A Tribute to "Stuarty"

I hope you do not mind but before I add anything else to my blog today, I would like to pay tribute to one of our friends who died last Tuesday.
We only found out yesterday evening from another friend that "Stuarty" those of you who knew him will no who he is from Skye died last Tuesday.
I do not know the full details as to how he died.
Stuarty was one of the nicest quietest most modest people you would ever want to meet, he had a bit of mischief in him and at 60 years of age it seems a great waste.
I first met Stuarty in the Torlundy Auction Mart in Fort William about 8 years ago, after I bought a heifer through the ring that was Effie, she was the rowan heifer who I have mentioned a few times in my blog previously.
After I had bought her my husband and I went to see the previous owner who we found out was called Stuart Nicholson or "Stuarty" as he liked to be called, we give him a lucks penny, this is something most buyers do when they purchase a beast through the ring they give something back to the seller for luck, usually £5 or £10.00.
Anyway Stuarty did not want to take the lucks penny, but we told him we would be highly offended if he did not take it.
He told us about Effies history and her mother and he said he knew we would be good to her, which we have been even though she has been bad to us with her temperish ways we would not part with her.
Every time we seen Stuarty after that at the market he would make a bee line for us asking how his heifer was doing, I started taking photographs down to the mart for him to see her and also pictures of her off-spring, we would also let him know when any of her off-spring where at the sale, so he could go over to take a look at them.
He had a big soft heart and would shead a tear on the odd occasion when he looked at the photograph, saying I was a kind kind woman with a good heart.
I think Stuarty was of the same stature a good man gone for ever never to be replaced.
He loved his animals as we love ours with passion, and he was happy that his heifer went to a good home.
Stuarty also had a mischievous side to him and although he was not married liked the ladies, and was not adverse to tweaking my bottom as well as any other poor unsuspecting female that came within his sights.
We missed him at the last sale for what ever reason I do not know, I cannot remember even if he was there at all, but it would have been nice to spend the time catching up with him again.
We never know what is around the next corner for any of us, life is to short and sometimes very cruel, that is why there is no point in brooding over spilt milk, or holding grudges or arguing with one another, because you never know when you will get your calling.
I for one will miss Stuary as will many others who were his friends we will all miss the chatter and laughter we had with our great friend from Skye.
Stuarty I hope you are in heaven tonight watching over your friends and making new ones too, but please don't tweak the angels bums, and if you have to do it, do it with that mischievous look you have, they will laugh all night.

Here we go again

Well here we go again, August has been a busy time for us so far.
We have been showing at both the Black Isle Agricultural Show and the more local Strontian Agricultural Show.
We were meant to show at the Lorn Agricultural Show on the 2nd August but the weather was against us from the start, there was high winds and heavy rain so we did not want to cause the animals any undue stress with the long journey.
Luckily the Black Isle Show day was forecast for better weather it was held on Thursday 7th August.
I took three days holiday from Wednesday to prepare the sheep we were going to be exhibiting.
We spent all of Wednesday washing clipping and preening the one's we were going to show.
We decided to take Myran and her ewe lamb Chirsty and her Ram from last year Craigy now a one shearing Ram.
We also decided on Babs a Gimmer (a Gimmer is a sheep that is between a lamb and a ewe sheep) and Raff the Tup lamb. (Tup is a ram lamb).
Well we had to set of at 4.00am in the morning as all entries had to be on the field by 8.00am
So you can imagine it was a long day for all involved, one of our friends went along to lend a helping hand as he had never been before, so it was a bit of an eye opener for him.
We used to enter in the Crofters section an did really well, but we were asked to compete in the North Country Cheviot Hill Section instead so we did.
The entries in the individual sections were large on average 18 exhibits in each section, mostly big estates and large farms and a couple of crofters.
We were little fish in a very big pond, needless to say we were up against it and we knew it.
Well the crofters never even got a ticket all the big names were in the driving seat.
So I am not ashamed to say this little fish will not be swimming in the big pond for a while yet ;-)
I was put well and truly in my place and some people like to let you know that in their eyes you are not worthy of swimming in the big pond.
But that's life we all have to start somewhere, just as they did once upon a time and probably were made to feel the same way too, what short memories people do have.
Anyway we were not ashamed of our little flock they did us proud and strutted their stuff, and comments by the audience were warmly received, but then they are not the judge on the day if they were we would have got at least one ticket ;-)
The weather stayed dry except for a little shower that passed over in the late afternoon.
Once the judging had finished and our animals settled down we had a wander around the show ground, our friend picked up a few bargains as did we, there is normally something you can find that you have always wanted at these big events.
There was plenty of stalls to draw you in and browse around.
We went to have a sit down meal in the large food tent, it was very enjoyable, after that we watch the sheep shearing competition, one competitor sheared 8 sheep in 6 minutes 14 seconds, that's some going it takes me half an hour at least to do one Ha Ha.
Anyway we had our fill enjoyed the day and loaded up at 4.00pm as the exhibits could not be removed until then.
We arrived hove at about 8.00pm, once the animals were fed and tucked up for the night that was us, done in and ready for bed.

