January by with already, or at least it will be by the end of the day, already the days are stretching, Raasay House https://www.raasay-house.co.uk/winter-hotel-deal-raasay-skye-highlands/ will be open in a couple of weeks and the Easter Bunny has arrived early. Not the chocolate ones, they probably arrived shortly after Christmas along with the Cadbury crème eggs. Nope, I’m talking about the real ones that have been absent from the North End and my dinner plate for years.
When I first arrived here, thirty years ago in May, Raasay was ‘awash’ with bunnies, I kept a rifle in the car (as did the postman) and rabbit was a regular addition to the weekly menu. Sure they came and went in cycles along with the ‘maxy’ or myxomatosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myxomatosis a virulent disease introduced in the 50’s. The population would peak, the virus would get a hold within a year or two and dazed, disoriented, blind rabbits that would shortly die became commonplace. A ‘maxy’ infected rabbit is not a pleasant sight but inevitably the population would recover within a couple of years and rabbit pasta would be back on the menu.
I remember at least three outbreaks but that wasn’t what exterminated them I’m sure, no, I think that accolade goes to the explosion of mink and sea eagles, themselves, like the virus, both introduced by man. Me, I can live with the magnificent birds but then I don’t have and am not a fan of sheep. Unfortunately, in the absence of fish the Iolaire sùil na grèine, the ‘eagle with the sunlit eye’ will and does take lambs
And don’t for a minute think I took that picture
They also seem to have driven out the resident and native golden eagle which is slightly smaller. I guess this is just one of the ‘unintended consequences’ of their reintroduction from Scandinavia in the seventies. Hailed as a great success at the time, they are now becoming a bit of a problem As for the mink, well, not only have they decimated ground nesting birds, rabbits hens and ducks, they contribute ‘not a jot’ to the local economy. At least the white tailed sea eagle brings ‘twitchers’ https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twitcher and ‘puts bums’ on the local tourist boat seats
Anyway, despite the ‘bird’ and the mink, the rabbit is back, perhaps ‘not in force’ but at least in ever growing numbers. I’m seeing more and more, even around Sonas and I’ve never seen one up here even when they were plentiful. Hopefully, rabbit will be back on the menu soon
The Steam Engine
Well, yesterday ‘was a pure s**t of a day’, ferry disrupted rain torrential and dark until almost 9:00am, at least that’s what it felt like. Luckily I’ve a very nice shed and that’s where I spent most of the day, pottering about with my wee hydro turbine before it fined up in the late afternoon.
Actually, all I did was connect new conduit and wiring to the turbine, I spent most of the day looking for a ‘three pole rotary isolator’
which I could have sworn I had. Unfortunately much of my day seems to be spent suffering such delusions and looking for things that I have just put down
Anyway, I gave up, ordered two online and figured I’d just have to manage without for now.
So I loaded everything I thought I needed into the Honda and headed off into the woods, ‘turning off’ the water supply on the way.
It’s a bit of a trek down there and at this time of year extremely muddy, not the best place to carry tools and a heavy turbine.
It is however a beautiful and sheltered spot ideal for adventurous ‘wild swimming’ at high tide the sea comes up and sometimes over the shiny rock in the foreground.
The ‘shed’ I built ten or twelve years ago when I fitted the Stream Engine, prior to that I had a 200W Navitron https://www.navitron.org.uk/ Chinese turbine there.
Mounted on an old galvanised bucket in the long grass and then covered up with an old polyform buoy it served me well for a couple of years. Proving that a turbine was viable until I replaced it with the current one mounted on a concrete base and covered with that ‘shed’ Carrying buckets of mixed concrete down there to cast the base was no easy task, don’t think I could do it now
I replaced the split PVC hose with an armoured rubber one but only had enough for the one (large jet),
not having an isolator I temporarily connected it with ‘chocolate blocks’ and tested it on the small jet.
A couple of amps at 60V giving me 120W at the battery bank. Not wanting to risk leaving the PVC hose connected I then turned on the large jet.
This gave me a respectable 13A, around 780W, which was better than before I’m sure. Normally it’s around 800W with both jets switched on but having a ‘pin hole’ in the PVC pipe on the small jet, I just left it on the one. That will give me a good extra 18.7kWh per day, time to switch the dehumidifier on in the caravan methinks
Well, that’s just about it really, I collected my Wife’s Subaru from the village to look at the power steering, did a little shopping for the builders at Brochel, made a Lancashire hot pot for dinner and went to bed with a good book.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Warspite-Iain-Ballantyne/dp/184884350X
Sad, I know but HMS Warspite saw more action than any other ship of the Royal Navy, coming to an inglorious end in Mounts Bay Cornwall, I dived on her remains in the early nineties. Truth be know it’s herself and the Royal Navy’s move from coal to oil at the turn of the last century that’s responsible for much of the current chaos in the middle east Another case of ‘unintended consequences’ I fear