Travels / Strimmer / Courses

Diary

Posted: Monday 3 June, 2019

by Rosemary at 1:16pm in Smallholding Comments closed

Monday 27^th May

Between the fox last week, eating the meat chickens, and crows egg stealing this week, I think Mother Nature is trying to put us out of business. So baffles are in place at the henhouses to discourage winged thieves.

Off to Inverness to take part in some workshops for the EU SALSA project, run in Scotland by the James Hutton Institute. Looking forward to meeting small farmers from Norway and France, and to visiting a couple of crofts, as well as meeting some form from ScotGov, Crofting Commission and Scottish Crofting Federation.

Tuesday 28th May

In Inverness. Tara and Dan in charge here.

Two interesting croft visits – one owner-occupier new entrant working hard to develop markets for home grown fruit, vegetables and salads; one with an inherited tenancy, four sheep and a holiday cottage.

Wednesday 29th May

Home just before 7pm. The weather’s been wet but Dan’s managed to get a lot of strimming done. So much so that the strimmer has died. We bought it second hand nine years ago, so it doesn’t owe us anything. Dan’s ordered a new one, but we’re going to try and get the old one repaired too.

Thursday 30th May

Wet again. Spent most of the day in the office catching up on emails, preparing for the courses at the weekend and doing some Smallholding Scotland / Festival stuff.

Friday 31st May

Moved the cattle into Far Top to eat off the long grass that the sheep won’t touch.

Dan and John-next-door took the trailer to pick up our pews from the local church, which is taking them out and replacing them with chairs to make the space more flexible. The building was put up in 1905; the pews are pitch pine and rather nice. We’ve got three 4m ones and one single seat one. We’re going to cut each of the long ones down into two, to use in the classroom.

Baked for courses.

The new strimmer arrived. Happy Dan!

Shiny new strimmer.