Strontian Agricultural Show was held on Saturday the 9th August.
We were showing a Heifer called April who as you can guess was born last April, she is a beautiful Charolais cross sandy coloured with a white blaze on her face, we spent the night before cleaning and trimming her up.
We also took two Gimmer's Babs and Poppet the twins from last year, Nelly and Raff twins from this year, Craigy the ram and wee Rabbie the Tup lamb.
My husband was showing the heifer I was in with the rest of the family;)
The cattle classes were well entered and there were some fine exapmples of the breeds on show.
April our Heifer did really well coming first in her class and third overall being beaten by another Heifer.
The Heifer was later beaten by the Texel ram for the overall Show champion.
All of the classes for the sheep were well entered with over 15 entries in some sections, I was really surprised after the lows of the Black Isle I got a first and second for Raff and Rabbie the Tup lambs, poor Rabbie was pulled out first but was swapped over with Raff, I said "poor Rabbie you got demoted " and everyone laughed.
Nelly the ewe lamb got a first in her class of about 16, Babs also got first in her class and was runner up along with a ewe sheep, Raff and Nelly to the Texel Ram that won the overall sheep and show.
Craigy the ram came second to the eventual overall Texel.
Poor Poppet never got a place, never mind we still love her she will come good yet she has the potential and the style, she is just a little bewildered by it all as it is only her second time out.
When it was all over we had a wander around, I could see Craigy laying down as usual he is not put out by all the fuss I think he enjoys all of the attention really.
We went over to check on them wee Rabbie was making a racket as usual, Craigy gave a deep Baa and Rabbie went quiet? It was just like the older said to the younger " Just sit down and relax we'll be going home soon so stop complaining" ; )
Any way that's the Lows and the Highs for now.
Our last outing or the year showing will be Lochaber on the 23rd August, so we might see you there if not I will let you know how we did.
I have posted slide shows of both Back Isle and Strontian for you to see some of the competitors.

Thank You to Iain from Nairn

This is a big hank you to Iain Fairweather from Nairn.
Iain kindly allowed me to use some of the photographs that he had taken at the Nirn Agricultural Show this year, after my camera decided to play up.
He kindly got in touch with me to offer some assistance.
Iain is a professional photographer in Nairn and also manages the visit Nairn site.
I have added his links as a thank you for his help.
I have posted some of the pictures in the slide show opposite, but the one I wanted you all to see was the picture of the two old age pensioner mannequins that were on display at the Nairn Show.
As I said previously the person who thought them up should have got an award for ingenuity.

Arisaig Highland Games 2008

The Arisaig Highland Games and Clan Ranald Gathering took place today.
I have posted some of the pictures I took of the events.
A parade through the village to open the games took place at 11 am with all of the Clan heads in the prosesion behind the Local Lochaber Piped Band.
My husband and I went along to the games field as my husband was the piping steward for the day.
I wandered around taking photographs of some of the locals and some not so locals who were also competing from as far a field as America.
The oldest competitor in the Heavy section is a local man in his early 70s well done him for showing the young boys how to do it.
Every year he says it will be his last but I for one would like to see him come back next year.

The piping competition was well entered by both adult and junior pipers and the winner was an excellent piper he won three of the four events.

There were two ladies also entered one senior and one junior, the senior came from America, unfortunately she went away empty handed, the junior on the other hand came second in both her classes, well done to her.

