Author: Lesley

Reader, baker, crafter, grower, crofter living on the Isle of Skye
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Salad days

Another significant milestone. Our first salad from the croft!

For you rampant food producers out there with your polytunnels, greenhouses and fertile growing beds this is going to seem a bit of a damp squib, but we’ve just cropped our first bowl of salad from the croft and I’m doing my happy dance!

Salad leaves

It’s a mix of endive, red lettuce, red veined sorrel, Uncle Bert’s kale, mint and beetroot leaves. All grown organically outdoors from seed here on the croft.

Other things are growing too in these long, light filled days of summer. I can see a few purple heads of sprouting broccoli emerging, and the potatoes will be ready in the next few weeks.

Parsley grown from seed

The leeks have been a big fail – they’re still tiny and very slow growing. Kales, cabbage, garlic, beetroot, potatoes, herbs, and salad leaves have all grown well. The carrots and parsnips are small yet but time will tell. The globe artichokes are tiny plants, a few leaves apiece, but they seem to be surviving. I’m hoping that they’ll muscle-up and come into their own next year. The berry bushes are establishing. The borage and comfrey are flowering.

Wonderful comfrey

I’m just relieved that it hasn’t all been some monstrous failure. We’ve had one meal from the croft at least!

The key learning so far is exposure. We knew it, but just didn’t have the time to do it. We need to get windbreaks up and hedging in this autumn before the main growing season next year.

Small milestones on our journey. Forgive a woman’s unseemly crowing.

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Long days filled with light

For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere we are approaching the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year.

Beautiful pink evening light on the Sound, photo by Tricia Petri-Clark

On this day at this latitude we have daylight for eighteen hours, and it never really gets dark.

The significance of the Summer Solstice is two-fold: it’s the lightest time of the year but at the same time it’s also the moment at which the year turns to ever shortening days. A bit bitter-sweet, I’d say. Just as we’re celebrating the light we’re also recognising that it’s on its way out.

I’m holding on to these long, light filled days, though. I wake with the dawn at 4.30 am. There seems little point forcing it, so I relax and watch the often rosy dawn diffuse across the sky from the comfort of our bed. I don’t want to wake my husband who is asleep next to me, so I don’t leap out and do something productive. I just relax, read a book, the news, or blogs until it’s time to get up. It still feels like a guilty pleasure not struggling into the shower and work clothes, to be honest. The day stretches ahead of me like a purring cat.

I love this time of year. This is a first for us up on the island in June. Everything is green, lush and growing. The skylark and cuckoo calls fill the cool morning air and I’m reminded that even though the house is far from finished that we are very lucky to be here, just breathing all this in.

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The visit

It’s been nearly a year since we saw family, with the stepsons being based in Manchester for university and work.

At last one of them has been able to make it up here to the island and we’re enjoying sharing this amazing place with them.

I’d forgotten the effect that Skye can have on someone when they visit for the first time.

It’s been over twenty years since I first came here, and although the grandeur and beauty of the landscape doesn’t diminish, its impact becomes less over the years as its mountains and seas become more familiar. You forget that first, overwhelming intake of breath when the magnitude of this landscape hits you for the first time.

Rainshowers

Much as we do our best to convey the magnificence of place through our posted images, nothing can match the sense of being here physically, the wind in your hair, the rain on your face and the spirit of the island embracing you with its rawness. And there’s been nothing BUT rain over these past few days, sadly.

Amazing skies

It’s been remarkable to watch this sun-loving city dweller suddenly “get” what has made us want to build our lives here in this remote place. I know they both think we’ve gone a bit mad, but as we’ve travelled around over the last few days the sheer draw-dropping beauty of the island (albeit glimpsed through gaps in the rain) has definitely started to take hold.

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Bread of the Gods

We are very blessed on this part of the island that despite there being no bread bakery within many miles we have two wonderful assets that between them keep us supplied with the Bread of the Gods.

Mallaig Bakehouse bread

The first is the Mallaig Bakehouse on the mainland. The ferry brings its fabulous sourdough loaves over with it three days a week on the morning sailing, and we can buy them at the local community store. You have to be quick though, as they invariably sell out within the first hour of delivery.

