Red Sky in the morning

Red Sky  in the morning

And a bit later

 and a bit later still , with a bit of snow and a view

 But then the wind  got up a bit ( Storm Gertrude , For what its worth)

And we have horizontal hail here

The Sun is back !

the sun goes behind the hill in the middle of december , so we get no direct sunlight on the house  until it reappears. 2015 was so wet and miserable that we didn't notice. And it came back on the  25th  January  in 2014  .

We can track it as it moved round to the West












And it hits the house as well

and it brightens up the inside of the house




And this time the sheep have noticed as well . The sun just catches the northern bit of the field

BEFORE 

AFTER 

A bit of damage

Weve had gale force winds for the last 48 hours . The Aberdeen Ferry couldnt get to the pier and spent the night 'parked up' in the bay. So 6 hours on the ferry ended up being 20  hours.

there is going to be a bit of a problem getting  things on and off the Eday  ferry , as part of the approach road has been  washed away 

 And weve had a bit of damage ( other than the double glazed window , where the gale force winds managed to force some rain though the frame  - a job for some silicone sealant on the outside when the weather has improved. 

The winds and rain has brought down so much rubbish that the drainage got blocked and  a bit of the drive got flooded .

An old tree was brought down. So thats the firewood for next year,

And a bit of the wall has been blown down . So there is a job for the summer.



So we got off quite lightly really

Bank Holidays and bad weather

not a good combination

Fruit

Newspapers

Milk

but they say it will be better tomorrow 

here is the news about  the sailings 

 

Happier Ducks

In October  we moved the ducks to their new home. We gave them access to some of the pond. Ducks are very messy eaters, and need access to  water when eating ,  and emptying  and refilling buckets was a real hassle. giving them access to water . We  took  pictures of Previous their previous home  and the mess they managed to produce.

They and we are much happier with their new home ( well apart from some of the mud, but we shall wee how it dries out this spring) .  And now we think we can give them access to more of the pond. And we haven't had a lot of rain over the last few days  so it as the opportunity to move things around a bit .

 How it was

So we've move the railings and they have access to the whole pond. By now they are good at going into the run at night. They lay their eggs in the morning  and hopefully they’ve got the idea of laying them in the house. First attempt at moving them and they were laid all over the place. In the intelligence stakes ducks come a bit behind carrots.

 So their new home, with access to all the pond. And if they  dont go walkabout from here , the railings will be replaced by a drystone wall in the spring ( or summer) , or when I get round to it  

Christmas Birds

Back in July we hatched 5 ducks.
Unfortunately 3 of the 5 are males.
There is a problem with this.
Drakes dont lay eggs.
And they have a voracious sexual appetite.
If we kept all the males , the female dusk we have wouldn't have a minutes'  peace.  And we have had  females drowned in the pond as they have been held underwater by the enthousiastic males


So there is sadly  really only one solution to this

Raddled and ready

So we have caught the lucky lad and brought him down from the field. he didn't co-operate -  he clearly didn't know what was expected of him, from the move . And liberally applied raddle to his front.

And we have also separated out the ewes and moved them to a convenient field. They were given some additional minerals ( a drench, as Orkney soil is low in Cobalt and Selenium). A FEC( faecal egg count) showed they didnt need worming.


And the next step is to put the ram in with the ewes. Ewes come to season about every 13-19 days with an average of 17. So the ram will go round sniffing the ewes to recognise when they are fertile



If the ewe isn't fertile, and therefore not interested she will walk  (run) away , so there is a bit of chasing going on initially and the ram tries his luck

And if the ewe is in season, or she isn't quick enough, the signs are there for all to see. 

Once the ewe is pregnant , she will ignore the 'approaches' of the ram.  We change the colour of the raddle in a couple of weeks . If one of them wasn't successfully impregnated first time round  and the ram had to try again , we can spot it. 

And if the ram does the business first time round and with a 147 day gestation the calculators mean we are lambing on 8th May 2016 ( with a range from 29th April to 20th May)