Summer Solstice

After last year's disappointing squib, the sun was kind to us this year and let us see it set -- nearly!  At the very last minute there was a low cloud out over the sea, so we lost the sun behind that cloud probably about five minutes before it would have gone below the horizon...

What follows is a completely unedited set of photos, in chronological order, taken between 7pm and midnight last night...

Sea Salt

Struck me as slightly bonkers that I am going to the shop to buy sea salt when I am surrounded by the sea which contains ...  salt ... so I made some!

It was surprisingly easy.  Took a large container with me one day when I went swimming and filled it up with water.  Let it sit for a few days for the sediment to settle (there really wasn't very much sediment at all) and then siphoned it into my preserving pan and put it on a low heat to steam away.  When I was down to the last half inch of water I tipped it out into a tray to let the last of the water evaporate -- and presto -- magic -- salt!  7 litres of water made about 300 grams of salt.  Things I never need to spend money on again!  :)

And we're done!

Greedy Ewe finally lambed yesterday morning -- and it's another black girl!  This was another nice quick one -- I checked her at about 10:15 and she hadn't started yet and at 11:45 she was all done -- just the way I like it!  :)

So that's seven lambs from six ewes -- three boys and four girls.  18 days from start to finish which I think is about as tight as I could have gotten it.  Now to start thinking about/planning for shearing...  Anybody want to talk to me about rooing?

Twins!

Last night was quite the roller coaster of emotions for me!  Brown Ewe had been standing apart since before Curly Ewe lambed, but she was really taking her time about it.  Finally started about 6pm last night -- and she was pushing and pushing and time was going on so eventually I decided to give her a hand.  Front legs out but head wasn't coming and I started to worry and then she decided to stop pushing altogether and get up and eat some grass!  At this point I was fairly convinced that the lamb was dead and I was thinking that I needed to get the lamb out to save the ewe but I didn't know how to do that so sent Danny for the farmer next door....

...and in the length of time that it took Danny to get down there and back, she decided to start pushing again and the lamb came out and it was alive!  AND THEN, the farmer said that she thought the ewe was carrying twins and PRESTO I pulled out another lamb!!!!! 

So in the span of 20 minutes I went from thinking I had a dead lamb and possibly a dead ewe to having two healthy very alive lambs!  Woo hoo!

The white lamb in the front here is the first lamb and that little black smudge in between him and the ewe's rear legs is the second.  This photo was taken about half an hour after she finished.

24 hours on and they are both doing well -- this is the first lamb -- a ram lamb.

And this one is a GIRL!  Woo hoo!  I finally have a dark ewe lamb!!!!!  Not the world's greatest photo but you can see that her head is a sort of warmish brown shade compared to her darker black body -- I am in love!  I think she is my new favourite lamb...  :)

So that just leaves Greedy Ewe to lamb now -- fingers crossed it's soon as I think she's getting fed up with all the lambs everywhere and not having one of her own!

Fourth lamb!

Curly Ewe lambed yesterday afternoon about 3pm -- first of my ewes (including at Bwlchyrhyd) to ever lamb in the afternoon!

I really like the warm brown colouring on this one -- so of course that means it's a boy!  Why are all the ones I like best boys?????!

Mummy totally did not want to let me tag her lamb!

Halfway!

They've been coming thick and fast!  This is lamb number three -- another ewe lamb -- born to White Ewe yesterday morning about 8:30 -- and I actually saw this one being born -- first time I have actually seen a live birth from one of my ewes!  Welcome to the world little girl!

I had White Ewe tipped to lamb first as she was so big, and she is still pretty big now, so perhaps there will be a surprise twin in a few weeks?  (Yes, it's a thing...)

Three ewes left to go -- none of them showing signs yet so back to the waiting game...

Happy Birthday Cookie!

Hard to believe it was a year ago that little Cookie was born!  She is all grown up and totally fearless and fierce now!

Lamb number 2 -- to Shy Ewe -- born late last night I think.  We were watching her with binoculars last night as the sun set and she was definitely getting ready but hadn't started yet -- and 6am this morning there was a lamb waiting for me again!  Adorable, but I am realising that I really do have a preference for black sheep...!  Those Balwen have spoiled me for life...  :)

In other news, we couldn't keep up with the duck eggs and they are not selling at the speed we had hoped, so we have given some of the ducks to somebody else on the island and now only have two left -- that should make the egg situation a bit more manageable...

AND last but not least we have finally got a new cockerel -- he is massive!  Looking forward to the size of his babies!

FIRST LAMB

After weeks and weeks of waiting, our first lamb is here!  (Belated birthday present for me!)  So excited for so many reasons -- this is my first lamb since 2007 -- 16 years!  Black ewe is my favourite, and I was not at all confident that she was in lamb and I totally hadn't picked her to lamb first!  Woo hoo!  Lamb!  Welcome to the world little one!

The Outside World

One of the things about living on a very small remote island is that from time to time, you may need to leave your island...  I went to London a few weeks ago, which was my first time outside Orkney since we moved here 18 months ago.

I went there to see specific people, and that bit of the trip was fine, and I'm glad that I saw the people I saw, but being in London itself, London as a destination, being away from Orkney -- it's taken me a couple of weeks to write this post because I've been trying to process my thoughts about the trip, and I've finally come to the conclusion that I don't really need to leave Orkney for anything.  London is just a big crowded noisy place full of useless stuff.  (Photo below illustrates my point perfectly -- and there were SO many things I could have chosen to illustrate this...  And if you think that an "all-avocado casual dining concept" is NOT a useless thing, please go find something else to read...)

