Sandy’s seventy :-)

What I should be doing now is trying to fix my oil stove and not plonking away on here at 5:30am in a freezing cold kitchen, but that’s dedication for you, or is it obsession Anyway we’ve a long day ahead and an early start so the last thing I want to do before I set off out to catch, inject, and deliver piglets is to get covered in soot and oil at 6:00am.

Friday

Yesterday turned out to be a bit of a ‘wash out’ on the things achieved front, the day started off well enough and I got Bracken all cleaned out and some fresh bedding down whilst she was distracted by breakfast.

 

Of course it wasn’t good enough for her and she had to rearrange it all

The next couple of hours were spent with our Surveyor, Iain Lewis of Alan Torrance Associates in Portree who was giving 3 South Arnish the once over ready for it going on the market. Though I would have liked to have finished painting the place first, not that a lick of paint will make a great deal of difference to the value he puts on the old homestead but first impressions count for a lot.

I had made a start on Thursday afternoon at feathering the edges of the paint on the roof, but true to form, as soon as I got out the grinder it started raining Painting and prep work were out of the question for this particular day however, for as the afternoon arrived the showers became more frequent

and I contented myself with clearing up around the croft. It’s amazing how many old batteries one acquires around the croft when playing around with wind turbines At one time you couldn’t give them away, now they’re paying around £400 a ton.

There was much more done, like getting covered in black nasty smelly kerosene and soot trying to fix the stove. Catching the hens and putting them somewhere where Charlie wouldn’t try and rip they’re throats out    Charlie being one of Molly’s offspring that’s staying with us just now.

I also made up some new cables for the 12v battery bank under the small wind turbine mast as I’d discovered some 70mm square cable in the long grass

 

You really do need heavy cable with 12v systems if your transmitting power any kind of distance.

Happy birthday Sandy

Work on the croft finished with an early feed at 16:00, so early in fact that I couldn’t find Bramble, Jamie Lea and Toot’s so they went without

It was Sandy MacLeod’s birthday party in the village and we knew that pretty much the whole island would at some point ‘pop in’ to wish our ‘postie’ well.

 

Wind, ice, snow or rain rarely stops Sandy getting the mail and if it’s too rough for the ferry to land he just comes and gets it

 

 

Sure enough at some point, despite the atrocious weather everyone turned up, and there are probably one or two of them not long away

Just a small selection of the ‘usual suspects’ and I’m probably in the deep brown stuff now for posting this picture

Three cards the same !!!!

Anyway, that’s it, 6:30am, piglets to deliver and a boar to collect.