2015 is just around the corner, fancy an Air An Lot calendar? I’ve printed a few using some of the most popular photos from the past year and I’m selling them for £10. Leave a comment if you’re interested, payment via PayPal.
Here are some of the photos:
So. I bought a quad.
I’ve never had one before but the chicken work kind of forced my hand. Carrying 5-10 bags of feed up to the hens isn’t really an option and the pickup was going to end up damaged if I carried on, so I got this instead.
I’ve done a heck of a lot of spinning around with it – it’s great!
It’s a diesel quad. 2 wheel drive. Not fast but it is exactly what I’m after. Very happy.
I am currently in the middle of the busiest period of work I’ve ever had, and I love it! Full steam ahead right now with getting everything ready for the chickens and the tourism side of things, so much going on and I don’t have time to blog about it all.
Last week I erected my new signage, and I’ve already had lots of nice feedback about that. I bought a portacabin a couple of weeks ago and I hope to have it in place in the next week. I actually had a local contractor, Danda, here yesterday, clearing the site for it.
It is right behind my house, on the site of the original house (latterly a barn) that was on the croft. My parents knocked it down in 2004 as part of the extension had started to come away but I am now majorly regretting allowing this to happen. It would have been PERFECT for what I’m doing now and would have had such a nice story behind it. Anyway, what’s done is done. Danda (from the next village) was actually the contractor who knocked it down initially, so he knew what was in store.
The stones had been left there for 10 years, just in case they’d be handy at some point, which is now the case.
They were an eyesore to be honest, but one that I had grown accustomed to. You’ll notice that there is still a pile of stone behind the site, that’s being saved for the barn I intend to build in the next year. No point getting rid of that stuff if I then need to go any buy more infill later.
The haulage company I intend to use to get the portacabin over from Stornoway have been busy with the Heb Celt Festival, so hopefully they’ll have time this week to move it. Once in place, I hope that one of my Ness FC teammates is going to paint it for me and I’ll get it up to the standard required. One of the two rooms is going to be my egg-packing station for when the 320 chickens start laying. I had someone from Environmental Health cast their eye over it last week, just to provide advice on what I need to do to get it up to scratch. It won’t need too much work or money thrown at it.
The chickens themselves are due to come in the next week. I was initially supposed to pick them up in Inverness on Friday but I’m now going to be in Ireland until Sunday, filming Farpaisean Chon Chaorach. Plan B is now leave Glasgow at 6/7am Monday, pick up the chickens in Lanark, drive home and get the Uig-Tarbert ferry, drop off the chickens at home and play a cup semi-final for Ness at 7pm. I’ll be over the moon if all that works.
My hen house will hopefully be ready in time for this. It has to be! I’ve been badly let down by a timber merchant and my joiner is short of 4×2. If I can’t get them to him early tomorrow, I’m in serious trouble. I’m so lucky I’ve reduced my hours at work though, there’s no way I’d be able to get everything ready otherwise!
There’s also one major piece of exciting news that I’m not allowed to share yet. Hopefully I’ll get permission to do so this week!
Last week I bought a fertiliser spreader and this week I got some fertiliser. What’s left to do? Spread it!
I got home from work last night and got cracking straight away!
The fertiliser itself is available locally in 25kg or 600kg bags. Obviously 600kg is a bit much for me, so 12 x 25 kg bags for me. The spreader could take 10 of them, but I left space to carry the remaining bags in to the section of the croft that I was going to apply it to.
Didn’t take too long either. Can you spot all the baby rabbits here? They’ve made some mess in at the shore end of the croft.
It only took me half an hour. We’ll see how it goes now. I don’t think any fertiliser has been spread on our crofts for a generation! It certainly won’t do any harm!
Here are a couple of pics from inside the cab
While digging out a new duck pond yesterday, Innes found an old horse shoe in the old ‘iodhlann’ behind the house. That’s 2 or 3 I’ve found over the last couple of years, a reminder that it was a different kind of horsepower that was used on the croft.
The duck pond
I’ve also got an old set of what I think are horse-drawn hoe, that my grandfather used to use. They’ve been lying outside for a while so Innes is going to clean them up and paint them while he’s home.
Interesting wee pieces for my new Air An Lot venture!
