The Merry Dancers

The Merry Dancers (Orkney name for the Northern Lights/Aurora) have been dancing away this week.  I haven't yet worked out if my new camera can take pictures of it - or rather whether I can get it to take pictures!  So no pix from me though I DID see them dancing about the sky. But this stunning photo was taken by John Wishart in Orkney and has gone "viral" on facebook, so I'm hoping he won't mind my sharing it with you all here!

In John's photo the Merry Dancers can be seen behind the Italian Chapel, which makes for an ethereal and poignant photo.  Photos capture the Merry Dancer lights differently to the human eye. Although you can see a greenish glow, it's not as bright as in photos.  This blog post from Fair Isle explains it well : What does the Aurora really look like?


Note: sorry for absence - am recovering from evil stomach "bug" this week. Getting better but feeling wabbit (Scots term for feeling tired and lacking in energy). Hope to be back soon!

A time of rainbows....

Autumn is a time of rainbows, lots of them. We've had a couple of fairly calm days, but with lots rain showers. I can hear the wind getting up outside now though.  Temperatures are about 10 or 11 degrees C during the day (about 50F). Sunset is about 6.30pm today. Ah well, time to think about hunkering down for a few months. Relaxing with books and catching up on DVDs and TV recorded programmes in the evening, instead of pottering in the garden. Though I still have some veggies (potatoes and carrots) to harvest!

It's also a time of power cuts. We had one recently that lasted only an hour, which was long enough to remind me to get new batteries for the torches and check on candle supplies. Time to stock up the freezer too so that I don't have to go to town unless I want to.

We had a broadband/internet outage on the island yesterday too. Nothing to do with the weather, something technical in the exchange.  I was hyperventilating for a while but fortunately the problem was resolved fairly quickly. Arrrgh....do NOT remove my internet access....

It feels too soon to be Autumn though....sigh.... it doesn't feel like we've had summer yet.  Ho hum....

Here's Stromness through the rainbow!

Dog Sitting.....

Part of my busy-ness this week has involved "dog-sitting".  It has to be said that, despite growing up with dogs and having dogs into my 20s, I am now a confirmed cat person.  However a friend was in need of someone to take care of one of her Shetland Collies while she took her other dog south for surgery at a specialist vet centre.  So... we made up a rota and some folk went in during the day to let Lyra, aforementioned Shetland collie, out or take her for a walk and I did the overnight stay.

So I was doing a "backwards" commute to the town at night and home again during the day. Button was unphased by this because she a) had plenty of food left for her and b) she's out most of the night in good weather and probably didn't notice my absence!

Lyra was a lovely wee dog and no bother at all to look after. In fact less demanding than Princess Button!  Though I did have to remember to keep opening the door for her to go out.

The house I stayed in is just across the water from my house. So I could look back at the lights on Graemsay at night, instead of looking at the lights of Stromness!

Bit of a fuzzy photo - but this is from the garden looking over farmland over the water back at Graemsay, with the Hoy High lighthouse and my house just to the right.....

The local farmers have been desperate to get the crops in and a combine was busy working on several days I was there.  This photo looks over the fields from the garden, down Scapa Flow and over to the Hoy Hills.

The neighbours were pretty quiet, though a little nosey....

Lyra's owner is back home now with the other dog safely through surgery. Lyra will be pleased to have her "pack" back again!

Right, time to catch up on chores etc. No more lazing on the sofa in the evening keeping the dog "company" ;-)

More chicks....

One of the Light Sussex Hens has hatched a couple of chicks this week. They are very sweet!  Here they are at a day old.....aahhhh!   And no the one on the right is not a Ninja chick!  It's the result of taking a moving object in low light without flash ;-)

These photos were taken when they were literally only a few hours out of the egg. All nicely dried off and fluffy. But already the mother hen is teaching them to eat, and they get the idea very quickly. Just as well or they would not survive!

The mother hen keeps them safe and warm under her feathers as their little fluffy bodies are not waterproof. But even after a few days I can see feathers developing.  The mother hen is taking them out and they are already foraging for food themselves - though within range of "Mum".

