Fencing.

June started with a power cut (affecting most of the Western Isles this time) and so I thought it would be a useful time to sit down with a wee dram, put on some Fleetwood Mac, and write this months croft update. That was a month ago. And I’m not quite sure where June went or when July arrived, but here we are closer to August than the day I started writing this!

It has felt like the croft has been neglected as my time is heavily weighted towards serving my new customer base.  As word has spread I am busy enough to need (and so have purchased) a larger van, but that comes at the expense of time spent not improving the croft.  I discussed this with another crofter and came to the conclusion that the croft jobs might have to become next years croft jobs.  Looking at my list it was rather ambitious for year one anyway, but looking at my photo album a lot has changed in only been nine months.

One of the jobs nearing completion is the first phase of the fencing. The apiary is now fenced and the area behind the house is almost ready for the Rylock (wire stock netting) to be installed. Putting the strainer posts in around the apiary went surprisingly well, with the ground being relatively easy to dig and with the help of a friend quick work was made of setting out the boundary. This was not the case for the posts behind the house. Not only was I alone for setting these, it was like digging on a different croft. Everywhere I put the spade I hit rock, and not the kind that could be pried out and removed. Beneath the shallow layer of topsoil was bedrock and it wasn’t going to be possible to sink the posts the metre or so required. I’ll get around to finishing this section next week.

For now the old fencing and rotten posts leading down to the house have been removed, and the new gates and rylock give a much tidier and functional layout. It’s also stock proof (in that it’ll keep the sheep out of the apiary) but it was never going to be spaniel proof. Old Red has certainly earned its’ keep this month, carrying all of the tools and materials, tensioning the fence, and making easy work of pulling out all of the old fencing – a very satisfying job!

Flowers.

One of the reasons for keeping the sheep out the apiary is to let the wild flowers thrive for the benefit of the bees and other pollinators. Since strimming back the rush earlier in the year the wildflowers have produce a wonderful meadow like pasture across all of the areas I cut. Once autumn comes and the flowers and thistles have seeded I’ll let the sheep in to graze and regenerate the ground ready for next springs growth. It’ll be interesting to see how this changes each year, and what new flowers appear as the soil is disturbed and fertilised. I doubt I will ever clear the rush, but think that regular cutting and grazing should keep it under control and let the other grasses and flowers thrive.

Inspired by Season 5 of Clarksons’ Farm I went and bought a Lamborghini tractor – not really –  it would be “properly useless” here.  I did download the Merlin Bird App though and have started to identify the birds on the croft.  The noisiest and most persistent of which is the Meadow Pipit.  Quite a little character when you take the time to stop and watch it.  There are also Eurasian Skylarks, Common Ringed Plover, Song Thrush, and Chaffinch. The Sea Eagles don’t make much noise but I don’t need an app to identify them. I also saw a Golden Eagle recently, on my way to a job just 10 minutes from here. An impressive sight as it lifted from the post and flew across the road in front of me.

I have also started documenting the wildflowers found on the croft and have added a gallery below.  There is a lot of biodiversity on the croft already.  Many different species of flowers and grasses, insects and mammals, from butterflies and moths, toads and deer, various bumble bees, and of course the rabbits.

Ferries.

It had been a year since I left boarded a Calednonian MacBrayne vessel and crossed the Minch bound for the mainland. I hadn’t wished to leave the island nor felt like I needed to but June and July saw two trips on board the Loch Seaforth from Stornoway to Ullapool.

The first took me as far as Elgin, an hour past Inverness, to collect my new van. They wouldn’t deliver and I needed to take mine for the part exchange so it was all aboard for a quick there-and-back on the same day. No time to visit the retail parks, grab a Maccy-D’s or do any of the other crap I wouldn’t do if I lived on the mainland. Breakfast on the ferry, a quick stop at a forestry carpark, and dinner on the ferry. The following morning the van was loaded up with gear and put straight to work. The memory of dual carriageways quickly forgotten and me looking for the “lane assist OFF” button as I was back to single track roads.

The second trip a few weeks later took me an hour North of Ullapool to collect two more nuc’s of bees (which was the reason for my other departure from the island in 2025). No dual carriageways here, just some good memories of places I used to visit on my holidays, and what encouraged me to explore further and further North-West.

I was joined on this trip by my friend Dave from Croft Seventeen Lemreway. It was to be a grand day out for him, and one he was excited for. He was collecting a box of bees for their new woodland apiary at Croft Seventeen and promoting their newly published book “Our New Crofting Life”, available from the Island Book Trust. I haven’t actually spent any time looking around Ullapool as I usually time my journey to arrive just before the last check-in (and often out of season), but with my tour guide I actually found there was plenty to do, from exploring the independent shops (including several book shops) to enjoying coffee and cake in one of the fancier hotels.

There shall be more about the bees and that journey in my next beekeeping update but I’m please to report they survived their journey and are now installed in their new home, one at Croft 5 and one in Lemreway.

When I moved onto the croft I was gifted a lawnmower. Another Honda, probably as old as the quad bike (or older), but I’ll name it Junior based on it’s size. Saying that, it’s probably got the same horsepower as Big Old Red! It needed a pull cord mechanism and a sharpen up, but an hour and £16.99 later it was chugging away and cutting nicely! I’m happy to let the grass and flowers grown in the meadow, but as the croft progresses with fencing and gates marking out defined areas it’s nice to have an area marking out the house and garden. Of course the clippings will add plenty of green stuff to the layers of my compost bin. It’s a good bit of kit, making easy work of the lawn and obviously built to last.

So that’s about it for this croft update. There will be more to come in the beekeeping update shortly, but to sum up the last six weeks on the croft in just three words: Fencing, Flowers, Ferries.

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