Easter weekend....

This is Easter weekend, and although I don't share in the religious celebrations I do celebrate the beginning of Spring, renewal and - um - chocolate Easter Eggs of course!  And my hens also joined in too with plenty of eggs today. I have 12 hens, but they are varying ages and some of the older girls are past egg production now so on a good day I might get 5 eggs. Plus one or two hens are sneaky and wander off and hide their eggs so I don't find them for weeks.

The weather this last week has been a very mixed bag. One day was very bright, warm and sunny and it definitely felt like Spring...the remainder of the week though was cold, windy, with hail, sleet and snow at times!  The Hoy Hills had a sprinkling of snow again (see photo at the top).

And there have been lambs of course. I wanted to rush out and bring them all into the conservatory during the hail. Poor things!  But they seemed robust enough!  The ewes had plenty of feed and silage to keep their milk up which helped keep the lambs warm.  My hens wandered into the field to scratch among the remains of the silage too.

Look - snow!  Well actually an accumulation of hail, but it was cold nonetheless!  Piled up at the cat flap.  The brick isn't a booby trap but part of the "battening hatches" process when the wind is at the back of the house and fierce enough to blow the cat flap through.

Button wasn't too impressed at being "hailed upon" either....

On a bright sunny day Button and I did go for our usual wander to the coral beach.  This time accompanied by "Big Ginger" the cockerel.

Lots of birds are migrating.  The long tailed ducks are pairing up and likely to be heading North sometime soon.  Meanwhile the Oystercatchers are back in numbers again. Some over-winter here anyway, but larger flocks are appearing now.

Activity offshore with our "interim" ferry, the Golden Mariana sailing past.  Our proper ferry the MV Graemsay has gone for its annual refit and this year is having two new engines fitted. That means it will be gone for about 6 weeks so we have the Golden Mariana during that time.  I'm only venturing off the island on calm days as it's not the easiest boat to get on and off when it's bobbing about at the pier!

And someone was passing on a RIB (rigid inflatable boat).

In the distance is the sun catching the deck of the Hamnavoe ferry that sails to Scrabster.

And there was INactivity ON the shore....erm....Button....

Cloud coming in... but Graemsay is greening up again.

Walking back home we came across some escaped sheep. They were trying to decide which way to run, I think....well they'd better run fast as I discovered they'd eaten all my bluebells. Bah!  They had left the daffodils alone, which is just as well as I think parts of the leaves/flower are poisonous....

And here are the happy daffodils hiding behind the willow and the rosa rugosa...

And the catkins are out on the willows! (A bit of a blurry photo, I was so excited to see them out the camera shook. Ooops!)