Here we are Sunday night, the door is leaking, the windows sprung a leak, waters running down the track and it is blowing a hooley out there. Just back from the new hens and their coop is in a pool of water. That will be the first job tomorrow, move it. The sheep have been let out of the bare fields and are in the forest for the night, best place for them. The lambs looked really miserable to-day.

They have found the central heating lean too and spent a lot of to-day huddled around it.

Looking For Heat

What a difference since last Thursday, flat calm, sunny even warm but frosty at night. Calum, Irene, Arlet and John  duly arrived after a busy day Thursday preparing for their visit. We were going to have a regroup on last years electrical work, look at the Inverters we got at Big Harbour and survey the other projects completed over the winter. After that it was up to the Cabin for a de-brief, with a bottle of Fizz supplied by the Fladda wine cellar.

Christening The Cabin.

We had a very enjoyable hour in the late afternoon sun enjoying fizz and some smoked salmon, even Calum tried some.

Holding Forth

The conversation centred around visitors and it seems Fladda is getting more than its fair share of day trippers, campers/kayakers. The last lot of campers wanted to have a fire!!! You think they would look around or at least read the paper and see the reports of the thousands of acres destroyed by grass/heather fires this spring. At least it is raining now. We retired to the house for a dinner of Cullen Skink, grilled langoustines and Dauphinoise potatos, bread and oatcakes, followed by a cheesecake supplied by the crew of Kestrel. Just to finish it off we retired then to the bunkhouse to see Arlet and John to their accommodation where we polished off a few Highland Parks. Needless to say the next day was a tad dry but ok.

Nothing for it but to get on with the work, I noticed the ‘rescued’ sheep were not around and reminded myself to go and look for them later. Meanwhile I’d left the shed open and found some burglars helping themselves to the feed.

Thieves

Shortly after mid day, Calum took off with the crew and had a leisurely sail to Fladda, testing the radar all the way home with blacked out windows.

Later on after tea I took off out into the outrun to have yet another look for my missing sheep, the visitors at Dry Harbour reported a sheep dead in the water at Dry Harbour but I could not find it. It was a lovely evening with a good sunset, but no sheep. Only Sea Eagles floating about in the late sun!!

The Grassy Cliff

I searched along the cliffs but nothing, it is easy for the sheep to hide but I gave the area a good going over, maybe they will turn up but I am not hopeful. I made up my mind to have a look after the guests leave on Saturday.

Saturday morning was promising with another stunning start.

All Away

With the guests away and no one coming in it was a quick round up and off to the shore at Dry Harbour. After about two hours searching all I found was the debris over the years that we have gathered from the fish farm in Portree. Plenty plastic, nets and floats but no sheep or lambs.

Debris

It was fortunate that a boat did not come in contact with these metal pontoons, or the nets didn’t get tangled in a prop’. With the threat of the forecast stormy weather coming I headed home but as the afternoon headed into evening it was plain that the wind and rain were not too close so I headed South to spy back onto the hills above Big Harbour. Having got half way down South I decided to go and look for antlers, but I had as much luck with them as I had with the missing sheep. But the views were clear especially from the cliffs above Dhu Chamas.

Sheer Drop

Last year the fishing boat crew from the Mhari Bhan reported a hind in the water below this drop, no surprise as it is quite exposed and of course very green and rich with the seabirds droppings helping the growth. During the night the rain came and it was so heavy I woke around 3am. Thinking about the wee lambs out there in the park. So first thing I let them go and they hung about the house getting shelter round the back of it. I was going to go over to Dry Harbour but I got soaked just going up to the garage.

I’m off South to Lorraine’s Mothers funeral on Tuesday, so no blogging for a week. George is over but the forecast is grim, he’ll have fun I’m sure dodging the showers. Just about finished here and maybe not before time, the last gusts have been shaking the house, now that is a nmovelty, the first real storm this winter. I wonder what I’ll find tomorrow.