Graemsay Ferry

Here's a picture of the "Graemsay" ferry in dry dock - no, they didn't forget to unload the passengers...... it's a model! Brilliantly put together by Alan P. in Cumbria. I think he's made an excellent job of it. Alan contacted me last year as he had started on the model using some plans of the original ship, but had noticed on my blog photos that the back deck looked different. So I was tasked with taking photos of the back deck and fittings so Alan could make a faithful reproduction. I got some odd looks from the tourists on the boat who were busy photographing scenery while this odd woman was photographing steps, doors, ropes etc.......












And here is the "Graemsay" on it's first "sea trial" (OK it was on a pond, but given the scale of the boat, "sea trial" sounds more appropriate").

Peedie lambs......

There are new lambs appearing in the fields around Graemsay as lambing gets underway. I just love watching the peedie lambs (peedie = Orcadian for small), especially when they all start playing together like kids, racing around the field and jumping about.

The kye (cows) are also appearing in the fields after wintering indoors, and again the calves all join together to race around.

The Starlings have hatchlings in nests at the top of the byre and I can hear the cheep cheep noises as the parent birds fly in with mouthfuls of worms to feed them.

The Arctic Terns are back too - it can make walking along the shore a bit hazardous as they dive bomb, at least they scream a warning! I got pecked on the head a few years ago as I didn't think they would actually hit me!

The Bonxies (Great Skua) are around too. I was watching fight in the sky when a Bonxie was chasing a gull to get it to drop it's catch.

The Black Back gulls are around too - especially during the lambing season. I'm not keen on these as they tend to attack the ewes as they are lambing and peck out the immobile ewes eyes, or attack young lambs.

And the sun is shining again after several days of a chill east wind. Thankfully my cloches and seed coverings survived the wind and everything is beginning to burst into life in the veggie patch - yes even *I* can now tell I have potatoes growing.........

Friday was the worst day weatherwise, and of course I had several appointments in town so just had to go across to town. The ride on the boat went via Hoy and was pretty rough - a combination of an east wind and a high tide. The boat picked up school-kids who had been spending a couple of days at the Outdoor Centre on Hoy, and I did feel sorry for some of the kids as some of them looked various shades of white or green. However most of them seemed to be enjoying the roller-coaster ride on the boat.

Here's another sunset from last week (sunrise is now at 04:39 (or so they tell me) and sunset at 21:39, and the other night it was light all night! OOooh I LOVE this time of year):

The early bird...

….. is in danger of getting smashed over the head or impaled on the garden fork! The hens just love it when I’m digging in the garden. However they have got so bold that I now have to watch I don’t get concussed hens (how would one know?) or worse – ready for spit roasting…… They arrive in a battalion (can you have 4 in a battalion?) anyway, the first to attack are the two boldest and they dive for the worms as I plunge the fork into the soft earth. Scrabbling to get at the worms before I can even turn the earth over and trying to break up the earth by banging with the fork is a little hair raising – or feather raising. Then when the first two have had their fill they retreat and the next wave (of two….) move forward for the attack, then when they are full, the first wave is hungry again! I’m now trying to anticipate the attack and dig a “dummy” piece of ground for them to rootle in so I can then move onto the border unimpeded by feathered friends. That’s when Button usually decides to wander across and inspect progress, at which point the hens realise they have been duped and run clucking to where the real action is.

On another front I am preparing the defences for the vegetable patch. I was actually quite impressed that my “Heath Robinson” contraptions for keeping the hens off seed beds actually stood up to a Force 8 gale last week! The Strawberry patch is nicely protected, and the netting can be raised to let bees etc enter and buzz around, while still allowing the fruit (I am ever hopeful) to be protected from birds of all varieties.

I got a few odd looks from friends when they saw me purchasing hanging baskets last week – a little on the risky side as the house is so exposed to winds from all directions. However, there is method in my madness – sometimes, and I have been using the upturned hanging basket containers to protect newly grown seeds. The white stuff is shell sand and grit to protect from slugs (as I said before – I am ever hopeful).

So the Veg border is more or less complete, I’ve dug the length of the wall and the border is now approx 100 feet x 5 ft – I know it’s about five feet as I measured it by lying down and it was a little wider than I am tall. Yes I know I should have gone and got a measuring tape but that meant clumping back to the house, taking off boots and rummaging. Lying down served two purposes, a) I got a rest and b) I measured the border. Anyway, back to the veg border - I still have peas to plant – I was delighted to hear that they may grow well outdoors. I’ve grown them in the back of a car before and they did well. And no that’s not as strange as it sounds – not in Orkney anyway. On the isles, when cars no longer work they are pressed into service to store feed, implements, or in my case to house a few grow bags. The car was an old estate and provided a nice crop of tomatoes, peas, beans and lettuce one summer several years ago before it was shipped off for scrap.

The fleece is protecting the carrots – from hens, cold, wind and (ever hopeful – did I mention I was ever hopeful?) carrot fly. The onions have started sprouting too. I have absolutely no idea if the potatoes are, never having grown them before. *Something* is growing but I suspect its weeds for now – I shall wait till things grow a bit more!

Now I want to start on the next border, but there is quite a bit of stone to be cleared so I shall need some help with that first.

**Written Monday 11 May when broadband was off – wail – in cyberspace did you hear me scream?**

Winter returns?

Today a gale has been blowing - it's so easy to forget when the first warmth of Spring arrives, just how changeable the weather in Orkney can be. One minute planting out seeds in the garden, the next running for cover as the rain starts and the wind increases! Gusts were up to nearly 60 mph in the Flow this morning. The sea looks quieter outside now, but it still sounds breezy!

