The wonky weaning :-(

Sunday at last, my favourite working day and it’s nearly over. To be honest were it not for the fact that I’ve some stuff on eBay that finishes in an hour I’d be in my bed now. There’s hardly been what you’d call a ‘bidding frenzy’ on my DJ gear but the price is at £377 just now and that will almost pay half my surveyors fees Or perhaps buy two tickets for  http://www.rockness.co.uk/artists/

Anyway being a Sunday I had a wee lie in bed for an hour before arising to go and have a good look at my herd for the first time in daylight since I’d started work.

I’m always a little apprehensive when going to check on Bracken but this was the third day in a row that we’d not found any freshly squashed piglets so there’s a good chance the worst is by with now. At almost a week old they’re lively and noisy enough to get out of her way

Of course Molly came to check on  piglets that she’d helped deliver almost a week ago.

Then wifey and I had a go at weaning Jamie Lea’s six bruisers

but that didn’t go quite as we’d planned and Jamie came along as well

Whilst Bracken and her seven piglets came out to watch the hilarity

Luckily for me it was time to go to work so I left the Swineherd to it and headed south

down the dreary commute to work

This is looking over to the long abandoned settlement of Uags on the Applecross peninsular, a beautiful spot that I visited occasionally when clam diving. With no road and a good 5 mile walk from Toscaig it is, as I recall, surrounded by old and stunted oak trees   http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/torridon/uags.shtml 

When I was last there some 10 or fifteen years ago few people ever visited but now one of the houses has been repaired, or at least made wind and watertight by the MBA http://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/bothy-details.asp?bothy_id=28  Anyone can stay there FOC subject to the ‘bothy code’ below.

 

Respect Other Users

Please leave the bothy clean and tidy with dry kindling for the next visitors. Make other visitors welcome. If they are not MBA members set a good example.

Respect the Bothy

Tell us about any accidental damage. Don’t leave graffiti or vandalise the bothy. Please take out all rubbish which you can’t burn. Avoid burying rubbish; this pollutes the environment. Please don’t leave perishable food as this attracts vermin. Guard against fire risk and ensure the fire is out before you leave. Make sure the doors and windows are properly closed when you leave.

Respect the Surroundings

If there is no toilet at the bothy please bury human waste out of sight. Use the spade provided, keep well away from the water supply and never use the vicinity of the bothy as a toilet.
Never cut live wood or damage estate property. Use fuel sparingly.

Respect Agreement with the Estate

Please observe any restrictions on use of the bothy, for example during stag stalking or at lambing time. Please remember bothies are available for short stays only. The owner’s permission must be obtained if you intend an extended stay.

Respect the Restriction On Numbers

Because of over crowding and lack of facilities, large groups (6 or more) should not use a bothy nor camp near a bothy without first seeking permission from the owner.

 

There’s even one on Raasay a few miles north of here which I helped with some twenty years ago, not in the actual construction but with shipping materials to the remote site at Kyle Rona. Though my initial help was just to provide a flat field for the RAF Sea King helicopter that had been tasked with carrying stuff to land. Unfortunately It was called off on a rescue after only one or two trips so I helped finished the job off with the Ocean Unity, a 9m long steel fishing boat with a crane on it.

When the MBA first took over this house in the 1990s one of the builders was still alive in Portree, or so I was told. It’s hard to believe that people were still building houses like this in the 1930s and 40s in such remote places. It is no wonder that corrugated iron was the roofing material of choice. I wouldn’t like to carry slates up here

This is a glass calm sea and an even calmer Loch an Rathaid, loch of the road, just north of Ballachuirn, though the road is long gone, perhaps it was never there and ‘the road’ has some other meaning.

 

Cleaning, drills and maintenance where, as usual the  order of the day, though we did have an extra run in the morning for an ambulance.

During the afternoon, once all was ‘shipshape’ I made good use of the fine and mild day to go for a wander.

It was good to see the first slates on the roof of Raasay house, actually the first ones went on some while ago around the back but I can’t see those through the trees

This old Thwaites dumper with its single cylinder Petter diesel engine brought back memories of my four year stint on Scalpay http://www.isleofscalpay.com/skye_self_catering_island_cottage_scotland.php .  Where it was the preferred mode of transport, quads where not around in those days, or at least none that I could afford

 

The back of the old steading with its acres of Ballachulish slate and clock tower,

which once sported a fine spire and is rumoured to have stopped on the outbreak of WWI, though I think there are quite a few old clocks that have done that

 

A ‘spot height’ carved into a piece of Torridonian sandstone on the corner nearest Raasay House. These are datum points shown on maps and give the exact height to the nearest meter, though it used to be feet above sea level. They’re usually marked on OS maps but often left out (as this one is) in towns and villages to reduce clutter.

After my little wander I returned via the only good bit of road on Raasay to the Loch Striven

just as the Enchanted ex Celtic Star was passing the pier and heading for Portree.

I managed to get home for the first time this year in daylight (just) only to find the swineherd still trying to sort out Jamie Lea’s piglets. I joined her with a bucket as we attempted in vain to move them into another field. Jamie herself was out on the hill but the six wee wains refused to stay in the same field all at one time We’d get five in leaving one out, then that one would go in just as two more exited, then we’d coax them back in just as three left By the time we gave up it was dark and we were sprakling about in the mud with torches

That was about it really my DJ gear made over £400, I went to bed then arose at the ungodly hour of 3:30 and finished this Now it’s 5:36 and I really feel like going back to bed but as my alarm will go off in less than twenty minutes that’s pretty pointless