Limpy the Duck

but the limp is improving. A few days ago she couldn't manage across the  field without a little sit-down half way

Skating in Orkney

It doesn't really snow here - too windy and too close to the sea. But we do get a lot of hail  - blown in on strong winds.  At a distance (see above) it really looks like snow on the hills. But close-up its not , its mostly hail.
Thats OK, as long as you aren't walking into it.  But if it then rains on  gtound , covered with hail, it becomes very slippery. 




So we are a bit housebound by the  ice on the drive

 And the sheep  - well the Borerays are ( or should be) used to it, so they get to stay out with some hay - the grass is also covered by a sheet of ice.

 but the Gotlands, limited for the moment to the hard standing are inside - they are too stupid to avoid the ice so try and walk over it and fall over. I wish i had the video !

Shortest day

 
The days are appreciably shorter here than in 'the deep south' ( ie London)  and when we have it , the sun doesn't get much higher than this, looking south.
And the data to prove it

Sunrise in London is 8.04 am. Here it is 9.04 am
Sunset  in London is 15.53 and here is 15.15

So that is an hours' less potential sunlight in the  morning and 38 minutes in the afternoon.

But if you were in Unst, the most northerly Island in Shetland , its even shorter

Its English, Jim, but not as we know it

And i came across this this - the Lords Prayer in 11th Century English . Its got an Orcadian lilt to it .

Horizontal hail

there was a bit of a fuss about the 'Weather bomb' that hit the UK last week. It affected mainly the Western Isles , but we got a bit of bad weather. The Radio Orkney facebook  page collected some  weather pictures . The most dramatic one is probably this

 I suspect  it was at Yesnaby, the west-facing cliffs of mainland Orkney.
So the weather bomb was been and gone and we are back to the usual winter storms in Orkney.  At the start of the week we had some wind and snow and ice and the ferries were off . That too has gone by and its back to normal.

So its a bit windy today

60-70 mph gusts

 Gusts of 60-70 mph.if yo click on the image it will enlarge.  But 60-70 mph winds here don't get a mention in the paper or the news.
When its like  this with an electrical storm on top we do tend to lose the electricity supply. Usually just for a few minutes at a time but occasionally longer, particularly overnight.  And this plays havoc with thing with timers in that havent got  backup batteries- alarm clocks, ovens, VCRs and desktop computers etc. So you just leave it until the storm has gone by.

We dont really get snow - its hail that settles. We've tried to get pictures of sheets of hail falling horizontally but haven't found a way . this is about the best we can manage. The hazy bits  is the hail  getting blown across from right to left.

the sheep have got the idea though - we put up some windbreaks on the fields and the make use of them by getting out of the hail

Winter 2014

We had a bit of a storm at the start of the week

but that wasn't  too bad - the boats were off but not the planes . Radio Orkney facebook page is the best source of information for this sort of thing

the wind has gone , but we have a bit of snow .
The water around the place all had ice on it , so a forceful welly meant that  the animals would be OK

 The sheep and hens arent too bothered  by it all.

It's an A Road

We dont live at the back of beyond - we live on a major trunk road -the A966 from  Norseman to Dounby. The road sign at the junction says so.  And there are other examples travelling up the of the A966  here. Its a trunk orad after all. And there are lots of passing places


there was a major accident on the main Finstown to Stromness road, which led to it being closed and all the traffic was diverted along the A966. So  a steady stream of traffic was going upand down the hill in the course of an evening .  And not everyone is as patient as they should be . And they have between them nad e mess fo the verges as they squeezed past each other.

And all the mud over theroad - nut never mind there has been enough rain  to sort the problem out. it would have served someone right if the had ended up in the ditch and needed to be pulled out.

So with the Lyde closed as well as the main road, that would have caused some chaos

High Down 11

For a number of years I've had  a passing interest in the Criminal Justice system.
I was a member of an Independent Monitoring Board , and regularly visited a prison and spoke to inmates and staff and contributed to a series of Annual Reports. The 2014 reports from every prison in the UK can be seen here .I've also remained an Associate member of AMIMB, the Association of members of IMBs, and for my £20 /year receive the quarterly publication , Monitor.

In various places (including the November 2014 issue of Monitor)  but not an any of the main newspapers there have been a number of reports of the  

High Down 11 .