I think the broad bean seeds I planted yesterday will be burrowing further into the ground, rather than reaching for the sun at this rate! Here's a picture of the veggie patch - I've dug the full length of the stone dyke (approx 100 feet x 5 ft). OK it's a bit of an odd angle but I was trying to balance without treading on newly planted seeds or hens!

The "anti-hen" devices I've been using have stood up well - though haven't been out to see how they did in today's gale. I've also bought some hanging baskets to put upside down on the earth to create a little "dome" for lettuce so that the hens don't nip off the green shoots before *I* get a taste.

Lambs are beginning to appear in the fields on Graemsay. I love watching the wee lambs all racing around together. All the birds have been pairing up and I can see a pair of oystercatchers dangerously close to Button's hunting ground - sigh. Oh - and I think Bill the Lone Goose must have wandered off and found his/her friends as there has been no sighting for some weeks now.

One thing that takes some getting used to in Orkney is that Daffodils, Tulips, primroses and bluebells all bloom at the same time here! Though "daffs" are usually a little earlier than the others. However it's lovely to see colour appearing along the banks at the side of the road. There's a lovely display of primroses down near the pier too.

Through the cat flap.....

........ but not with Lloyd Grossman....... this week's challenge, should you wish to accept it, is to persuade Button to use the cat flap...... having spent a large amount of time, myself, gazing at the view in the photo, I can tell you it's not as easy as it sounds.

Firstly - cats are used to "staff" - they have staff to provide their food and staff to open doors for them, staff to rub up against when the need arises etc. So WHY would any self-respecting cat use an automatic door?? Sigh.

Secondly, it wasn't helped that I decided to go all techno-whizzo with the cat flap and get one that is activated by the microchip in the cat. This would be fine - except that I have now discovered that the place the vet puts the microchip is too far along the back of the cat to activate the door opening. I discovered this after ramming poor Button's head into the cat flap saying "Open, darn it". You know the pictures of cartoon cats who have run into a wall - flat-iron face etc? Yup that's how Button felt.

Eventually I took the batteries out the whizzo-gizmo and it operated like a regular cat flap. Only Button wasn't to be fooled by THAT ruse, once bitten (or button?) etc. So she sits either side of the flap gazing in or out depending on her mood and location....... if *I* open the little plastic door she happily will come in or out. But is not inclined to do the work herself.

So someone suggested propping open the cat-flap to get her used to using the hole in the door if nothing else. Seemed like a good idea. Until this afternoon that is....... I heard her on the loose stones outside the back door so struck the usual pose of the last few days, face up against cat flap calling "Button, come on Butty Button, there's a good girl, who's a clever girl then?" (not me clearly.....). And there is Button, pleased as punch, ready to come in..... with a MOUSE in her mouth. Swift rearguard action of slamming the plastic door down. Anyway she'd dropped the mouse and was peering under the stones for it. So I went out, picked her up and put her in the conservatory - "Don't play with your food" is the motto in THIS house! Well as swift as only a cat can be she ran up the conservatory steps, through the sitting room, into the kitchen and "snap" out the cat flap - no problem opening the little plastic door THAT time! Ha!

So I'm not too sure what the score is at, at the moment. In Button's favour I suspect. The whizzo-gizmo cat flap doesn't work on the microchip due to microchip not being in right place, PLUS when it's windy cat flap - well, flaps - which I thought it would a bit, but it's much flimsier than I'd expected. And then Button doesn't seem too chuffed by it all either....... But I now have a hole in the door so......

However I shall persevere as she needs to be able to come and go as she pleases, particularly when I'm away. But for now...... pass me the gin somebody.......

Of Spring, Sunsets and Sunday

I've had a fairly relaxing Sunday today, got up late, did a few domestic things, worked a little, and sat and mused looking out at the misty landscape while drinking copious quantities of tea! This morning was beautiful, though misty, but warm and I planted some more seeds - "Love in a Mist". But I needed a break from gardening as I overdid things a bit yesterday with some digging, and general sorting out of the garden, so I contented myself with inspecting the plants emerging from Winter. I just love this time of year. Here are some photos of the willows, plus I am delighted to see that the "Forget-me-nots" transplanted from a friend's garden in Kent have survived the winter and are growing healthily in the rear border.











Button is out most of the day now. I do fear for fledgling birds later in the year though - sigh. She has already got her eye on a sparrow's nest in a wall in one of the old farm buildings. However there is a healthy population of sparrows around - they line up waiting for the hens to finish with the scraps I put out for them in the morning, then the sparrows fly down and finish off what's left (I always put out extra for the wee birds!).





And this last week we have had some beautiful sunsets. I can just sit in the conservatory and watch the sun drop below the horizon. Just magical.

Whatever you want it to be.....

So..... is the photo above:

a) seed bed covered to protect from hens, cats and other animals that enjoy rummaging through newly dug earth.
OR
b) “The Stone Square of Sandside” .... an art installation representing the opaqueness of life. The breeze up lifting the fabric revealing a tantalising glimpse of the soil underneath representing the flashes of insight one has, as one gropes through the web of existence. The stones represent anchors which bind us to the present and frustrate our attempts to know what is on "the other side", what is in the future. The centre stone is deliberately off centre, just as life can sometimes be a little left of centre. The stones echo the aeons, the millennia which have shaped them. The round pebbles from the beach representing the buffeting of the tides which also shape our lives, our very being.......


And is this :

a) a nice warm space for Button to appreciate the landscape.
OR
b) The addition to the original artwork adding yet another dimension, linking the earth with the living and breathing inhabitants of the land and illustrating the temporary nature of inhabitaiton of the landscape - since Button will move onto more interesting things soon. (Thanks to LM for this additional interpretation).

And this is:

A sunset, an explosion of colour before the light dies. Today is Earth Day - be kind to our planet, she's the only one we've got (to misquote a fridge magnet....)