Demon sheep and kitchen units

The stock fencing around the croft is ancient and very rickety. We have plans to rip it up and replace it with deer fencing as soon as time and funds permit, but for now it hasn’t seemed a huge priority with the house build taking up all our time and energy.

However, recent events may have promoted fencing repairs to move up the priority list a bit more rapidly.

Yesterday evening Husband noticed some ghostly white shapes through the obscured glass of the caravan door as he was walking through to the bedroom.

Little ghostly white blobs on the grass…

Spectral forms they were not, unfortunately.

Rory’s sheep, tempted by the long, lush grass on our unkempt croft, had broken through the fencing and were chomping away like demons right outside the caravan!

They’ve also grazed all the purple sprouting broccoli, red cabbage and kale in the croft beds down to sad looking stumps. There goes our outdoor winter crops. As if we didn’t have enough competition from the deer!

From now on, until we have the fencing repaired or replaced, all our growing goes on in the polycrub only, where at least there’s some protection from hungry mouths. I’m going to try and sow some replacements, even though it’s late in the season.

On a brighter note, good progress is being made in the house. We have the carcasses being built in the kitchen in preparation for the template guys to come in later in the week and measure up for the worktops.

I can almost imagine it now! The hob arrived yesterday and we’ve just ordered the fridge. It’s taking shape.

Coos on the Croft

It was always going to happen, I guess.

The stock fences surrounding the croft are ancient and rickety at best. They’re on the list for replacement, but we haven’t got around to them yet.

I was making the bed one morning this week in the caravan when I looked up and saw one of Angus’s cows looking back at me from a few metres away. Chewing away contentedly. From by the vegetable beds. On the croft. Not on the hill where they should have been.

It suddenly computed.

The cows were on the croft. They’d gotten in somehow. There were several highland cows and their calves contentedly munching away on the long grass around the caravan.

Images from Hectorshighlandcoos

I struggled on with my wellies and ran outside. They were grazing happily, obviously enjoying the lush pasture of the long grass after the rather more thin pickings of the common grazings on the hill, where the grass is well cropped by sheep and interspersed with clumps of heather.

Husband was working on the house but came quickly, equally surprised. Luckily he spotted Angus and his son on the hillside, and between them they managed to herd the cows towards the gate at the top of the croft and eventually back onto the common grazings.

Highland cows are lovely, shaggy, gentle beasts, despite the horns. Bizarrely, they didn’t touch the vegetables at all, happy with eating the grass.

If we had better fences I’d be happy to have them on the croft occasionally to crop the grass down, but at the moment they’d likely escape onto the road and cause chaos. Angus’s cows are experienced escape artists and well known for bringing the local traffic to a standstill.

First job this week – find some help to repair the fence…