Well there's hay - but it's moving it that's the problem - and there seems to be only one person with a tractor good enough to cope with the snow - and he's obviously in demand. Where are we in the pecking order I wonder?

Anyway - we can have the hay if we can move it. That is progress.... and we have wheelbarrows ...........

Meanwhile the snow looks pretty - our road is impassable to posties, snow ploughs (apparently anyway), and bin men*. We never fill our bins - except at Christmas, and indeed in the run up to Christmas when we decide to have a clear out in advance of visitors. The bins over-floweth... and the sea steams.

*but I'm sure wheelbarrows will be fine.

Hay snow...

... and other Beatles puns.

How lovely that the snow should fall and the ground freeze and the rain come and the ground freeze and thaw and freeze and snow and freeze....

I'm not sure who it is lovely for. With the outside pipes frozen Jussi's feeding and milking goats is a slip slide show carry heavy pails of water. Ice rink. Yesterday I spent a while chipping away at the ice - it's about 3 or 4 inches thick of solid ice - chipping away at it so at least the surface is rough, but last night it thawed a bit, rained, and then froze again this morning - so it's all nice and smooth again. And now it is snowing - masses of snow lying over the top of ice rink. It'll make it easier to walk on for a while at least.

For many days now, Jussi has been saying - she just wants it to warm up, for the snow and ice to go away.

And now we are getting low on hay. This isn't bad planning on our part - there's only so much hay we can handle at once. We stocked up in advance of the holiday but have been unable to get out to replenish supplies. So there's an anxious daily watch of weather websites - it's due to thaw tomorrow and then freeze again. I'll try to spent today clearing the drive of ice - so if it looks as though the roads will be clear we can get out. But we cant get out today - and the snow is falling heavily - making it less likely for the roads to be clear tomorrow, and hindering my attempts to clear the drive.

So we've started cutting whins to eek out the hay, but it's no replacement really.

Yule tide

Many of you wont have received an Xmas card from us yet sorry. Ahem.

So there I was, yesterday, slaving away in the kitchen, up to my ears in turkey and cranberries and all sorts of other delights when Jussi came in from having been up at the croft. There's a flood. I need your help. Everybody.

Thus we all slipped and skidded* our way up to the croft to see what was to be done. It was clear to me that the best thing I could do was show people where the stop cock was and then return to the kitchen - cos the food was at a bit of a crucial stage. I felt guilty about this, but really there was little to be done. It was pitch black, chuffin freezin, and really what was there to do? Watering goats and washing milking machines would have to be done by bringing water up from the cottage in the morning - sight that would make Buster Keaton proud for its comedy values, but there was nothing else to be done.

An hour or so later. Christian returned and modestly announced that it was fixed. Eh? How did you do that?!?!?!

Well - he found a bit of redundant piping with a value attached, took the valve off and attached it in front of the leaking pipe. I mean obviously I could have done that, and indeed I was about to until I remembered the turkey was blackening in the oven ... ...

Christian the heroic.

But with temperatures due to drop below minus 12 again soon (and that is on the coast) - we're worried about a repeat performance - and Christian has returned home and I'm not due to cook a turkey for months so no excuse for me next time.

* We've had freezes and thaws and freezes of thaws and the whole place is a friggin lumpy ice rink.

Christmas fear

Yo ho ho. Bored with filling the house with smoke every time we lit a fire we decided to call the chimney sweep. He was really nice and helpful and friendly and always had a reason why he couldn't make it this week and that and eventually stopped answering his phone. The other sweep, based in Wick, never returned our calls.

So we embraced the soot and bought the kit. Reading around the subject it seems that all sensible people sweep from the top, having sealed the fireplace. Here is Jussi executing this technique.

I wasn't allowed to try this - honestly I did try, but Jussi wouldn't let me - I'm not so good with heights you see. So Jussi did it. She's good with heights - but this terrified her. It's a whole lot higher than it looks, and fully extended ladders bounce a lot and the angles are all wrong and the sun was shining in her eyes and... ... ... Jussi the heroic.

Next time we'll brush up and deal with the mess.

dot dot dot

Our nearest met office weather station recorded -9C at 8am this morning. Fortunately it's now (11am) warmed up to minus 8C. But of course it is warmer here cos we're nearer the coast - but still cold. The water hasn't frozen in the house yet - but the outside tap has frozen - so the morning and evening goat chores are very hard. Buckets of water meant for the goats are snatched by jack frost of you're not nimble enough.

The school has been closed by the weather for two days and we are getting very low on wood and food. A power cut now would leave us very cold and hungry. We had a power cut on Saturday which meant writing christmas cards by candlelight - which was quaint but things is getting serious now.

Earth's rotation

Eeeh it got cold this week. Proper frosts like, with real frozen pipes up at croft. Only for a day or so - now it's settled to just being cold rather than eeeh cold!

The cold was briefly interrupted by warm winds from the north west but then the cold southerlies came in to chill us once again. Sic. Up-side-down eh?

Meanwhile The Girl is insisting that we call the full moon a dragon moon. So here is the dragon moon peeking through the trees up at the croft.

Back at the ranch we are making a concerted effort at making a concerted effort to get the house tender out. Nothing will stand in our way.

Much.