Sorry for lack of posts!  Just a bit busy at the moment with work and life etc.  Back soon....

Looking upon Graemsay.....

This photo was NOT taken by me (!) but is from the top of Ward Hill on Hoy. You can see Graemsay in the top of the photo and Hoy High lighthouse.  The photo was taken by John Aberdein, a local writer (among other accomplishments) who lives on Hoy. He has climbed Ward Hill many times. He kindly said I could use this photo that I saw on his Facebook page. I hope he doesn't mind me using his description of it either.

"It's the top of Ward Hill, Hoy, the biggest bump in Orkney. Only 1500 feet, so a flea-bite compared to the Cairngorms, which "brought me up", as it were. The rock is shattered by gale and frost so it's an arctic-alpine environment.

The Ward Hill's mountain hare in its whiteness is the largest native mammal in Orkney. There used to be red deer, but only because they were imported. They cleared crofters to the shore, built two shooting lodges, imported deer from Scotland, and advertised for toffs with guns. Then they dealt with the deer problem.

The view is looking across to Graemsay and mainland Orkney, with the Atlantic out west to the left and Scapa Flow, the largest enclosed area of sea in the world after Pearl Harbour, stretching to the right."

A sail around Hoy to Graemsay.....

Well I was out partying on the Autumn equinox so no photos from then. But here are a few from the following morning when I was sailing back to Graemsay on our wee ferry. It was a beautiful still morning. Magic!  Hope the rest of Autumn is like this...... ok delusional again..... gales forecast for this week....

Hoy Low lighthouse, with the World Word II gun battery outside the walls.

The World War II gun battery at Moaness, Hoy. Both these were protecting the entrance to Scapa Flow.

Near Moaness Pier on Hoy, beneath the hill (Ward Hill).

Reflections of the Hoy Hills near the pier at Moaness.

And opposite, some ruined crofts on Graemsay

Close up of part of Ward Hill - you can see a house in the bottom of the photo which gives an idea of scale.

Burra Sound, between Hoy and Graemsay. The Hoy cliffs in the background. I just loved the clouds reflecting on the still water.....

It's well camoflaged but you can just see the turf roof of the old house, Scarratain, on Graemsay with it's outbuildings about to slip onto the shore.

And coming into the pier at Graemsay with Hoy (Sound) High lighthouse and Stromness in the background.








And there were a huge flock of shags just off Hoy too - lots of these were juveniles.

Autumn arrives.....

....rather early and with high winds and lots of rain. Actually there was a bad storm while I was away in Dorset. I feared for the house! Or at least debris flying into windows.  Towards the end of September I start packing away anything in the garden that might fly about, and anything outside (eg garden bench) that might get damaged or cause damage.  However the first storm of Autumn arrived in EARLY September and caught me unawares!  Fortunately the house was fine and all windows remained intact, as did the garden benches.  As you can see above, our reward is a lovely sunset......

However my poor peas and broad beans took a battering.  Fortunately I had harvested a large number of broad beans before my holiday and they are safely in the freezer.  But I didn't get a single pea this year - sob!

There are sheep in my field behind the house. These belong to a neighbour, and I do like to see livestock in the field. The house was once a busy farmhouse and it's sad to see the yard silent, so I like to see my hens bustling about and some stock in the field.

This hen has three "chicks" that are almost as big as her now!  I've managed to control the "hen production" this year and have only 5 chicks.  Not sure how many are hens yet.....

There are lots of berries on the St John's Wort and on the rosa rugosa too.

Though it's been a tough time in Orkney (as in the rest of the UK) for farmers and their crops. The hay was very late being gathered on the island this year.

And the weather is very changeable with beautiful still days like the photo at the top of the post, or blustery days with the sea frothing and foaming as it is caught by the wind or crashes onto the shore.

Time to hunker down now that the days are getting shorter and there is a chill in the air. But I must remember to stick my nose out the window at night as there was a fine display of the "Merry Dancers" (Northern Lights) last night while I was sleeping!