New Openings

We spent most of last weekend digging out the large drains that run adjacent to the croft.
Our new neighbours kindly let us use their digger to do this.
It the first time in a few years since the drains have been cleaned out.
The banks were covered in Bramble bushes, bracken and rushes.
Because the Bramble have grown on the bank side they have eroded them quite a lot.
So it was a little tricky getting to close to the edge of the bank side to clear them out.
Well the water is running well now, I noticed a few tiny Brown Trout in the burn and thought that at some time the Trout must have travelled up here to spawn, they are a very hardy fish indeed, hopefully they will come back later on and find it much easier to travel up the newly cleaned out burn to spawn again in abundance with much more ease.

My husband also dug out a path on the common grazing's down to the old lazy beds field, this will be of great use to us and the cows especially in the winter months.
The old trail out to the lazy bed field was deep furrows which were made by generations of cattle walking down to the field, it made it hard work when we needed to bring the cattle in for any reason, because you were stepping on turfs that were up to a foot high all the way down to the lazy bed field, a bit like stepping on high stepping stones for at least quarter of a mile.
Well now we can walk out to the field with out any bother at all.
Also I noticed that the cattle have taken to lying down on the path as it is sandy bottomed but also provides shelter from the wild, they can be smart at times.
We are going to sort out the rushes that have appeared in great clusters and re seed the lazy bed park, this park used to be used by the croft for growing all of the vegetable in the bygone years, the ground is very fertile down there, but needs to be tended to to keep this fertility.
Also we are going to feed the cattle down there in the winter month so that they stay down there and do not hang around the gate on the croft making a nuisance of them selves.
Well we also picked a few more of our home grown potato's, some were Kerr's Pink and the others were Red Roosters, it has been a good year for growing potatoes, they tasted absolutely delicious, well your own home grown food always does taste better than shop bought.


We have got a few more jobs to do out and about but that's a story for another day!!