The outside world in general just has less and less relevance to my life.  Perhaps this is why I am not posting here as frequently -- because I am just getting on and doing stuff, and the idea of writing about it and sending it out into the void for unknown people to read seems rather pointless.

Springtime is here!

Equinox has happened (we had a belated bonfire due to it being rainy on the night) and the light has come back and the clocks went forward last night and the springtime snows are in full force!

Half the people I talk to tell me that it never snows here and that this is very unusual and the other half tell me that this is nothing and that I should expect more snow than this in future...  After last winter where we had three very mild frosts and that was it I think that it's going to take us a few years to figure out what winters are really like here...

Archaeology

Have been meaning to write about this stone for a while now.  Danny and I found this on a walk out to Start Point lighthouse not long after first moving here.

After spending far too long looking at photos of stones with holes in them on the internet, we decided that it was a fishing weight -- and eventually I got round to take my stone down to the Orkney Museum to show it to an actual archaeologist -- and it seems like we're right!

This is what they had to say:

The perforated stone that you found by Start Point lighthouse is a weight of some kind. It could be a loom weight, but at around 750mm at its longest point it seems a bit small for that. I think that it is more likely to have been used for fishing, either as a net sinker or, to my mind, I think it is a weight for a ‘long line’. This was a very long line with many hooks attached, hundreds and even a thousand or more, which was dropped into the sea from a small boat. The hooks were pre-baited the night before. The age is difficult to know, as these things were used over a very long period of time, from at least the Viking Age to the early 20th century.

So it's entirely possible that we've got a 2500 year old fishing weight sitting on our dining room table...!  Pretty cool....

Hello little friend!

Went sea fishing today -- didn't manage to catch anything, but we did spot this adorable little sea urchin!  Isn't it/he/she adorable?  :)  

Side note -- this photo was shot from ABOVE the water through about six feet of water -- just goes to show how clear the water up here is!

Duckies all grown up now!

The moment we've all been waiting for -- our first duck eggs!  For comparison, the two on the left are the duck eggs, and the one on the right is a hen egg, so not massively bigger, but very pleased that after months and months of feeding them, they are finally feeding us!  Pretty incredible that these cute little adorable balls of fluff are adults now!

Heat and other modern conveniences

Do you know what these things are?  I didn't either until this morning -- they are temperature sensors for the heat pump, and apparently replacing them was the thing we needed to do to get the heat working again.  

We also managed to get a replacement hot water heater this week, so after half of December and most of January we now have both hot water and heat again.

(Some) modern conveniences are definitely an improvement on living without...

Still snow!

Woke up this morning to a winter wonderland!

Here's Cookie's first proper play in the snow.  She was trying to attack it!  Freya has been sensible and stayed inside by the fire...

Hard to figure out where to measure the snow as the wind blows it about so much, but I think this is a fairly accurate measurement -- 1.25 inches!

The sheep are totally not bothered, but I have given them hay now...

And here's the snowy picture postcard view of our little house!

Snow!

UPDATE:  Still snowing!

Been snowing heavily for a few hours now -- if this carries on, I will have to buy some hay for the sheep!

2022 Egg Count

I never counted our eggs at Bwlchyrhyd, so can't make any useful comparisons here, but we had a total of 519 eggs in 2022.  Considering that for huge chunks of that time we only had one hen laying, I think we're on track for an egg-filled 2023!

I herewith give you the last two eggs of 2022 and the first two eggs of 2023...  :)

Nearly Homegrown Xmas Dinner

You may remember seven months ago we got some adorable little ducklings...  Well, they are all grown up now, and there are (well, were) three males.  Completely superfluous to our egg laying needs, so Xmas dinner here we come...

This photo is the ducks just before we selected our dinner -- don't ask me which one we took other than it was a male!

Danny the ever amazing built me this plucking machine out of bits of a broken washing machine -- it's not quite as efficient as the ones you can buy, but it certainly makes the job a lot easier to only have to do a bit by hand at the end rather than the whole thing!  Also, we've read that ducks are harder to pluck than chickens, so we'll see how the plucker goes with the chickens next autumn...

Anyhow, Friday was dispatch day, so he spent two days resting in the fridge, and then yesterday I roasted him!  He weighed in at 1.4kg deadweight, so rather on the small side, but Indian Runner ducks are really egg birds, not meat birds.  Regardless, it's plenty of duck for just the two of us.

On the plate:  Duck raised by us, cabbage and brussels sprouts grown by Margaret Rendall on Sanday, and potatoes and neeps (that's rutabaga for you Americans) grown by James Muir, also on Sanday.  So that's something like 3/4 of what's on this plate was produced on this little island!  Next year hopefully more of the veg will have been grown here at Sparrowhall (as I think I am starting to understand the wind a bit better hopefully).  :)

Winter Solstice

Today is winter solstice, new candidate for my favourite day of the year, because it means now the sun will start coming back...

This is sunrise, at 9am this morning...

And this is sunset (3pm) ,which you can't properly see, because too much cloud...

Nathan Pyle brilliantly expressed what the sun does to us at this time of year:

This is SO bloody accurate.  It never goes above the horizon now...

BUT, today is solstice, so now it is going to come back..

We had a little bonfire this evening to welcome the sun's return...  (no bones were burnt...)

 

Snow!

Today is day 8 of a Met Office warning for snow and ice -- and we've finally had some!  Woo hoo!

Winter

Things to do when it's dark/cold/wet/windy:  Knit.  Finally finished the gloves I started last winter!  (There are two of them, but I haven't figured out how to hold the camera with my teeth yet, so...)  Now to start on the matching hat...