Scottish Crofting Foundation Annual Gathering.

I am not long home from the SCF annual gathering that was held in Granton-On-Spey.

It was incredibly interesting and so uplifting to meet such a great bunch of people. The craic was something that will stay with me for a long time, bring smiles to my face throughout whatever Winter decides to throw at us. The theme was Small farmers: backbone of rural development or barrier to efficiency? Which sounds rather dry, but was the complete opposite. It was a fascinating line up of speakers from Finland, Portugal, the Scottish Islands & beyond. I feel very tired, but in a good way. The projects that are happening despite such legislative constraints really showed what a dedicated group of small farmers throughout Europe are attempting to achieve. And these achievements are, not only low impact environmentally, but also create 'healthier communities'.
It was very condensed into two and half days & I feel it will take me a while to allow my brain to take it all onboard & process all the things that were talked about, but I do feel quite hopeful after a time of relative doom & gloom in crofting.

Sorry I am waffling, so I think I shall be best to sign off & get an early night & adjust back to the caravan.

Jackdaws Painting.

Saturday was a strange day, Saturdays often are.

We helped catch a feral ram over at a friend's croft.
Although rather gorgeous, he's a devil in a wooly jacket.
The ram evaded capture as we ran up and down the muddy field, jumping over dangerous ditches, his mad, slitty eyes taking it all in. His horns are very curled & the points stick straight out about hip height. We were all a bit wary, a bit cautious, but we got him eventually. It inspired me to write an entry for this week's challenge on writewords, albeit an embroidered version, there are grains of truth to it: http://www.writewords.org.uk/groups/show_article.asp?group_id=84&article_id=24133

The clutch went on the car at the little shop about a mile away. Jim managed to get it down to the garage at Aultbea & they kindly lent him their Mother's car, a posh BMW with white leather interior. I go away to a conference tomorrow on crofting & this car only does 20 MPG. Jim will have to take me as I don't drive a car - pathetic I know.

While we were away I bought an unfinished painting entitled Jackdaws at an exhibition in Peebles. I had a phone call on Friday evening to say they'd like to deliver it, pop in. Does one pop in from Peebles?
And they did & I love it. It was great of them to come - the painting was ridiculously cheap. They said they had a few folks they knew in the Highlands & they fancied the run.
I think this painter will go far. I wanted her to post it, but they insisted on trailing up here to the back of nowhere.
Let's know what you think of the painting.................

Catching Chicks.

When we came back from our few days away Senga, one of our Scot's Grey hens was missing. I looked for her everywhere, but as it's all rather wild I hadn't a hope of finding her really. I did wonder if she'd been snaffled by a pine marten, eaten by a fox.

I heard peeping coming from the shrubbery & found her with her 7 newly hatched chicks. They are a devil to catch & the Mothers get very fierce. Jim lifted her with welder's gloves on. I had a bucket to hand & lifted them in - the easiest method I've found. Senga managed to splatter Jim with what appeared like 3 weeks worth of shoite.The chicks & Senga are now safely ensconsed in a nursery house with a secure run.

I'm so pleased for her. Senga has 'sat' twice this year unsuccessfully, jumping off her eggs a couple of days before the eggs were about to hatch. So it is good, and she is so pround of her brood & such a good Mum.

Catching Chicks In A Bucket.

High Days, Holidays & Hebridean Sheep.

We went away at the end of August; ran away to Peebles and then up to Edinburgh to catch the tail end of the fringe. Jim’s brother kindly came to mind the animals. Before he arrived we had to dispatch Jock the Cock as he’d become so vicious. We also had to send Big Old Stripy away too. I thought she was brooding as she was sat in the egg house, but she was not well, seemed to have had a stroke: one eye closed and almost paralysed down her left side. She really was quite ancient, but a lovely girl.

Andy was happy staying in the caravan, mainly because we have a faster broad band connection than him and he’s addicted to ebay. He really was good to the animals, bought the cats ’special’ treats, and had trips about. Even though the weather was not good when he was here he took some great photos. Which I'll upload here when I've worked out how to do so.

We saw some wonderful sheep down in the borders, mainly Black faced & Blue Leicester’s, oh, and some Texels - which I’m non too keen on as they look a bit like pigs with wool.http://www.texel.co.uk/
Or a wolly pit bull - like something Peter Howson would paint.
However at a sale one achieved £231,000 - Can you believe it?

I’ve just acquired four Hebridean ewe lambs and they are far prettier.

There was an art exhibition on and we bought an unfinished painting that will arrive once it’s been done & framed - hopefully. It is really rather striking and called Jackdaw. The girl who is painting it is very shy and too modest by half. Her stuff is excellent, quite surreal, but with almost photographic images of mystical things. I think she will go far.

We saw some brilliant street performers at the fringe: a guy juggling a fired up chain saw, cutlass & an apple over the top of a Danish tourist he’d got to foolishly lie down on the cobbles. How happy his wife looked taking photographs & laughing!
At the end a young guy set up a tripod over the Danish tourist and took photographs all around and one looking at the sky. He had a stall near by and had some of his work mounted and on sale. Here’s his website - truly incredible stuff.
www.maoartland.com.

We hardly saw any beggars which is unusual for Edinburgh. I wonder if they’d cleared them away for the duration of the festival, and I wonder where to. There were men walking around with uniforms on, not the Police, but something similar. They had ‘Street Wardens’ written on their jackets. Maybe someone could enlighten me?

