It was a bit of a rush yesterday on board the good ship Loch Striven, and that was despite the fact that I was up at an insanely early hour, and at work long ahead of sailing time. It was the last day of the working week, almost month end and I’d lots to do before finishing at 18:30. A combination of the local schools going back, the English ones on holiday and a fine spell of weather ensured a busy enough day on the deck. A mountain of things to ‘button up’ for my ‘back to back’ and a 45minute shorter day made it all fly by.
Our resident heron, (I say heron but there’s actually two) had given up his usual perch on the harbour steps for a mooring buoy in the bay.
These birds are part of the wildlife that was going to be ruined if the new harbour got built at Clachan 🙂 I’ve got to laugh really or I’d bust a blood vessel at all the cr4p that the objectors to our fine new harbour came up with. Objections that delayed the project by years, made the harbour smaller and wasted gazillions on a public enquiry . I worked my fishing boat from the old tidal pier at Clachan for years before the new harbour was built and I don’t ever remember seeing so many otters, dolphins, porpoises or herons in the bay before.
Wednesday
The early finish even meant that we tied up in daylight, though it was dark by the time I got home at 19:00. It was however light enough to see a sight that cheered me greatly.
Though this picture of the 7.5ton Hitachi was taken at 8:00am this morning on the way to feed the pigs up at the new house site.
My good mate, true to his word had ‘put a machine on site’ even though this is usually code in ‘contactor speak’ and generally means ‘if I put some plant on site it will give the impression that I’m doing something and keep the moaning customer off my back’ 🙂
Not only had he put a machine on site but when I came back out from breakfast he was hard at it 🙂 Scraping off the top soil to see what lay beneath and adeptly dodging piglets whilst he was at it 🙂
We’d put Bramble and Jamie Lea within the new house and barn site a couple of weeks ago but Bramble, the nimbler of the two kept escaping over the wall. She couldn’t get back in right enough as the wall was much higher on the outside, so we put up an electric fence to discourage her.
Electric fences are great for pigs but they do need training to them, putting one up in a field and expecting it to work will leave you disappointed and the pig free. A fence should initially be put in front of some kind of barrier so they approach it with caution, sniff it with a wet snout and get a belt, putting one up first where it’s likely to come between a pig and its dinner will never work as the pig will just charge through it without even feeling the shock. However if it’s placed where the curious pig can find it before discovering that it can charge through it then it will work fine and piggy will keep well clear.
It does however not work very well on ‘wee dogs’, for despite being traumatised by a good shock on the nose that left her shaking for yonks Molly went back to try again 😦
When the fence was finished and tested on both dog and pig we walked back for breakfast, which we found on the way. A hoard of winter chanterelles on the old path from the walled area to our croft soon found themselves inside my upturned hat, fried in butter and on a slice of toast.
There’s a better picture that I lifted from here http://mushroom-collecting.com/mushroomcraterellus.html where the author had this to say about cooking them,
“Preparation Try only a little the first time. These have a really nice aroma that is almost identical the the chanterelle. The smell when drying is outstanding. They can be sautéed for truly great flavor but are less interesting when deep fried. They are often best plain or in ways that showcase their subtle flavor. They reconstitute better than a chanterelle and make a nice mushroom powder that is outstanding for flavoring alfredo, and béchamel based sauces. Since the flavor is subtle it should only be mixed in certain ways. A cantharellus/craterellus mix is nice. Chicken, pork or fish, rice, pasta, some vegetables and soups are good choices for recipes using these.”
and I can’t argue with that 🙂
The disgrace of ‘Calum’s road’
After our mushroom feast wifey retired to the garden whilst Molly and I headed over to the hydro scheme,
Raasay’s world famous road was deteriorating by the day and the council seem reluctant to do anything about it.
I phoned them a week ago but got little joy
time to email some pictures me thinks 🙂
Not the most striking of rainbows on film but it was much better in the flesh so to speak 🙂
After dragging three lengths of pipe from over the hill to Tarbert where I planned to extend the current pipe nearer to the sea we headed back for lunch. Extending the pipe will not only shorten my electrical cable but it will give me more head and therefore more power. The three lengths of 90mm pipe I towed off the hill totalled 69m and I paced out the extra run to the turbine site at 60m so that should be just right.
By lunchtime the rock breaker was on the end of the digger and progress was spectacular
despite a minor hydraulic oil leak that was soon fixed 🙂
I spent the rest of the afternoon with the wee dug working out the best route for my power cable.
It’s not the shortest route but it’s by far the easiest, utilizing a proper full width culvert right under the road rather than one of the narrower ones that just drain the ditches.
That was about it really, by the time we’d fed the pigs and admired progress on the access road it was starting to get dark.
The pigs seemed to like it too 🙂
I wonder what Calum would have made of all this 🙂
Life at the end of the road 
