Tuesday night and blowing yet another gale, it is quite fierce out there. After a quieter morning, the fish farm boat passed to-day but fortunate for them they were early in the day because after dinner it kicked off and now……..

Moving In

Been a windy and at times very wet weekend, so wet and windy that we had to move the hens on Saturday. Last year the mink got the hens before the bad weather, all four of them in the first week of December, this year we have caught too many mink and we were unprepared for how dismal the hens looked. Because of the mink and rain in Oct’/Nov’ we moved them up to the house. But due to the gales and persistent rain since then, we had to move them a second time to the poly tunnel. It was lucky we had it.

Crated Up For Delivery

One of the hens sensed the move and disappeared for most of the day but last thing it arrived back, so we moved them and their house up top. George the cat has taken to disappearing too, we can’t find him not that we usually look for him and he’s still turning up for food.

Moving In

The hens  seem to be none the worse for their move and are still providing 4 eggs (most days). But by the time we did that the plan for Saturday was gone, so next day it was up early and into the larder to butcher the hind.

Quality

The venison from this hind was the best and plenty of it. We contacted the local vet Rhona to see if she could find a market for the off cuts,  so this time I had to be a bit more careful with the cuts and saving the bits I usually feed to the crabs or Sea Eagle. Hopefully the pets will enjoy the bones and bags of minced venison. It was fine and sheltered up at the larder but the rain was always coming down when it was time for lunch or to finish for the night. So it was good to have the jeep to take the trays down to the house for freezing. Broken spring or not.

Butchers Van

The butchering took longer than I thought but it was a decent hind, tonight (Tuesday) we finally finished. 92 burgers later we stuffed them in the freezer and called it a day.

92 burgers

In between burger mix and wind we were hoping for a ferry but the forecast is grim right up until Xmas Eve, So to-day we got Calum to collect the mail and himself and Irene will drop it off tomorrow at the Qinetic Base in Kyle to hopefully get it up by helicopter to the Base up North. Tomorrow when the wind drops I’ll head up, with some venison and the mail to go off, then pick up the last Xmas mail. Hopefully the presents have arrived.

Lorraine found George to-day seems he’s made a new bed in the digger!!!

Sitting tight