Tag: croft

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Woodland croft day

There is a croft not far from here on the Sleat peninsula called Wildlife Croft Skye. It’s a beautiful woodland croft nestled into the hillside at Drumfearn, at the head of Loch Eishort.

Its owners, Phil and Laura, ran a croft walk-around event and discussion about sustainable woodland practices yesterday, and we attended.

Drumfearn and Loch Eishort

Phil had warned that the terrain was a bit steep and uneven in places, and with the event scheduled to run over four hours I confess to nearly cancelling as I was worried that my knees would give out. But I’ve followed Wildlife Croft for years and really wanted to see the croft and learn about how they managed it, so off we went.

Wildlife Croft Skye

It was an overcast and drizzly day, but that didn’t dampen our enjoyment of it a bit. Phil had cut green swathes through the tall grass and undergrowth to create paths so navigating the three hectare woodland space wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared.

This is a green haven for wildlife on an otherwise quite typically barren hillside of island terrain. Trees cover most of the area, the bird and insect life is incredible and their house, polytunnel and bothy (Stonechat Bothy, which is bookable as a holiday let if anyone is interested in a remarkable place to stay) are nestled into the trees and aren’t at all visible from the single track road that snakes through the tiny township down to the sea loch.

Young oak

The tree varieties, mostly native species and many that they have grown themselves from seed, are extensive. Alder, elder, aspen, rowan, oak, hawthorn, birch, beech, many species of willow (grown for Laura’s basket making) and so many others. There are clumps of wild raspberries, blackberries, pignuts, wild angelica, carpets of meadowsweet, wild irises, grasses and wild orchids in abundance.

Wild Angelica with red soldier beetles

They have about fifty apple and pear trees, many of them heritage varieties planted over the last eight years, all growing successfully on a sheltered part of the croft, many already laden with young fruit.

Yes, the trees need managing, and no they can’t be just planted and left completely to their own devices, but Phil’s tree management is light touch, largely leaving nature to do its own thing. And everything seems to find a balance nicely.

We came away re-energised and inspired. This place started just like our croft, a hillside of over-grazed grassland on a steep slope, and now it’s a green oasis for wildlife, providing the family with fuel, food and a beautiful place to live in partnership with nature. If we can achieve a fraction of this we’ll be happy.

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Hedging our bets

One of our neighbours a few miles away is Phil at Wildlife Croft Skye, a woodland croft, and an inspiration of ours.

He and his family have been planting and managing their croft for years now using sustainable regenerative principles and have a wonderful. maturing array of local trees growing on their land. He propagates and grows using locally collected cuttings and seeds.

Recently he advertised that he was offering some of his hedging, shrub and young tree seedlings for sale, and we jumped at the chance to get our hedging started before Spring advanced too far.

Having tree stock generated from locally grown seeds means a good chance that they’ll thrive in our wet and windy conditions, having grown in the same.

We bought a trailer load of cuttings and seedlings so that we could start hedging inside the newly installed deer-fenced area of the croft. The ground is saturated at the moment now that the snows have cleared, making it a good time to dig these in (and slightly less work, although poor husbands back is disputing that this morning!)

This is a good mix of Rowan, Oak, Scot’s Pine, Hawthorn, Grey Willow, Wych Elm, Hazel,
Purple Willow, Downy Birch, Holly, Goat Willow,
Elder, Honeysuckle and Dog rose.

Husband and Phil worked through the rain heroically to clear and plant most of them on the croft yesterday. They’ll eventually provide shelter from the wind for our vegetable beds and the fruit orchard that we plan to plant next spring.

They’ll also most importantly provide a haven for wildlife, insects and birds, and food in the form of holly, elderberries, brambles, rosehips and rowan berries. Bringing this croft back from bare land to a richer, more diverse ecosystem is important to us both, and depends upon this.

It feels good to be taking the first steps towards our ultimate goal of a woodland croft. It’s an enormous task, but we’re determined. Watching David Attenborough on Wild Isles over the last week just reinforces how much we’ve lost already and how important every patch of nature is.

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False spring

We awoke a few days ago to a silent white landscape. Quite magical in its way with the snow blanketing the building rubble in a sanitising coat of white.

