It’s all go on the croft this month so I need to be brief. There has been a flurry of spring activity as we’ve made the most of the good weather to sort out the veg patches, digging in seaweed and manure and start off the seedlings and the polycrub is now full life (including an abudance of self-seeded tomatoes plants). The builders are finally here working on the farm house, which we knew needed lots of work when we first got in, (although it’s still been substantially warmer, drier and bigger than our last place in Drimnin). It’s taken so long to raise the funds, find contractors and decide on the best options to renovate the place that I don’t think I believed it would ever start, but it has and we have temporarily moved into the wooden barn across the road (which is also warmer, drier and bigger than the same, said last place in Drimnin).
Like the croft, the farm house has evolved over time. The original building was a single storey stone cottage at least a few hundred years old, at some point in the 1950’s or 60’s Neil and Betty Rhemore put another storey on using cast concrete and a tin roof, and then in 2000 Mary Barnes built an extension and put a front porch on the front. It might be a coincidence, but it’s interesting that the oldest parts of the house need the least work, whilst the relatively new extension and porch are in such bad condition we have to partially demolish them and we’ve been told are lucky they are still standing at all. Maybe there was more incentive to build better when people stayed in the same place and lived in the same buildings as their over successive generations. Nothing like dealing with the leaky roof your grandad put in to make sure you do a good job, even if it is just so that and your children and their children’s children don’t go around cursing you for eternity.
There are also fencing contractors here, as we finally had our woodland management plan and application to Scottish Forestry for fencing approved. We plan to have a local event before the fence is closed to chase out the last of the deer and it’ll be really interesting to see how the fence affects tree growth as well as the grazing for the cows.
And we had another sick chicken, (most of the chickens were pretty old). We watched Eli the cockerel gradually lose his balance over the winter and debated whether to take him to the vet. I remembered how a vet friend used to tell me, that of all the different kinds of pet owners, people who kept chickens were the loveliest. I only realised once I had chickens that my vet friend was only meeting the kinds of chicken-owners who take chickens to the vet. Suffice to say I packed Eli up and took him to Mull only to find his poor balance was due to arthritis and what he had was old age. I felt for him as I drove back from Mull, feeling the arthritis in my own fingers in the heavy rain. But it’s only the luckiest of chickens who die from old age – which is worth remembering when one feels a few aches and pains.
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