Having lived at the end of ‘Calums road’ for so many years and traveled up and down it more than any man alive i think some of his obsession has rubbed off on me. When i first moved here you couldn’t get a transit van up to the house and now you can get an oil tanker (though they only came twice then lost their nerve!). I had to work on the ferry today so as usual i hitched up my wee trailer to the back of the landy so i could fill it with rock in my lunch break.
I put around 300k of rock in there most days that i work or take the dude to school and I’ve been doing it for a few years. I I started off from the end of the drive by my workshop and have now got a 180 yd road you can drive a car down with a turning place in front of the house. As it’s mostly soft peat i came up with a novel way of doing it.
First i put a layer of feed bags down.
Then a layer of that matting stuff they use under roads the name of which escapes me. After that i empty my 3 or 4 barrow loads of rock and then rake it out, a trips over it with the Quad and then landrover and the result is a good durable surface to drive on.
It’s amazing what you can achieve by just doing a wee bit every day. The trailer could take much more but 3 or 4 barrow loads is just short of being hard work and as i do allot of it after work in the dark any more and i would have given up long ago.
I plan to go up to the gate but widen the last bit to make an area of hard standing so at this rate i should be finished by the end of february . After finishing my spot of road building i went and checked the battery banks for the lister and wind turbine. I have a bit of an obsession about this and always record the specific gravity and voltage of each cell, 24 for the big turbine, 12 for the Lister and 12 for the wee Rutland. By the time that was done it was feeding time. Mrs C spent most of the day in muddy ditch trying to get rid of some water from Brambles wains field.
That’s a nice bit of road. It sounds as if you’re like me with my rock pile.
I want to built a dyke inside the steading, which means accumulating stone for the job. There’s plenty of stone out and around the fields, but they’re big ones weighing 50-100kg (and occasionally more).
I carry one or two a day from the field, down through the steading, to pile in front of the hayshed. The really big ones are levered and rolled, or sat on seven-ply, rollers placed underneath, and pushed.
After three years, I have about half the stones I need. That means I should be able to start the wall this summer, with completion in about eight to 10 years.
All things being equal!
Comment by Stonehead — January 7, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
We’re a bit spoilt for rock here stoney with everything from shale to gniess. With some of the oldest and youngest rocks on the planet, Raasay’s a bit of a geologists paradise with rocks to suit every application.
Comment by lifeattheendoftheroad — January 7, 2008 @ 9:25 pm
I am going to have to stop reading this at my desk during my lunch break, as it tends to make me want to give it all up and head back home.
Dont know what the wife would think though.
Interesting comments on the emergency service and good to see another youngster on Raasay to make up for those who have moved away recently.
Last time we spoke, we were gathering some seaweed on the shore at the pier with my mum to take down to Perth. When we got back home, the neighbours were wondering what on earth we were putting on the potatoes. Havent had a look at the spuds yet, but the courgettes are amazing.
How is Mr MacLeods Polly Tunnel coming along.
Regards to all on the Ferry.
You will have to get that last anchor up. The pair would look good.
Comment by Jackie MacLean — August 14, 2008 @ 12:55 pm
Hi Jackie, the seaweed did wonders for our spuds I’ve just had some with smoked lithe, mushrooms and onions in a creamy sauce, YUM YUM. I was peering in the very pollytunnel today and it’s bursting with stuff! Your right about the anchors. Willy made drawings of the transits and we’ve got the GPS co ordinates so we should get ‘Atlas Marine’ to lift it and put all three of them on display.
Cheers, Paul
Comment by lifeattheendoftheroad — August 14, 2008 @ 9:54 pm
Morning Ian,
dunno really, my dreams have changed considerably in the time I’ve lived here. When I first set foot here in 89 I was so skint I could barely afford petrol to drive the 10 miles to the nearest phone and I could go for weeks seeing no one other than the postman and that’s how I liked it. In those days I would quite happily have done without ‘Calum’s road’ as most of my business was with Portree by boat ( just as it would have been when Arnish and Torran were thriving ) Nowadays I’m just a regular dude with a job and family who commutes daily ( well for 23 weeks ) down a marvel of civil engineering and determination. Talking of which it’s 6:30 and I’d better go down it right now. I’ll finish this later when I’ve given it more thought.
Paul
Comment by lifeattheendoftheroad — August 19, 2008 @ 5:35 am
Hi Ian,
be good to put a face to the post. I’m working on the ferry that weekend so just look out for man with red hard hat and ear defenders! We also carry ID so we don’t forget who we are so you should be able to spot me, I’m the man without the ticket machine! I think about or have thought about the community thing allot over the last 19 years and to be honest I don’t know what the conclusion is! I’d love to be able to share a cow and I’d love my 9 year old boy to have pals nearby but by the same token I’ve never been a ‘team player’ and don’t feel either I or my family have missed out on anything.
Look forward to seeing you, Paul
Comment by lifeattheendoftheroad — August 19, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
Say Hi to Bill for me. http://www.isleofrona.com/
Comment by lifeattheendoftheroad — August 21, 2008 @ 6:22 am