Not at all sure how I ended up being a monthly blogger. I even miss blogging daily, I have a gap in my day where my 15 minutes spewing out my thoughts and accounts of the day used to be. Not a hope of catching up properly so will endeavour to do it in brief and then see how we go.
Life marches on. The new birds arrived, the goslings are doing fine, the turkeys had a bad start with two dead in four hours last Friday morning. It appears to have been the gitting hooded crows which is good in some respects as at least we can make runs crow proof, it’s way harder to make things rat proof. We now have an air pistol and my parents are bringing up an air rifle so we are armed. We have very little chance of actually shooting them but may be able to deter them and warn them off with a few warning shots. Learning how to shoot is on my personal list of stuff I’d like to be able to do properly anyway so some lessons from Marcel may be on the cards at some point soon.
Anyway, we have netted the turkeys and so far they are doing fine, feathering up well and seeming happy. Scarlett adores the goslings and spend loads of time in with them. When she’s not in with the piglets who are growing so quickly but still manage to be very cute. She can pick them up and walk around with them in her arms, they adore her. If she sits down they clammer to get on her lap, fighting with each other to chew her hair and get her to tickle their tummies. She definitely has an amazing way with animals, it makes me so happy to know we are providing her with such a dream life.
Crops are going well. After initially planning to leave the ten raised beds to condition the soil ready for next season I have grown peas, beans, sweetcorn, courgettes, cucumbers, pumpkins etc so well from seed in the polytunnel that we decided to plant them out and see how they do. We have tatties in two of the beds too, so only two are still empty. We’ve netted them (essential here with the crows, our own birds who free range and scratch up plants and of course the deer) using pea and bean netting on frames made from old tent poles. Very permaculture 🙂 We’ll see how it all fares – I think the ground may be a little waterlogged and nitrogen rich for some of the crops but happy to take a punt and see. For all the soil testing wisdom sometimes you just need to suck it and see.
We have a load of ex SNH metal wire fencing which we took to be roof material for the bird enclosures but Ady had the genius brainwave of constructing a giant fruit cage from so we’re planning that as our next big construction. We’ll move all the soft fruit we got last year into it and are looking into more fruit trees and bushes too as that is one crop that loves our sort of soil. Brambles / blackberries are probably the biggest naturally occurring crop around the crofts. Stuff in the polytunnel is doing pretty well, we’ve been getting strawberries and salad and the herbs have all grown really well from seed.
House news? Well there is loads and none really. Osborne Drive still hasn’t sold, we’re getting another agent involved as financially we’re a bit ruined trying to pay the mortgage without tenants in there so we plan to have another push at selling and then get some tenants back in if we don’t sell. We’re out of time for a proper house build this year on Rum, our deadline was July to be started by. We keep reconsidering just what we want to build anyway. My dream is still a cob house or something else similar, quirky, individual, made from stuff on Rum, designed specifically with the four of us in mind. We’ve looked at kit house timber framed stuff, at metal sheds and I keep coming back to a dream of a house that will cost all of our funds and actually be about us. We’ll see. In order to see just how feasible my dream is I am planning a wee cob structure build this summer – a little produce shop near one of the croft gates. It will be a good experiment both in building and in seeing how it fares over winter. Watch this space!
Rum news… we continue to be very close to Fliss and Sandy who have their ups and downs in a very spectacular fashion. If we didn’t live here it would make no sense so I’ll not try to recount any of it here. We often feel friend sick, for people who are uncomplicated and have known us prior to who we are now. I long for the times when we are able to host people better and have more frequent visitors – living so far away from people is by far the toughest part of this life. In the main the good bits make up for it but real life hugs and company takes a lot of making up for…
I’ve been rationalising my committments and along with jacking in the school job – four shifts to go – I have resigned from helping with the isle of rum website. I don’t work well with Ali, the other person involved with it and a few minor clashes which could have easily become major clashes if I’d not kept my temper were enough to have me deciding that relationships on island with co=islanders are more important than scoring points with people. I think I’m being sensible and mature but as that is most unlike me maybe I am not… 😉
Tomorrow sees Ady and I do our turn at Sunday Community Teashop which I will aim to return and blog about tomorrow. For now I am tired and have drunk an extra glass of wine or two as i was on the phone to Jill and felt the need for a glass in hand.
hugs nic x x