White morning

But clearly way too cold to put any tender plants out into the unheated polycrub anytime soon.

We’ve had a bit of a mixed result with our early seed germination, and a further week of late snow here on the island. I think that some of the seeds took one look at the weather outside and thought, no way..

The cucumber and beans raced up to meet the world, but the chillies, kale, tomatoes and lettuce have been more reluctant to emerge into this chilly white landscape. And I can’t blame them.

The locals call February “false spring” as we enjoy gloriously bright, sunny days at this time of the year. It’s quite stunning.

But winter still has the land in its icy grasp and snow in March and April often follows. Plant out at your peril. It’s still frozen hard under those beams of trickster sunlight.

These are still days for big, warming breakfasts, pots of tea by the fire and much watching of the weather from the warmth of the sofa.

Çılbır, poached eggs with yoghurt and peppery butter
Shakshuka for breakfast

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The pantry is Go!

I remember writing about my desire for a pantry three years ago when we were designing the house. Ive always yearned for somewhere dedicated to store food.

When we identified a small area in the house plans that had no natural light and could be used as a pantry, I was there. Who needs another metre or so on their bathroom? This was far more important!

It’s always seemed sensible to me, and even more so since living through a highland winter or two, to have longer term stocks of dried or canned supplies in case of emergency or not being able to get to the shops because of the weather.

Besides, buying in bulk is nearly always more cost effective than in small quantities.

I’ve always been this way. Squirrelling away lentils, flour and dried beans in any spare corner of the kitchen that I could find. Any shelves in proximity to the kitchen not taken up by books have been filled with jars, cans and packets.

This desire has been heightened even further since growing our own vegetables on the croft. It’s true that there’s nothing as satisfying as eating your own organic produce. For the last two years I’ve held back the quantities that we’ve grown because we’ve had no way of storing any surplus.

I’ve been interested to learn about methods of food preservation and follow a number of self sufficiency bloggers in envy as they fill row after row of shelves in their cellars with their own canned produce.

Today was the day. I felt like cutting a red ribbon to launch her! The shelves went in and with lights and power the room is fully functional at last. The pantry is operational!

No small room with bare shelves has ever created so much excitement in a house as this one. I can’t wait to start organising and filling it.

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The Truffle Diaries – incarceration

Dear Diary,

This is day two of my incarceration in this place. My people have left the hapless hound and I in the care of these people for two weeks.

Us in the Time Before

This place that I am imprisoned in lacks basic comforts, despite us being used to caravan space whilst our people build their own home, and I am sorely tried by the lack of high roosting places from which to pounce.

All available high shelf space seems to be full of books, scrabble boards and other such fripperies, all of which are in my way.

The female moved her teapot and seed box reluctantly yesterday to free up a degree of shelf space for me, and I shall of course now never use it.

I have gone through my stand-offish phase and I am pleased to report that the temporary carers are starting to soften up nicely. A few days of lurking under the bed and perching on the edge of the duvet ready to take flight at the slightest movement from them have them nicely under control.

I am not asleep but perched, ready to pounce

Phase two of my plan is now underway. The female seemed helplessly pleased to see me join them for breakfast today, and let me lick a smear of butter off her toast plate, so it will be but days until I have them exactly where I want them.

Not on the bed with Mr Crabby

The hapless hound just frolics with them and offers them his love and his disgusting Mr Crabby toy without thought. The fool. He does not make them work for it.

I shall post when I can. I hope that they will not find these scratchings for some time.

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Autumn fare

This will be our third autumn in the caravan, although we should be in the house at last before winter sets in and so it will be our last.

The tiny caravan kitchen space and mini oven have certainly been a challenge, but it’s amazing what you can do with a bit of ingenuity and a single cake and roasting tin. If I’d thought we’d be here so long I would have packed more.

As the season turns and the evenings get colder, my thoughts for food turn to more autumnal fare. Sausages, roasted squash, chestnuts, warming soups.. and wherever possible recipes adapted to work in a small space with the minimum of fuss and need for utensils.

One of my favourite ways to cook at this time of the year is a tray bake. Last nights supper was sausage, butternut squash and apple roasted up with onions and garlic and finished with honey and mustard for the last ten minutes in the oven.