I love that the normally sociable neighbours who stop for a chat at the shop tend to make a very determined beeline for the bread baskets to ensure that they’ve scored their purchase before any kind of relaxed blether. Surely the mark of a divine bake..

The second source of our bread gratitude is that of our lovely neighbours Jonny and Beth. Jonny bakes a fabulous sourdough, deeply crusty and satisfying.

Delectably wrapped bread from Jonny

We’ve been fortunate enough to be the recipients of a couple of his bread bakes. They arrive as unannounced gifts, beautifully wrapped in layers of greaseproof paper, neatly secured with twine and rustling with anticipation.

Our latest surprise was a toasted oat loaf, and it was simply delicious. The crust is deeply baked, crackling and savoury, just as we like it best, and the bread is chewy, yeasty and satisfying.

Unwrapped toasted oat sourdough

There is something so warming and fundamental about the gift of home baked bread. As a baker myself I know how much time and love goes into the creation of a sourdough loaf, which makes it all the more wondrous. Its doubly appreciated as I’m unable to bake bread in the caravan.

Great Bread!

Thank you, Jonny and Beth, for being such kind neighbours and for the gift of this most delicious of breads.

I think I’ve found potential use number 456 for the little barn on the croft after restoration. A village bakehouse! What do you think, guys? 😊

Potential bakehouse/coffee/reading/craft room…
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Buttercups and Beetles

What a glorious day. The croft is bursting with weeds (aka wildflowers) and we love it. We have buttercups growing in thick profusion next to the vegetable area, and it’s just so beautiful.

I couldn’t help have a bit of an ironic chuckle to myself today too. About two years ago we sowed pignut and bluebell seeds in the little copse on the western boundary before we moved onto the croft.

Now that we live here, we can see that we have a profusion of both popping up all over the croft. There was no need to sow them – they’re growing everywhere here naturally. The impatience and innocence of townies. All we had to do was wait and watch…

Pignuts!
Hawthorn tree in full bloom

This is a beautiful time of the year here on the croft. Everything is in bloom, and the insects (sadly including the midges) are everywhere. It’s a price we’re prepared to pay. Anyway, we’ve got hats and nets…

We wake up each morning to the cuckoo, the skylarks and the swallows wheeling overhead.

I’d got so used to hardly ever seeing insects in the city that it’s been a bit of a shock to find ourselves cohabiting with so many at such close quarters. Weevils, oil beetles, lacewings, strange, alien looking creatures that we don’t know are friend or foe, but which have at least as much right to be here as us.

Google lens and plant apps are being used daily. This is richly diverse meadow and moorland, and we’re loving learning about it.

Oil beetle

The house build continues apace, with plasters and plumbers being lined up to help over the coming months, but it’s very hard not to get seduced into just being on the croft.

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Hot, hot, hot

The weather here on the island has been very hot over the past week. The caravan has suddenly transformed from fridge to oven..

The temperature gauge inside recorded 26 degrees centigrade yesterday, and that’s uncomfortably warm for us. Especially when opening windows to try and catch a breeze results in swarms of midges coming in off the croft…reminder to self, we must get some midge netting fitted to the windows.

The seedlings however are loving it. Uncle Bert’s Kale is growing madly, the potato plants are all greening up nicely and I have my first bean on my borlotti bean plant!

It was too hot to cook indoors yesterday and we were too tired to summon up a BBQ, so we headed down to Camuscross early to try and get a table for a cold drink and some supper. It’s so good to be able to do that again now that lockdown has eased.

There are worse places to be on a hot June evening… This time last year we were in London… I know where I’d rather be.

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The Screen Machine

Our first trip out after lockdown and it was to a mobile cinema in a lorry called the Screen Machine.

The Screen Machine

This amazing creation houses extention “wings” that spread out on either side of the truck to house a small cinema. It travels throughout the rural communities of the Highlands and Islands bringing films to the masses.