The weather started fairly calmly but became a little blustery later in the day with the odd rain shower.
It did not dampen the spirits of the audience though they stuck it out, they were very vocal in their support of some of the local competitors especially the oldest competitor, he seemed to rally at their calls and put on a tremendous performance.

We presented a new trophy the Creag Mhor Trophy for the Caber Tossing competition this year, this is in remembrance of my husbands father who was also a competitor of the games in the past.
My husband presented the trophy to the two joint winners this year, who tossed a coin to decide who took the trophy home for the first six months ; )
Once all of the festivities had finished we helped clear the field.
It is so quiet once again, now the crowd have gone.

To all those who took part well done for supporting the games and keeping them alive.
To the visitors who came thank you and hope to see you next year.
I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did?

Not so lucky Heron

I thought I better let you know what we are up to as it's been a while since I have put anything on here.
Well it's been all quiet on the Western front at the moment.
We have had some brilliant weather here with the odd days of cloudy and wet outbursts.
It's good for the grass and keeps the midges down we hope.

We went to a wedding in Girvan a couple of weeks ago and it was a brilliant day for a wedding.
The other guests on our table were all men that worked for a company called Barr Construction that worked on the Arisaig to Kinsadel By-pass a couple of year ago.
My husband made friends with a few of them whilst they were in Arisaig and kept in touch when they finished the road.
One of them got married after a long long engagement, we were honoured to be asked.
The only thing that was missing was the good old Scottish Ceilidh band, but it was a great day and night anyway.

We managed to finish the second new bridge across the burn last week, which is a strong and sturdy structure, It will probably outlast us two anyway.
Well we thought the cows would use them as the original bridge had been down for a while, even thought the bridge was down the cows still insisted in coming up the burn on the opposite side of the burn, but cows have a mind of their own and the day after we finished the first bridge they decided to come up the burn on our side and never used the bridge at all, well you cannot win them all can you ; ) even now they still have not used the bridge.

Yesterday we went to the Nairn Agricultural Show, the show had been relocated to a new venue just out of Nairn, we thought it was a lot better on the new ground as parking was a lot easier and the show ground had room for more attractions.
It was very hot and sticky weather, it was a brilliant show, I had some pictures to post, but my camera decided to throw a wobbly and I lost everything, I was so fed up all the memories lost.
The overall show champion was a beautiful Clydesdale Horse, it was in against a Suffolk Sheep and Belgian Blue Bullock.
I had a great picture of the Suffolk which could be seen between the legs of the horse like little and large, I had pictures of at least thirty vintage tractors and a comical picture of two dummies that were made to look like and old man and woman sitting on the back of a tractor on a back box the old man dummy was holding an accordion and the old woman a wash board, such a shame.
I lost all of the wedding photographs I had taken also and a picture of a Heron standing on top of our Byre roof this morning.
Someone told me it was good luck to have a Heron on your roof unfortunately on this occasion I think the luck flew away with the Heron.
We have a few shows left to compete in ourselves over the next couple of weeks so hopefully I will have sorted the camera out by then and post a few more of our memories.
I will keep you posted how we do.

Here there and everywhere

We have been here there and everywhere over the past couple of weeks.
We visited the Highland show in Ingliston near Edinburgh a week last Thursday.
We like to go down on a Thursday as that is when all of the judging of the animals takes place.
There was some splendid examples of all breeds of animals on show.
We switched between the commercial cattle and the sheep judging, as the both were being judged at the same time.
Fortunately we did not have to walk far between show rings.
The winners were:
Commercial cattle
Supreme Champion cross Bullock Silver Lining.

Supreme Champion Black face Gimmer from Milnmark Corsack

Supreme Champion Hill Cheviot from Hownam Grange Kelso

Show supreme Champion Charolais Cow Dunesk Unesta from Brechin.

Congratulations to all the winners and well done to all of you who took part.
Without you all, these show would not exist and the public would not see the amount of work that goes into turning these beautiful animals into fine examples of their breed.

We wandered around the cattle stalls to have a closer look at the exhibits.

There was a very large turn out, but it was pointed out that there was a little less than last year.

Could this be something to do with the cost of fuel?

