Wintering

I’m sitting in the caravan on the croft sipping a cup of tea and watching the rain pelt the windows. The sea and the mountains have all disappeared and we are completely enveloped in dense, grey cloud.

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We’ve had three weeks of very heavy rain and high winds to welcome the change of season and remind us that winter is but a blink away.

I honestly don’t mind the rain, and after surviving one highland winter in the high winds I’m much less nervous about the gales. I’ve learned to trust the bags of hardcore and lorry strapping that are holding the caravan down. We may rock a bit in the weather but we haven’t taken off yet..perhaps I shouldn’t speak too soon 😊.

As winter approaches though, the croft is saturated. I dashed out yesterday between rain flurries in my wellies to look at the raised beds, aware that I desperately need to weed and get the autumn garlic into the soil soon.

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But it will all have to wait a little longer. It’s like a quagmire out there. There’s no fighting this weather; we just have to sit it out and grab the moments of respite when we can to start preparing for winter. At least husband can work in the relative shelter of the house on the plumbing, and is warm and dry as he solders pipes.

The composting situation is well sorted though. We visited a neighbouring croft yesterday after a social media appeal to reduce her horse dung mountain. We filled eight big feed bags with well rotted horse poo and trailered them back to shovel into our compost bins. Amazing stuff.

More trips are likely to be needed – we’ve hardly dented the dung mountain at all.. we’re so lucky to have this source of organic manure nearby. It will do wonders for our soil.

As soon as the rain slackens we’ll dress the beds and mulch the soil ready for overwintering. I’m probably going to put the environmesh back on too so that the kale, beets, parsnips, onions and garlic that will remain in the beds over winter can enjoy a bit of protection from the wind. It makes a big difference to the battering that they take.

The stags have been roaring on the hillsides for a few nights now. They do that in October as they compete for dominance and gather their hinds for the winter. It’s quite an uncanny, primal noise, and they’re clearly pretty close by. Next year, deer fencing is a must, before the trees go in.

For now, I’m embracing autumn and the imminence of winter. Tea, books by the fire, clear starry skies and warming drams of homemade atholl brose in the evenings to keep the weather at bay. Yep , the oats and whisky for our first bottle of the season are steeping as we speak…