Taped off seats for social distancing

Social distancing restricted its capacity to about 20 people, with lots of space between the rows. There was a lot of attention to cleaning and we had to keep our masks on, so despite my initial concerns that it might feel unsafe, it felt fine.

We saw Nomadland, which we loved. Such a powerful film. Such a commentary on modern life and those that can’t or don’t want to fit into our construct of “normal” living. It seemed especially appropriate to be watching it in a lorry..

The bridge to the mainland

As we left the cinema the last shreds of sunset were visible over the sea at Kyleakin, and we returned home, tired but happy.

Loving life on this island.

Us

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We have warmth!

Ha ha! Happy faces! The sun has returned! The air and the soil have warmed up and as I speak we have blue skies and a soft, warm breeze.

It will be the midges soon, but I’m hoping that being at the top of a hill with more wind than most that we’ll escape the worst of them. We’re prepared, just in case – I’ve bought midge hats and nets so that if we do get bombarded we have a fighting chance of avoiding being eaten alive whilst we run back to the caravan.

Impromptu BBQ

We had an impromptu barbecue last night to celebrate the lovely evening. These shots were taken at about 7pm. As the sun dipped behind the hill at the back of the croft at around 10pm it started to get colder, and we wrapped up in blankets and added a bit more wood to the fire.

The birds are singing, the sun is shining, and husband has thrown open all the doors and windows in the house whilst he is working so that it cools down.

I don’t want to count my chickens, but it seems like summer has come at last…

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Sunshine & seedlings

After a very long, cold May we’ve awoken to warmer temperatures and sunshine at last.

Sunrise over Sleat

This photo was taken by one of our lovely neighbours from the hill above the croft whilst out on a 5am run this week. Not a sight I’d have been awake enough to capture. Thank you, Jonny.

The sun is rising before 5am now and not setting until around 11pm, giving us long, soft, light-filled days. We have another month to go before the summer solstice, so there’s more to come. It’s already not fully dark at nights and the long, light evenings on the croft are magical, if a bit chilly up till now.

Raised beds on the croft

We have cuckoos and swallows, linnets and skylarks, bluebells and wild garlic in the hedgerows. Suddenly everything is bursting into green leaf, and it’s feeling at last as if we’re on the brink of early summer.

First day of exposure! Shallots, beetroot, red veined sorrel and garlic

I’ve taken the mesh off the vegetable beds today to get a proper look at what’s survived through this very dry, cold spring. Some things are looking very sad for themselves (leeks, lettuces I’m looking at you) but others seem to have pulled through quite robustly (full marks red cabbage, kale, beetroot, potatoes, purple sprouting broccoli and shallots).

Taunton Deane kale, red cabbage and onions

Let’s hope that summer is on its way at long last!

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Herbage

I’ve been keen to grow as many herbs as possible.

We use lots of fresh herbs in our home cooking and they’re relatively expensive to buy from the small supermarket locally here , IF you can get them. Anything beyond parsley, mint and floppy-leaved basil doesn’t seem to make an appearance.

Tashkent mint

We use tons of mint, dill, parsley, chives, thyme, rosemary and coriander, so it makes sense to grow it on the croft if we can.

Flat-leaved parsley grown from seed

Mine has definitely been the innocence of the novice. I germinated flat-leaved parsley and mint from seed here in the caravan spare room in March.

Each is an incredibly slow process at 57 degrees north, and it was only after struggling for months did I read that almost nobody grows mint from seed as it’s so much easier to propogate from cuttings…ah well. We live and learn.

Peppermint seedlings after three months of snails pace growth. The spearmint is even tinier..

I’m hoping it will all be easier once we have the polycrub in place. Next season. Meanwhile, we’ve had some other successes – the lemon thyme and dill have grown well.

Dill the Dog

Onwards and upwards! At last I’m going to plant out the mint, borage, rosemary and dill. The last frost date has passed and as soon as the rain stops, they’re going out.

Borage

I’ve been hardening them off, of course. I’m not going to throw them to the wolves like Spartan Mothers leaving their babies on the hillside overnight to see if they can survive on their own. Not quite. But it’s time that they manned up. Or womanned up. Whatever.

They’re going out.