It was a wonderful day out, the weather was not to bad maybe a little cold in the later part of the day.
We also had a wander around the machinery stalls, well some of the tractors on show would not get through our gate never mind down our road, even if we did manage to get a tractor that big down here we would sink it on our peaty land, these machines are for the big boys not the likes of us, a little grey furgie is more suited to us ; )
Well the show was a great diversion for the day, but we have things to do at home, so back to the grind I am afraid.
We had to repair an old bridge this weekend that had fallen apart later last year.
It has been across the main burn for over thirty years, it is made from old railway sleepers and one of the main sleepers holding it up broke into.
So we had to dismantle it all and rebuild it again.
The cattle being cattle have followed the same path year after year, instead of coming up on our side of the burn they come up on the opposite side, which means they stand on the opposite side mowing and calling because they cannot cross the burn.
So we had to go let them in through the top field which belongs to our neighbours.
Who said cows are bright, not always they are not.
Anyway we decided to bite the bullet and repair the old bridge.
We had a couple of Green heart sleepers which were discarded by the railway a couple of years ago, so we used them as the main supports for the bridge.
Green heart wood is extremely hard and strong, so hard that it cannot be worked with standard tools.
Being extremely durable in marine conditions, Green heart is used extensively in the building of docks and in similar applications and was an early choice for fly fishing rods.
Anyway it took most of the day to rebuild the bridge as you can imaging we were working above the burn which is about six foot deep, luckily the water was only a foot deep at the time as the weather has been rather dry.
But as there is only the two of us it was hard work dragging these 8ft wooden sleepers up a bank and across the supporting sleepers.
We managed to get it finished last night just before the heavens opened thank goodness.
Now lets hope the cows have common sense to use it : )

It's Show Time

Well it's that time of year again when we go through the paces of preparing the cattle and sheep for their annual outing to the Arisaig Road to the Isles Agricultural Show.

The first show of the year for us, so there is a lot of preparing to do before the big day.
The cattle were shaved on the Tuesday before the big day.
This involves shaving their faces and tail tops.
Clipping their underbelly and combing out their coats.
They were washed and groomed up on the Friday night, what a blessing that it was a mild day and there was no midges out to eat us or the calves.
We decided to take two Heifers both just over a year old, one Limousin cross named Penny and a Charolais cross named April.
They are both placid and easily handled, once they were all cleaned and dried they were penned in deep straw to keep them clean for the next days show.
The sheep on the other hand are a different matter.
We decided to take Myran a Cheviot Ewe, her Ram Craigy from last year, also her Ewe lamb Cirsty from this year.
We also took Claire's Ewe lamb Babs from last year.
They were all sheared a few weeks ago, to give this years coats a chance to come through.
Craigy was first on the block, he was trimmed up again to shape his fleece, his hoofs were clipped and he wash shampooed up with a bright white shampoo to make him look really white as Cheviot's should.
Myran and Babs were next with the same routine, I must say they were all well behaved, by now they are used to this routine as they have all been through it a couple of times.
Cirsty on the other hand was a little fighter, she hated getting a wash, we had a large trug bucket for her, I think I got wetter than she did.
But they all came out like little snowballs ; )
They were all dried up also and bedded down on thick straw to keep them clean.
Now being crofters you have to be inventive sometimes, we only have one cattle float which is not big enough to carry all of the animals so we manufactured the other trailer we have to make a sheep trailer to transport them to the show, if I might say it looked quite the thing and did the job really well.
My hubby unloaded the calves and penned them up, then gave me and hand to unload the sheep.
The classes for both cattle and sheep was very strong as is usual for the Arisaig show.
The cattle started first in the big ring and the Black face sheep in the smaller ring.
Whilst all this was going on my daughter and I set about touching up our sheep.
Whitening their legs and faces with a powder mix, to make them white and clean looking.
They are very patient animals and stood well for the finishing touches.
Mean while my husbands class was a strong class and he picked up a third and forth rosette for his efforts, he was beaten by a supreme beast.

