June on the Croft in the Fifties

Reading the chapter on June in Wendy Wood's little book From a Highland Croft, published in the 1950s, was less exciting than I had been expecting. I thought June would be full of the glories of a Highland summer but in those days, even more so than now, summer came late and June felt more like the back end of Spring:

"The first of our calves came today. The mother is an old hand and so I was lucky to catch her on her way to a hidden place on the shore. It would have been unnecessary work to have had to put the calf into a creel and carry it back home, with an infuriated cow bringing up the rear and bellowing to the whole neighbourhood about my kidnapping. It is a bull calf. Some years it is nearly all bulls that arrive and some lucky years nearly all heifers. I hope that this first event does not presage a "bull year". I gave the mother half a bucketful of chopped raw potatoes. I also gave her a hot drink of pease-meal, and because it was not the more usual oatmeal, she gave me a look like a gillie offered sixpence at the end of a hot day. I have no oats left. Preparations for the sowing of this year's oats started a long time ago in the building of a new hen-house in the woods away from the proposed crop, and the purchasing of rolls of wire for a fence to protect the latter.

The ploughing of the field was not easy, for it had not been disturbed for many years, and the soil is very shallow. The ploughman was young and new to the job. He turned up in a bright blue shirt, a joy to see, and I strongly suspected that he had anointed his head with oil, as one appointed. It is always a thrill to see the first brown wave in a green plain, and I could tell by the ploughman's worried face that his job took a bit of daring, like cutting out a green velvet dress without a pattern. I noticed too that when I was in the house, all proceeded in silence, but when I came out, the horses had to be "clicked" and sworn at with terrible swears. Not that the creatures behaved any differently; they just plodded on good-naturedly with the job they knew so well.

It must have been a lonely life, and a hard one, living out in the wilds but it had a rhythm and a balance that we lack today. Have a great summer everyone!

Wendy's Croft in May

The extract I've chosen from Wendy Wood's book From a Highland Croft, written in the 1950s, for May is interesting because she writes about things that having fallen out of favour back then, are now right back in the mainstream - at least in part. She had been cutting rushes to use as bedding for the cattle, and then...

"After cutting rushes I turned to a tougher job, for, lacking my pony, I had to creel the seaweed on my own back. The weed lay on the shore in a rough semi-circle like a rusty scimitar. It was in that half-decayed condition which is so good for the fields yet is unpleasant to touch. I could have put on rubber gloves, but the weed is the very best of hand softeners, and I found the under layers warm. The loch water was so crystal clear that it almost tempted me in for a swim, but the appearance was sufficient, for a test with the pinkie nearly paralysed me.

Big farmers sometimes regard crofters as being behind the times, but with no more than lime or shell sand, seaweed and dung, we are enriching our land, while they with chemical fertilisers, will ultimately impoverish theirs beyond retrieving. I have tasted some of the produce grown by "medicine" and whether it is grass for beast or cabbages for humans, I think it is responsible for some of the diseases of man and beast. The forced production of eggs is spoiling the hens, and the unnatural milk yield is spoiling the cows. In my grandmother's day the cures for human ills were such as sea water, horn broth and elm bark, and folk lived actively to a great age. The cattle had no more when ill than boiled seaweed or home-made cod liver oil, and half the diseases that keep vets busy today were unknown."

I'm not sure I agree with absolutely everything she says but, as ever with this wonderful little book, we are given a glimpse of an older, more balanced, and possibly wiser age.

Brimstone and Toads

The daily walks with my old dog are very slow these days. I may not be getting the brisk workout that I used to get, but now that I have a fab new camera phone, I get to take photographs of interesting things that we see as we crawl along. I was thrilled today to see a new (to me) moth sitting low amongst the grass. A gorgeous sulphur yellow, I was thus not surprised to identify it later as a Brimstone moth.


I had my phone with me while digging in the garden too, and a lucky thing too. I disturbed this gorgeous toad and, before I had my phone, I'd have had to dash indoors for the digital camera, by which time Toady would no doubt have hidden himself again.