 11 inmates refused to go back their own cell when instructed by prison staff.  They barricaded themselves into a cell and committed an offence under Section 1 of the Prison Security Act (1992), 

“....when two or more prisoners, on the premises of any prison, engage in conduct which is intended to further a common purpose of overthrowing lawful authority in that prison. The offence is aimed at behaviour intended to make a prison, or part of prison, ungovernable.”

When the accused prisoners were told to go into their cells they responded:

“F*** off, we want our association, we are not going behind our doors”.

 They then barricaded themselves into one cell for over seven hours. They pushed a note under the door

‘The reason for these capers is we are not getting enough food, exercise, showers or gym and we want to see the governor lively’. and were ‘........not getting any association and [were] banged up like kippers’.

 They offered to end their protest if they were given ‘mackerel and dumplings’ to eat. this went to a 3 week trial. Called to give evidence was the Governor , Ian Bickers.  He outlined the pressures prisons faced because of a Whitehall regime which enforces austerity.

Anyway the jury decided unanimously to acquit the 11 defendants.   Presumably they thought it was a legitimate protest about the conditions and the Governments' austerity packages. 

 So Grayling, the worst Prisons Minister anyone can recall, thought that teaching these prisoners a lesson in court rather than using the internal disciplinary processes,  would be a good idea, has has a kicking thanks to the jury. 

 There is a more considered  insiders view of the whole business from Alex Cavendish and on the politics.co.uk website

Fraser gets his chance

So the time has come ,and Fraser , the Gotland ram, has been let out of the barn and into the field  with the Gotland eyes.  He was raddled  before being let into the field.













Anyway he was clearly keen  as he spotted the ewes  higher up the field .

Sadly they didnt seem to be as keen  as he followed them round the field.   

Farewell. trusty friend

After 31 years , I've had to say farewell to a tried and trusted friend.  The  power cable became frayed and shorted through onto the frame of the drill.
And in addition it think I need  something that is battery powered and therefore usable round and about .

So farewell  Black and Decker H264 ( it didnt have a name )

RIP : Andrew and Albert

After what appeared to a be an improvement after a course of Flubenvet, and he ventured out by himself

 Albert the drake  took a turn for the worse and  has sadly departed to the great duck pond in the sky.

Likewise Andrew the Cockerel. a cheeky little bird who went around with harem of bantams. Unfortunately  going around with them was all he was ummmmmm up to  as far as the hens were concerned. After an improvement after his coughing as documented in September and he was able to get out and about.
He was his usual crowing (well, squeaking) self  in the morning and then found dead in the corner of the run in the afternoon. 

So RIP Andrew 

Fraser, Milton and 3 more

The time has come to go and get some more sheep from 'down South' - ie anywhere south of Wick. The ferries run at different times at the weekend , so this time it was a 9am sailing from Stromness. 9am sailing means the last check in 830 am and the Ferry terminal is about 10 minutes drive from home, so allowing some time for congestion (!) we leave home a bit after 8am . And we arrived at the Stromness terminal in daylight (still).

And the crossing was in daylight , so we went past Hoy. The hills of Hoy were in cloud








So far , so good.  Then a drive south, this time to Ardgay. It not as long and tortuous as going to Lochinver. And most of the road is dual carriageway












Having got there , Fraser is a Gotland ram , who in due course will go with our newly-acquired - and a subsequent blog post - Gotland ewes who will again in due course , produce some Gotland  lambs. Milton is a wether (castrated ram) , or wedder in Orcadian.  And there were 3 gimmer boreray ewes as wel that we were picking up.

A bit of deft reversing ,

  and there were Milton and Fraser, ready to be 'encouraged' into the trailer.
 

Fraser

Milton

All that was needed was to partition the trailer and make space for the  other Borerays and we were off .

Bede, the Boreray

Berriedale Braes remains challenging with a  loaded trailer .  So an uneventful 7pm crossing (in the dark)  and we were home.

The Borerays were put in the barn overnight and Milton and Fraser given the run of the trailer

Borerays - barn

The next morning the ram was put with the other wedders in the field and the young ewes  separated off with the other ewes . Tupping the Borerays comes a bit later

  Milton , meanwhile was eager to explore his new surroundings. 

 

 So he ws encouraged to go into the barn.  And he will be here for a  wee while whilst we sort out suitable dates for lambing the Gotlands by reference  to a lambing calendar