Never mind there is always next year, it's the taking part that counts, without the entries there would be no show at all, these people come from miles around, with the price of fuel as it is and the fuel strike that is going on, I take my hat off to them all for turning out to make the day a special one.
My classes were also strong this year too.
Craigy my Ram was first out and beaten into second place by a beautiful Suffolk owned by a neighbouring crofter in Arisaig.
Both the Ewe lambs also picked up second places too.
Myran on the other hand went through all of her classes to win over all Sheep Champion again this year, she was up against a strong Black face Ewe in the final.
Myran is a great show off, she stands in the ring and strikes a pose and that's it, she takes it all in her stride and wonders what all the fuss is about and why all of these people are looking at her.
Well we were pleased as punch that she did it again, it is a great feeling to win something after all of the effort you put in to preparing the animals for a show.
She went into the ring for the overall show animal with a Highland Bullock also owned by a local to the area.
It took a long time for the judges to debate and choose a winner.
The Highland Bullock took the prize and a well deserved congratulations goes out to them.
We were very happy with what we had already won.
After all the fuss had died down, we took a walk around the show and had something to eat, it is a long day and unfortunately you cannot get away to have a walk around until you finished with the main events in the rings.
This years main ring attraction was a sheep dog demonstration, which was really entertaining, the dog handler had seven dogs working in the ring at the same time, quite a hard task to do with two dogs never mind seven and three puppies too.
There was speed ball events, and dog agility events, quad bike challenge and much more.
All in all a great day out for everyone.
The end of the day came and we loaded up and came home, we let the animals out for a feed and had an early night ourselves after all of the hard work we needed it.
Thank you to everyone who came up and congratulated us on our win, also to the many friends that came to support the show from far and wide, I am sorry I did not get around you all to spend some time with you all but will catch up with you all later.
Also a big thank you to my Husband and Daughter for all of their help.

It's Show time

Today is the day of the Arisaig Agricultural Show.
This is a local show and well supported.
We have a couple of heifers in the cattle side of the show and a selection of sheep also.
The show day has always been renowned for having good weather, and it seems like that tradition is going to upheld today.
We have been really busy over the past few days, the sheep are white as snow this morning.
Myran has been very good, she has been through this all before so she knows what is going on, Craigy also was really well behaved while he was preened and trimmed to make him stand out in the crowd.
The heifers were washed up and scrubbed last night, we shaved their heads and trimmed their tails earlier in the week.
They all look fantastic this morning, they and wee have nothing to be ashamed of, they will all hold their own.
Keep your finger crossed that we get a prize today, if not well.
There's always other shows to go to this year.
I'll keep you posted with the results of the show and photographs.

Do Midge's have teeth?

Since my last posting we have had brilliant sunshine all the while.
It has been beautiful in Arisaig and Lochaber.
The only hing to spoil it is the flipping Midge's in the evening.
I ask myself if they have teeth because every time they bite it feels like I just lost a chunk of skin.
This year the Midge have been absolutely ferocious, the dry weather has brought them out in droves.
We have been really busy as usual here on Creag Mhor Croft.
My husband cannot remember the last time he managed to get all of the peat we cut, bagged and stored so early in the year.
It is bone dry and all gathered except for about 10 bags, we managed to collect 52 bags in total so far, we also gave a few away too, so not to look to far forward and rush the year away, we will not have to worry to much about heating our bones in the cold evenings.
Everything has become so expensive this year our fuel costs £1.30 per ltr at the pumps in Fort William, the red stuff for the tractor has gone up to 75p per ltr.
We hired a small digger last week to sort out some of the drains on the common grazing's because they were not running away quite well, it was so dry down there that we nearly got to the river Caimbe.
We managed to bury our water pipe to the house from the burn and do all the other little jobs that needed to be done, my husband cleared away the manure heap and leveled off the gravel we had stored for around the byre, what a difference the machinery makes to the jobs that would take forever by hand.
I went around weed killing the rushes which seemed to have popped up every where this year, the grass is not growing due to the lack of rain, not that I miss the rain, but we could do with a bit now just to help the grass on a little.
We had our first cattle sale this year and sent 3 of our bullocks away, we were supposed to send 4 but I took pity on the poor wee crater Rump Ramp Romp, he looked at my through the hay frasach on the morning of the sale with his big doleful eye's wanting his sweeties from his bucket, he always gets his food in bucket because the bigger calves push him about, he is not the bonniest but he is the smartest of them all, after all he is still here isn't he?
We the other 3 went to Fort William sales, what a day it was, I have never seen so many people there at the same time, it was really humid in-doors.
We had a really great trade, the prices for beef was nearly double last year prices.
Anyway they all went to good homes, lets hope they all have a good quality of life even though it will be a short one.
I have pictures to post of the day when I get a little more time.
We also went to the Stock judging competition this Saturday past, it is something we love attending, it gets you out for a while you meet friends old and new to have a good blether about the price of cattle, weather up and coming shows and so on.
Well my husband took the overall male winners cup and I won the over all female cup so it was a double for us, and to top it all I got 4 numbers on the lottery and won £97.00 what a lucky weekend we had.
We have been busy clipping our cattle and sheep for the up coming agricultural shows, the first one kicks off on the 14th of this month just outside Arisaig on Camasdarrach, the show has been blessed with good weather every year lets hope the tradition holds.
Also a small foot note to Simon thank you for your comment, I too had a go at the water divining, your right it does work for some and not others.