Just look at that fabulous camouflage. You can barely see where the toad ends and the soil begins. I was relieved that I had done no damage with the spade - all his limbs were still there and I enjoyed carrying him (in my gloved hands) to a safer green spot. Toads seem so ancient and wise somehow - much more so than frogs...or is that just me?

Horsetails in a Hurry

It's the damndest thing. In the winter, when there's nothing to blog about, you have all the time in the world to do it; Spring arrives, there is life everywhere, but you are too busy out there working in it and watching it to blog about it. That passes as an excuse for not posting here for a couple of weeks, despite having loads to report.

I still don't have time to write much but I was very excited yesterday to find a new (to me) plant while walking my old dog very slowly up the hill (she now walks so slowly that I have plenty of time to spot new plants and to photograph them, so there are compensations in everything.)



And here it is - it's a horsetail - Equisetum sylvaticum, I think. It took ages to identify it because it is not in any book of wild flowers. That's because it's actually related to ferns, and so does not count as a flowering plant. It propagates by spores, as ferns do.

It's a fabulously exotic looking thing, I think, and it made a (very) slow walk well worth the effort.

Spring Flowers

At last! Some colour in the garden. The daffs are still not fully out - most still tightly in bud. Everyone agrees the season is a couple of weeks later than it's been for a few years. But it is coming - even though there was frost on the ground this morning, it is definitely Spring. The light levels are fantastic, and the days are already stretching way out past eight o'clock in the evening.

And some brave garden flowers are in full bloom. In my garden, that means the primulas and the flowering currant.



Oo! Seeing those photographs has me feeling all poetic. I must look out a poem or two on the wonders of Spring. Stay tuned for the next post...

Not Looking for the Loch Ness Monster

Fed up with the prospect of another Sunday at home alone, I thought I'd take a trundle out to a plant nursery that, considering how close it is, I don't visit often enough. Abriachan Nursery is enviably located on a steep south-facing hillside overlooking the world-famous Loch Ness.

Over the last 25 years, the Davidson family have carved out a tranquil yet exciting garden from native hillside and on a sunny day, looking out over the loch, you couldn't wish for a better way to spend an hour.



It was a mixture of sun and showers, so I spent a soothing half hour only, wandering the many paths of the garden, trying to pick up hints for dealing with my own unsculptured hillside and enjoying the fabulous views.



I treated myself to some primula (Abriachan specialises in alpines)and headed back home feeling refreshed.



Of course, you don't just come to Loch Ness to buy plants. Most people are looking for the Loch Ness Monster, the fabled inhabitant of Scotland's biggest loch by volume. It is very deep - 230 metres at its deepest part - and that is, I think, why people believe that relatively big creatures could live here and yet be seen so rarely (if at all.) If you want to search for him/her/both, you can now do it online, courtesy of this live-streaming webcam. Have fun!

Spring has Sprung!

At last, and a couple of weeks later than last year, I think we can say that Spring has arrived here on the hill. The daffodils are still well short of their peak - most are still in tight bud, but they are going to look gorgeous in a week or two.

The first of the wild flowers have emerged - only just, and I had to look hard to find them, but definite evidence that nature hasn't forgotten how to do it. To celebrate, I have loads of photos to share:


The first plant in flower was some coltsfoot in the ditch outside the house - just one clump, but a wonderful, defiant sunshine yellow.
Next was one of the classic Spring woodland flowers, Anemone nemorosa - again just one clump, but I know that in a few days the ground will be carpeted with them.

The trees here (and the fenceposts and anything that stands still long enough) are covered with lichen. I'm no expert but there are at least three varieties , probably many more. I liked this small branch on a flowering cherry, with a leaf bud just beginning to unwrap, barely noticeable in the forest of lichen.





And here's another branch - on an apple tree this time. I love the contrast between the close-hugging orange lichen and the seaweed-like branching grey one.