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Tuesday 30 April 2013

The Ring of Brodgar....



The Ring of Brodgar is one of my favourite places in Orkney. It's part of the "heart of Neolithic Orkney" World Heritage site. You can read about the history here....  I love to walk round this stone circle throughout the year, preferably when there are not coachloads of tourists there too.  Winter is often the time (naturally) when I will have it to myself.  This week there were a slow trickle of tourists and locals around the site.

The photo above is using my whizzo panorama feature on my iPod touch.  I love this photo as it places the stones within the landscape.

The brown vegetation around the stones is heather. In the summer it is a glorious purple but at the end of a long hard winter it is brown and withered.  In the background are the hills of Orphir, also covered in heather, bracken and gorse.


The day was grey and windy, which gave the stones a brooding look


And from the top of one of the earth mounds (not excavated but "geophysics" suggests further connections with the stone circle) - you can see Graemsay!  Hoy High lighthouse, and hiding behind the wooden pylon (carries electricity) is Sandside!


I did't stay long on this visit as it was a little cold and I had to get back to Stromness. But it was a lovely interlude all the same.


Sunday 28 April 2013

The tradition of peat cutting...



We don't have any peat on Graemsay though there are many peat beds around Orkney. I think in times past the islanders may have had peat rights on Hoy but that is lost in the mists of time. So I know very little about the process. However my camera guru, Derek Mayes, has recently started the annual peat cut and kindly offered to write about it to educate us all!  Here's his first entry......

From Derek....

…Each year, at about this time in mid to late April, I begin to open up my peat beds. I do not own the peat nor the land but our house-deeds allow for extraction, for personal use, any amount of peat from the nearby headland. 
April 22nd. Always the toughest day – the first. Cool breezes, the chance of a shower and with limbs and muscles weak after a winter of passive exercise!

I take the spade on the five-minute walk from the house to the ancient beds.  I am the only one who cuts here but the beds, whole headland really, have been used by the whole community for a couple of centuries I guess. The evidence is easy to spot, overhanging walls of old cuttings, standing water along the foot of many,  track-ways and damaged ground.

Over the years, extraction has probably lowered most of the headland by the height of a person. In many places the peat has been removed all the way to the underlying rock and sandy drift.

Cutting has to be done methodically as the top turfs need to be placed back on the ground, repairing as one extracts and progresses. There’s good evidence for careless extraction and so I have undertaken, over my  eleven years, to repair areas where my predecessors have been careless.

The faces are hard and cracked after 10 months of wind, rain and fierce sunshine. The outer exposed faces are like concrete and cannot easily be cut from the face itself, only from above..

So the first task is to remove the top, heathery blanket. A long portion (two spades wide) atop the bed is stripped and the turfs laid onto the ground behind me – there is about a metre of bare ground from the peat face to the vegetation. This would allow a wheelbarrow - in the old days a pony - to progress along the beds
It is backbreaking and I can only manage an hour. The topmost peat, (under the rough turf) is very fibrous and dry, containing the oldest roots of the heather and other heathland plants. This lightweight peat is called the Greenback (I call them fluffies - because they are!). It is very hard to get the spade through, because of the fibrous nature, so only the sharpest, flattest spade will do.

These are quick drying peats, so I can make them into quite big piles for the wind and sun to do their bit.  It’ll take me three or four visits to get down to the Tusker peat – lovely, black, pastry-like structure. After two one-hour visits I now have three piles like the one seen in the photo above.. The roman numeral is 22 – 22nd April.

More from Derek soon....

Sunday 21 April 2013

Sunshine and showers....



Spring is still stuttering along. Today was warm for a while, the sun shone, the sheep were happy, and then a heavy shower came. Ewes called to their lambs, and rain drops bounced off every surface. Then the rainbows came out and all was well again.......


And the sun shone on these delicate flowers in the garden....


And the seals continued to bask on the beach....they are well camouflaged here...


But they are enjoying relaxing in the sunshine like the rest of us!


One doing a little light exercise - or maybe s/he wants to join the circus??


While others have a bit of a snooze....


This is not a seal..... but Button doesn't like being left out of any photo shoot....


And then this evening the weather changed and the rain came....


And the rainbows ....


And then the sun set on a lovely lazy Sunday!


Tuesday 16 April 2013

Seals on the beach!!