If I’d picked blackberries I would have added those in too. Next time.

A supper like this is a meal in itself, both warming and filling, not expensive to produce, and most importantly, leaving very little washing up.

Birthday cake for a friend

September is also the month in which many local friends have their birthdays (as well as my own), so for the last year my one square cake tin will get pressed into action.

Next year my baking tins will be unpacked and I will have a proper oven, and I’ll hardly know myself! But for now my offerings are slightly lopsided, as the caravan is not entirely level, and always the same shape.

I hope that they’re well received regardless, baked as they are with love.

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Top barn

The barn build started this week. This is something we wish we’d had the time to do earlier in the process of setting up the croft, but at least it’s going up now!

It was chosen for its strength rather than its looks, as you’ll see from the photos here. Now that the panels are going on it looks like a huge sea container.

Perched atop the windiest part of this exposed hillside it needed to be strong enough to withstand our 90 mph gales without flinching. Two years living on the croft has taught us not to underestimate the winter storms when they come, as they do every year.

This barn is industrially rated for high winds and is constructed of insulated steel panels. As soon as the guys started to put it up it became clear that it was a substantial construction, which is a good thing, and exactly as planned, as the winds here would flatten a lesser building in the first storm.

Big bolts

It’ll serve multiple purposes. Part of it will be a workshop for husbands build and carpentry equipment, part storage of croft produce like potatoes and root vegetables, as well as storage of boxes and spare stuff from the house, and part equipment/car cover with a roll top door at one end.

I can’t help feeling that despite its enormous size that we’re going to fill it…

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Midnight wanderings

It must have been around 2am when I became vaguely aware of my husband getting out of bed. I was in that liminal space of being half awake, half asleep, and thought maybe it was a toilet call, so turned over and snuggled back down under the duvet.

This morning he told me that he had been worried that he hadn’t shut the bottom part of the polycrub door that evening, and was concerned that the sheep would get in and raze everything to the ground.

Realising that he wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he knew for sure, he got up, donned his wellies, and wandered stark bollock naked across the croft over to the polycrub to check.

Not my husbands actual legs

I can only hope that he didn’t scare the wildlife! I was most impressed by his dedication to our tomato crop.

If any late night star watchers were out last night and saw a naked man in wellies wandering about on the hillside, please accept our apologies for any distress caused.

Sheep happily grazing around the washing line after being thwarted from a polycrub invasion

This morning I realised that we didn’t have any fresh bread left in the caravan, so after rooting around for ingredients and inspiration for breakfast, I came up with this.

Huevos crofteros

You’ve heard of huevos rancheros? These are huevos crofteros! Crofters eggs! Tortillas, cheese, egg, spicy fresh tomato salsa. After husbands midnight wanderings I felt we both needed something sustaining.

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Experiments of the vegetable variety

This year has been full of experiments of the vegetable variety.

Tomatoes, red hot chillis, mild chillis, carrots, beetroot

It’s been the first year with the polycrub and growing in containers rather than beds. I started rather late in our short season, as the polycrub wasn’t built until the end of April. All of which meant that my expectations were set at a pretty low level for success.

And those expectations have largely been fulfilled ..

However, there have been a few pleasant surprises. Today I harvested my first cobs of sweetcorn. They’re small, it’s true, and there are only a few of them. But when I planted the corn seeds in May, followed by our largely sunless non-summer I really didn’t think that anything would come of them.

Sweetcorn – yay!

And yet here we are, eating sweetcorn from the croft with our supper. I’m a bit amazed that I’ve managed to produce something so seemingly exotic out of our cold, wet island.

I know that all growers are convinced that their produce is wonderful, but I’m a critical grower, honestly. Our tomatoes have been prolific but disappointing in taste this year and there are some plants, lovingly tended, that have not thrived or produced a harvest worthy of a repeat next year. However, this corn was absolutely delicious, an hour from plant to plate. Sweet and very succulent.

I stand in awe of the tolerance that some plants have for less than ideal environments. It gives me great hope for next years food production which will be in deep beds, fertilised with our own seaweed and croft compost.

A world apart in terms of taste!

Fifty seven degrees north. Who would have guessed!

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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.