It's all go on the Croft

It's all go on the Croft at the moment.
The weather has been absolutely tremendous for the past three weeks.
We decided to turn over the ground behind the caravan instead of the front this year and planted potato's and carrots, already the early potato leaves are popping through.
We have split the lazy beds into three sections and sowed a few beds of potato's a week to ten days apart, to give a longer productive season.
We have been trying to locate the old clay drainage pipes that my husbands father put down about 50 years ago, some of them have been blocked, we can tell this by the amount of water that is sitting on the surface of the land, also because they are orange clay pipes in some cases you can actually see and orange coloured silt that is pushed up to the surface because the drains are blocked.
Well knowing a pipe is there or there abouts is one thing but finding it is another.
The field in the front of the house has been excavated over the past year trying to locate the clay pipes.
It is important to open the bottom field drains first, so when we open the back top field drains the water will run freely out to the burns at the end of the bottom field.
So eventually we found all of the drains on the bottom field, it takes a lot of time an patience.
We do it the old fashioned way, which is with a long thin steel probe with a pointed end and a T handle at the other, a hand shovel and a fencing shoveler.
Once you have a rough idea where you think the pipe is you push the probe down into the ground pointed end first of course, our ground is quiet peaty so it is not as hard to pull the probe back out, you keep prodding around in a left to right movement each prod 2" apart until you here that distinctive metal against stone noise.
This is when the hard work starts, we dig a hole down to the pipe, my husbands father put down 1 leader pipe with 8 chains to it in the bottom field alone, all placed 4 foot below the ground, so you can imagine how much earth had to be dug out to get to each of these chain pipes.
Once we dug a large enough hole to get into, the pipe is separated and opened up, we push an plastic pipe up the way and down the way to clear out the dirt and silt.
Sometimes the plastic pipe gets stuck and will not go any further down the clay pipe however hard you push and pull, so it is out of the hole and locate the clay pipe further down the field and dig out another hole and repeat the process all over again.
Well we managed to clear all of the pipes in the bottom field, now we have to sort out the back top field, we have already started this and opened up 2 chains, as this is a larger field we expect to find a lot more chains here.
A leader pipe is about 6" internal diameter which goes across the field diagonally from one corner to the other, the chain clay pipes are approx 2" internally which come down from the top field and are attached to the larger leader, my husband's father appears to have put all of the chain pipes at 15 paces apart, which makes it a little easier to find the approximate area of the next chain clay pipe.
To think he did all of these fields with just a shovel, no modern diggers in these days.
As they say in the Highlands he was a hardy man.
We cannot use a digger on the field as it would get bogged down and make to much of a a mess, so we have to do it the hard way too.
We have also taken advantage of this dry weather and stared to harvest the peat for the winter fuel, because it has been really dry, we have managed to store some of it already, My husbands father dug the peat fields right up until he was 87 years of age, which I think was a great achievement for anyone to do.
I never met my father in law as he died before a came here, but I have heard stories about him.
He was a strong character and worked hard all of his life, he was also a fencer as is my husband.
We have also sheared our flock of sheep and clipped their hooves, dosed them tagged the lambs ears and docked their tails.
I hate docking the tails, I feel so sorry for the poor lambs they give a little whimper when you do it, I do prefer to dock them rather than put a rubber ring on them and wait for the tail end to drop off, this must be even more painful for them, as some of you may know what it is like to put an elastic band say on your finger and leave it for a while how much pain would you feel if you could not take it off.
I have lots of other bits to add to this but I will do it when I have a little more time, I have added a photo of my husbands father scything the land with the peat stacks behind him.
Known locally as Alec Creag Mhor he was 87 years of age when this photograph was taken.