I write this on Monday morning, as I prepare to head to Uist for a couple of days. I should be finishing packing my bag, but there is always something more interesting to do than that!
It is a gorgeous morning here, probably the best we’ve had so far this year. I’ve fed the sheep and made sure
the hens have enough food and water until I return on Wednesday. Mornings like this make it hard to go to work though
It’s in stark contrast to the weather we had over the weekend; force 9 gales and showers. This was the forecast for Saturday
That didn’t mean a day off though, I still had to feed all the animals, and I also had to move the sheep to fresh grazing.
I walked them down the road and also took them a fresh bale of hay. That’s 4 of my 6 bales gone already.
The lambs also got a feed, along with a bale of silage. They love this stuff, smells so sweet too!
Some of them take it a bit far though…..
I’d better go pack my bag now…..
I had a busy few hours after coming home from work earlyish on Monday. I had ordered 6 big bales from Ironside & Son a couple of weeks ago, and they arrived yesterday. He was supposed to be here at 9/10am, but was delayed until the afternoon due to ferry problems.
Unloading the hay is quite straightforward!
I ordered 6 (for £49 each), while My neighbour, Chops had 4 delivered here and another 2 at his house. I used my tractor to move all the bales onto both our crofts.
The sheep are tucking into their first bales now, while I have the remainder stored in an old garage on one of the crofts. Ready for use in the next few weeks.
I do love a mini adventure on the croft, and that’s exactly what I had on Thursday. I had the day off work so I put some plans into action. I turn 30 today (Saturday) so my parents had been asking me what I’d like for my birthday; having received my croft for my 21st, I thought I’d carry on along the same vein, so managed to get them to agree to buy some implements! I have some plans up my sleeve, which will be revealed in a month or two, and this fits in nicely.
Anyway, myself and my pal Martin jumped in the pickup and headed up to Bragar, to visit the legendary Denis Autos. I’d been up on Wednesday night, on my way home from work, and agreed a price for 3 implements, so it was just a case of picking them up.
First up were a set of harrows. These were far too heavy to lift, so the forklift came in handy.
It didn’t take long getting everything else in; the Buck Rake can be lifted by 2 people, and the chain harrows come apart and are easy to handle. Off we went home with our Deadliest Catch
As a twitter follower pointed out, there is a great potential of some impressive injuries with these implements!
Bragar is about 20 minutes away, so it was no problem taking the stuff home. It was more of a problem getting it out of the trailer, though. My tractor couldn’t hook up the harrows, so we had to give another pal, Stumpy, a call, so he could come to the rescue with his big tractor.
Boys and their toys, I really enjoyed my day. The harrows are behind my parents barn just now.
I plan on using the Buck Rake to move some big bales, so that’s gone straight onto the tractor. Is it sad that this excites me? Heck no!
Quite a lot of the croft needs reseeding soon, so I’ll now be able to get a lot of it done myself!
Today was an extremely satisfying day.
Started off by helping a neighbour, Donnie, take home one of his lambs that had been a bit poorly. A refreshing spin in a tractor trailer is a good start to any day.
I then moved my own lambs from behind my parents’ house to another field, which offers more shelter. Bud helped me move them and I gave them a bale of haylage – they love it.
My ewes are due to be scanned a week Tuesday (11th) and are currently at the bottom of the croft. I took them a big bale today, which should last them until then.
This was the first time in a couple of months that I had the tractor out. I haven’t put it back in the barn, as I fear I may need it to feed the sheep, should we get snow soon. They’re happy enough as they are though.
Last activity on my hitlist was cleaning out the hen house. I’m actually enjoying doing this, now I’ve discovered how good the snow shovel is at cleaning it!
Eggs are coming thick & fast now. Think I had 6 dozen this week and numbers increase every day.
I finally got moving on something I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while: build a barn.
I’ve had the croft for nearly 9 years now and have made do with using my parents’ barn, but it’s not ideal and doesn’t fit in with my long term plans for the croft.
Couple of things to do, gather the quotes required and apply for prior notification for the planning side of things. £74 for that and circa £25,000 for 45×30 foot barn!! Hopefully I will be able to do it for around £10,000, if I become VAT registered and get the 60% CCAGS grant.
Some of my friends are building a house just now, and blogging about it here. Hopefully mine will be much more straightforward!!
Exciting times!
Air an Lot 