J & D > It was a long and tedious winter : cold – but never frozen ; windy – but never wrecking ; and never worse than wringing wet. A non-descript, irritating sort of winter.
Thank heavens Spring arrived early, this year!
The Big Garden : A bowl of rocket, freshly picked from the walled garden
We’ve been up to the common grazings a lot recently – whether just for a walk about in the sunshine, or to gather up some goodness of the land. Most recently, that was pony poo – for the compost heap.
Continue reading →Two forms of natural encrustation, both with their uses in traditional crafts : White Crustose Lichen ; Wild Ochre
Continue reading →![Lichen - Parmelia Saxitalis [Crotal/Crottle]](https://i1.wp.com/biggarden.scot/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/IMG_20200521_191130154.jpg?resize=200%2C200&ssl=1)
A piece of Crotal
We’ve added a new product to the Hebridean Woolshed’s online shop : Crotal – Parmelia saxatalis, the first in our new ‘department’ of Natural Dyes.
Crotal is a dye that is especially characteristic of the Outer Hebrides.
And it’s certainly as characteristic of our croft as are the outcrops and boulders of Lewisian Gneiss that the crotal grows upon!
May is living up to its reputation for fine weather : perhaps it’s not so warm, this year, but it’s certainly sunny. Most evenings we take a stroll up the lane to the hill gate and onto the common grazings ; thence, right along an old track that leads to the shore of Loch a’ Choire [Loch of the Corrie]. Despite its wild appearance the landscape and natural vegetation is much altered through countless generations of human activity. However, after many decades – arguably a century – of neglect, this landscape is gradually re-wilding, a process that’s accelarated in recent decades. Year by year there’s a greater abundance and variety of species to find – if you know what to look for, from the littlest in flora to the largest of fauna.
Continue reading →D > Here’s me watering the tomatoes in Greenhouse 4. Do you notice anything different? Clue : it isn’t the sunshine, or my shorts – though both are remarkable enough for April. The timber ‘exoskeleton’ around Greenhouse 4 was 15 years old, and had deteriorated a lot in the last couple of years. Rot had set in where timbers had been in contact, and moisture was trapped between them.
Continue reading →J > Mr MacGregor is so fierce that he chased away the previous Gander-in-Chief, Mr Jackson, and his wife – his own parents. Mrs MacGregor is quite different. She was hatched in an incubator from eggs bought on eBay. She has a lovely nature, and still eats from my hand, and lets me pick her up and give her a cuddle – she wraps her neck around mine. Mr MacGregor doesn’t like it, but he’s reasonable enough to understand that when it comes to the crunch, the Gander-in-Chief is none other than Mr Bridge!
Continue reading →J > When spring tides and high pressure co-incide, low tides are exceptionally low, and it becomes possible, briefly, to walk around headlands – amongst the sands and rockpools that are ordinarily submerged even at low tide, instead of taking the grassy otter-paths across the headlands. At such times there appears, in the Sound of Eriskay – the mile-wide channel of the sea between Eriskay and South Uist, a sand bank that extends from the south end of the causeway towards a navigation beacon that is close to the shore of our croft, below Carrick.
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Bun a Mhullin, Eriskay : White Cottage, Black Cloud, Rainbow
J > At work re-painting the larch cladding, this warbler, singing from the wires at the electricity pole from which a cable runs underground to Carrick. As he sings, he turns his head from right to left (never the opposite), to ensure that any other willow warbler within hailing distance will get his message, loud and clear. Occasionally he turns around and does the same in the opposite direction, thus covering all bases.
Continue reading →D > Some while ago I pre-mordanted a few skeins of wool with Alum, storing it dry for when the Sweet Cicely came into flower. The ideal time to pick the leaves is just before the flowers become abundant, after which the depth and vibrancy of colour starts to diminish. The soft creamy yellow will be the foil to another more dominant colour
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