We went to a few exhibitions, free ones I may add as I’m a tight wad. We found the Dean gallery excellent. It was packed with beautiful things & the tea room is great: home backing and really good coffee. The gift shop is a place to avoid if you like to keep a hold of your money - really unusual things stacked everywhere. Jim bought me a brooch I couldn’t stop looking at. It’s a rabbit galloping along pushing a wheel that came from an old watch, it has gems and a tiny window with curtains & a gem stone. There’s a little heart dangling beneath it. The workmanship is superb, miniscule rivets - most clever. It’s like an intricate sculpture of less than two inches. I haven’t worn it yet, I just keep opening its little tartan (I know Tartan) box and looking at it. I’m well chuffed with it.

http://mudmetal.stores.yahoo.net/pins.html
As you can probably gather I’ve just realised I can do link things.

I’ve been quite savouring all I saw while away. We haven’t had a holiday in years - just mad dashes down the motorway when disasters occur with my family, so it was good to get away & relax, see new things.

I wanted to go to Little Sparta, http://www.littlesparta.co.uk/ as I had bought the book a while back for Jim. We did go, but were a bit disappointed. It all seems a tad run down. It was a dreich day, low cloud and damp which sort of lent a gloomy air to the place. There were clusters of barking posh people traipsing around. An elderly woman just about had my eye out with her walking stick as she loudly explained in cut glass vowels ‘The Meanings’ of the calligraphy, the sculptures. She was a visitor too, not a guide, there wasn’t one. I didn’t want the meanings, but she looked rather terrifying in her tweeds, so we just avoided eye contact. It was £10 each to get in & they wanted £5 if you had a camera. There was no tea room or toilets & a half mile hike across a cow & sheep infested field to get there, not that I minded (felt like being at home, but I’m sure plenty will.

After all the staying in B&Bs & hotels, having things like baths & showers I sort of settled back into the getting washed in a bucket again. Then yesterday I got an invitation to be a delegate from this crofting area at a conference at Granton on Spey. I’ll be away for 2 days and put up in a hotel - whoop. I’m really excited about it.
http://www.crofting.org/index.php/conference

I don’t know why I got asked. I have been a bit vocal at some of the meetings about the Crofting Reform Act, but not overly, I just feel passionate about crofting. But maybe they couldn’t get anyone else to go, or someone backed out? It is all a bit last minute.

Eric Bogle and vertigo.

A couple of Sundays ago we had to give the lambs their Heptavac injections and tick and lice repellent stuff. This involved chasing the lambs up and down the croft for over an hour until we'd managed to pen them in. We had friends to help, but it was a devil of a job and so frustrating. Three lambs evaded capture even after bringing in a dog to assist.
We did manage to catch the lambs a couple of days later, but as the opened Heptavac loses potency after 10 hours you do wonder if they will be protected.

The weather has been overcast, raining & very midgey, making it almost impossible to bear being outside. There seems much to do & it is so frustrating I feel like banging my head off the caravan wall.

There are new proposals to the Crofting Act that are rather frightening, so as it went out to consultation and we attended each stage of the public meetings we felt we had to add our comments before the dead-line - which we did and ended up talking for hours about the depressing implications. It would appear that Crofting will be finished if the proposals go through the Scottish Parliament. The meetimgs were 'vocal', but when chaired by suited Edinburgh civil servants you feel you would be as well talking to a tree, or a a call centre, or the Loch - probably the Loch would understand better, knows these things.

When a breeze has picked up enough to blow the midges away I've been snipping out bracken that is everywhere. The croft hadn't been used for at least 50 years and I try and rescue it from encroaching nature. Somedays it feels a lot like pissing into the wind to use a cliche. I wish I had some machinery - big boys toys: a digger, a tractor, a quad bike....I did have a quad bike else where, but it died a premature death when someone borrowed it and forgot to put oil in. I will always remember the noise, the way it screamed, the run down the fields as I tried to stop them, but they didn't see my frenzied waving, they couldn't hear me as the engine started to seize.....
The byre is tumbling down and I have to do something soon or else it will melt into the field. Because of the midges I have been imprisoned in the caravan. The walls seem to be closing in and I have been fretting about the never ending list of things that NEED doing.

We wanted to go see Eric Bogle when he was playing in Ullapool on Saturday, but all the tickets were sold out, but we managed to get some for The Eden Court Theatre in Inverness on the Sunday. When I sat down I glanced downwards and felt a slight unease. We were on the third tier, right at the front. Jim came behind me and had a full blown panic attack and walked out after a few seconds. He really suffers from vertigo. I sat until the end of the first song, felt it was better to leave Jim to calm a little. He gets embarrassed and wouldn't want me fussing - people turning around to see what was happening. A woman who works there came and told me she'd managed to find us other seats. We ended up in a box on the ground floor facing the centre of the stage, the best seats in the house.
It's the last tour Eric Bogle will be doing, so I'm glad we went, glad we got good seats in the end up. He sings sad songs about injustice, racism, and a lot of anti-war stuff. He writes well, and he does funny stuff too. The craic between songs was easy, flowed so well you couldn't see the seams.

My old striped hen has just come out of moult and has gone broody I think. She sits on about three eggs in the 'egg house' - the house that the hens go in to lay. It's not occupied, well wasn't until Old Stripey decided to sit. She isn't a Scot's Grey, but looks like a bigger version of one. The other hens squeeze in around her to lay and she's snaffled their eggs, tucked them under her. It's been an odd year for the poultry, quite disastrous in some ways. I doubt she'll sit full term, she has never gone broody before. I think she's about 10. I don't know for sure, she was a rescue hen. I must mark it on the calendar else I forget the date. It's a strange one when they sit and the others are using the nest as you have eggs that are older than the others. When they start to hatch after 21 days of being incubated there is a risk that the hen will keep sitting for days until the others have hatched. I wonder if the other hens will stop laying in the egg house, start hiding their eggs again. I hate buying eggs, they're never the same.