Barra & Vatersay, September 2019

The Big Garden and Croft Posted on by 3

This past week we went away for mini-break in the nearby islands of Barra and Vatersay : across the sea lunchtime on Wednesday, back on Thursday evening.  Micro-break would be more accurate! It was the first time we’ve taken the motorhome on a ferry since it first arrived in Uist in May. In fact it’s the first time we’ve been by ferry to another island of the Outer Hebrides, outside the causeway-linked islands of Uist, for about five years, and Barra for maybe seven years!  And Vatersay? – Never!

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First, Only – and Final

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She was the first lamb born in 2018 – and the only pet lamb that year.  Her father, Foss Scott – who we have come to know well and love, was sold, late last summer, to a younger couple recently moved here and building up a working croft, just a mile or so away.  Scott won’t be replaced. So, alas, there will be no more lambs born to the An Gàrradh Mòr flock, and so Maisie is almost certain to be the final pet lamb we’ll have the care of

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Isle of Eriskay – Ròisinis

The Big Garden and Croft Posted on by 2

J & D > A few days ago we went for an evening walk in Eriskay.  Starting at our croft store in Bun a Mhullin, we walked east to where the blacktop stops, and then continued eastwards along the old pony track to a ruined crofting township in the far north east of the island.  Ròisinis was finally abandoned in the early 1970s : by then there was mains electricity, mains water, even the telephone had reached Ròisinis ; but what the township lacked was a road suitable for motor vehicles.

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PV Problems – PV Solutions

The Big Garden and Croft Posted on by 4

Suddenly, a previously un-thought-of explanation jumped into thought, and I rearranged the connecting leads to bypass the back row of solar panels entirely.  A-ha – as I anticipated! With four panels completely disconnected from the installation, output did not go down – it went up!

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Plan C ?

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It’s the beginning of September, and we have guests at Eight Askernish who are having to stay an extra night. The ferry across the Sound of Barra has been cancelled for the whole of today, and will be ‘on alert’ tomorrow.  It’s lucky for them that we have a couple of days free before the next guests arrive !  If it concerns the Hebrides, a Plan B is mandatory. The real question is, do you have a Plan C ?

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Wild Orchids, Wild Thyme

The Big Garden and Croft Posted on by 2

The Spotted orchids are not so common here, compared to the plentiful Marsh Orchids, and to see this group of six on the croft is particularly pleasing : we hope they multiply and spread, and the ‘purposeful re-wilding’ of our croft should provide the conditions for them to do so.

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Crotal, Close Up

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This is Crotal, a lichen which is commonly found – throughout the Outer Hebrides – on rocks, gravestones and even on roofs. One traditional recipe involves fermenting an orange-brown lichen in urine, to produce a purple dye!

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Currants Black, Currants …

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The garden birds raid the bushes greedily, and if it wasn’t for our rough-and-ready covering of fine netting, the currants would be always ripening … almost ripe … but never a single one ripe – for us, at least. The bushes are slow to mature, but they eventually produce prolific quantities of delicate translucent scarlet-red currants suspended on long racimes.

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Assorted Peppers?

The Big Garden and Croft Posted on by 4

We prefer to leave our customers to make their own associations between what they see on the displays in the Hebridean Woolshed, and what they see in the landscapes, seas and skies around them, here in Uist.  They’ll be all the happier for not being told by us what to think.

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