Another sign of Spring is the seals basking on the beach. Not exactly basking weather as it was a tad breezy but they didn't seem to mind.  Although these photos look close up I was using the full extent of the zoom lens. So the jury is out as to whether these are Atlantic Grey seals or Harbour (common) seals. Though the Harbour seals are not as common as the grey seals hereabouts, but there is a colony at the point of Ness in Stromness so they could be "day-trippers" to our beach.  One of those in the photo above has a slight "Roman" nose profile, typical of grey seals, but the others have slightly different shaped faces so are more likely to be harbour seals - the two don't mix....  As they usually occupy the beach for a few weeks in the Spring I'm hoping to get a closer look sometime soon to determine which they are.

They are certainly relaxed on our beach anyway!


They look so cute, but rather ungainly on land....



And one or two play on the margins of the water....


There are lots of folk tales of the "selkies" (seal folk) who could transform into human form (male and female)   : "....the folklore tells us that once in human form, the selkie-folk would dance on lonely stretches of moonlit shore, or bask in the sun on outlying skerries."  (source Orkneyjar).  Who said there was no night life on Graemsay? The potential for meeting the Selkies, comets and Merry Dancers (Aurora), who needs night clubs!



Saturday 13 April 2013

Sunshine and blue skies....



The last few days have been glorious with sunshine and blue skies. Still only a chilly 7 degrees C but with sunshine the house feels warm and out of the breeze even *I* feel warm again!  But the weather is changing and as I type I can hear the wind "getting up" outside and the clouds have arrived, so no hope of seeing an Aurora (Northern Lights) tonight despite the recent solar flare.

But I've been out enjoying the sun on my face (well I need to top up my Vitamin D levels!).  I also have a new toy - a new iPod Touch complete with an inbuilt camera.  It won't replace my proper digital camera but it might saveit from lots of dust on the lens!  I can pop my iPod in my pocket when I am just out and about and save my DC for when I have more time to play -er - use it properly.

So.. here are a selection of photos taken yesterday and today with my new toy!  Top - the panorama feature is fun - it rather distorts the landscape, there's a bit of "continetal drift" going on in it for those that know this landscape well (the path has a dog-leg in it in the photo it doesn't have in real life). But the further landsape of the bay and hills is in proportion.

Button, of course, accompanied me on my walk, though she was getting a bit fed up as I was taking so much time and NOT paying HER much attention....



The sea has been so calm...


So flat - I could walk to Stromness - hmm well OK maybe not!


Meanwhile Charlie-Boy, the barn cat, was out enjoying the sunshine too. He's normally a very shy boy but posed for the camera


Meanwhile the sheep near Sandside have been lambing.....


That's it for today!




Tuesday 9 April 2013

Camera being fixed....



This photo is courtesy of Derek M. my camera guru. He was in Stromness early the other day and took this stunning shot of the new pier works in the harbour, with the moon hanging over the crane. And just on the horizon, to the right of the crane is the Hoy High lighthouse on Graemsay.  I just love this photo!

Meanwhile, my camera has been in bits and been cleaned up.  There was a speck of dust on the lens....um... apparently there was more than just a speck in the camera! Oh dear.....I need to take more care of it in future....sigh.... it's just...I like to take it with my *everywhere*.....



Sunday 7 April 2013

Comet Pan-STARRS



The above photo of the comet, PANSTARRS was taken by Andrew Holinrake (archaeologist and gives great tours round Ness Batter) from the West Mainland of Orkney. The Orkney sky is amazing at night. Layer upon layer of stars. Absolutely stunning.  Unfortunately I don't have a decent pair of binoculars so however hard I scanned the sky I couldn't see this. So thanks to Andrew for the photo!

And this photo, taken in Shetland, is stunning too.....showing the comet with the Andromeda galazy...



Friday 5 April 2013

Sun still shines....



Extraordinary weather we are having here in Orkney. NO wind, calm seas, SUNSHINE, no rain or snow or sleet.  Sharp frosts are night but blue skies and warm sunshine during the day.... This week has been busy with work and I'm trying to fight off some evil virus.  So far I am winning - let's hope that continues! And this week my camera has been despatched to my camera guru, Derek, to see if he can fix the dust spots on the lens. Meantime he's lent me one of *his* cameras. So here are some photos taken today, it was a joy not to have to deal with large blobs on the lens!!

The sea was very calm this evening but a bank of cloud is coming in.....


Ealier today Button and I were down on the shell beach. I think she's still waiting for Owl with the pea green boat...


Camouflaged cat!


The water is so clear in the pools....


An old rusty winch on the old stone pier....


The charred remains of the old wooden boat, burned last summer....


As we walk back to the house, we spy Charlie the barn cat. He's enjoying the sunshine too. He's a very shy boy and prefers to keep his distance....


Back at the house, the crocus are blooming....


And the buds are out on the willows...


Lots of buds!


Ah.... it was lovely to take photos without trying to disguise a blob!!