November 2021

 

Welcome everyone to our November 2021 blog. It's a short blog posting this month, probably because it's been a rather wet month and I haven't taken so many photos.

This little fella loves to come and sit with me while I enjoy my morning coffee

Isn't he just adorable ?

Yet another traffic jam in Aultbea while the sheep are escorted to their winter grass.

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This is the underside of the Herdwick sheep fleece rug/throw that I started a few weeks ago, showing the felted "skin".

This is the top showing the longer fibres.

Unlike traditional sheepskin rugs where the animal is killed for it's skin and fleece, this method enables the sheep to live on and grow another fleece for the next few years, everyone wins !!

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This coming Saturday Aultbea is being treated to a filmed live performance of The Nutcracker,

complete with ice creams and popcorn at cosy tables for two,

looking forward to a brilliant afternoon.

Thank you Stan for organising this event.

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Book of the month

thank you Dorje for bringing this book to me, I'm loving it ! ! xx

(from Courtney Be More With Less)

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Tom Gauld is a cartoonist for the Guardian and I just love this one, which one are you ?

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Poem of the month

Are my eyes open ?

The blackest of black.

Nothing moves.

Silence.

Nothingness.

Just am.

Without knowing have I passed from life to death?

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The dog snores at the end of the bed.

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June Purvis

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Pause for thought

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One of my daily pleasures is to say goodnight to pony Zara and sit with her while she munches her way through some hay, in her eagerness she sometimes surprises me over the railing in the shelter and looks rather spooky in the light of my head torch !

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Quote of the month

(from Tao & Zen Facebook page)

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If anyone would like to swim on Christmas Day morning we will be at the Boom Beach at 11am,

you will be most welcome to join us

Wishing you all a calm, peaceful and loving December

🌟

🎄

🎄🎄

🎄🎄🎄

🎄🎄🎄🎄

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

💛💛💛

Malcolm & June & the gang

Welcome to our October 2021 blog, hope it makes you smile

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"ok, I'm coming as fast as I can"

         "I may be asleep but don't steal my carrot ! "

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Around the croft

I don't think we'll go hungry

The beginning of the potato harvest, with lots more to come

and food for free, mushrooms bigger than your hand just for the picking

I love the rain !! especially when it decides to hang around for a while in beautiful places

wow, busy spiders !

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Beach treasures

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What do you think this is ?

answer towards end of the blog

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Quote of the month

"I have lived with several Zen masters -

 all of them cats"

Eckhart Tolle

our Tilly nicely arranged on her felted cushion, very Zen-like

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Poem of the month

To a departed loved one

I thought I heard your voice.

I thought I saw you standing there,

there in the doorway.

I thought I felt your hand touch mine.

I thought I smelt your sweet perfume.

But I couldn't have, could I ?

But I did, didn't I ?

June Purvis

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Book of the month

Sometimes it's very comforting to take a book from your childhood down from the shelves and reread it's pages. 

This one was bought by my lovely Dad from his favourite  bookshop "Foyles" in Charing Cross Road, where he spent most of his lunch hours.

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Pause for thought

"Around us life bursts forth with miracles -

 a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. 

 If you live in awareness it is easy to see miracles everywhere.

Thich Nhat Hanh

(from Tao & Zen Facebook page)

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answer to : what do you think this is ?

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'tis the season to think about buying presents.

With all eyes and ears on Glasgow and COP26, climate change, sustainability and saving our planet choose wisely.

Let us all look at what we are buying;

 is it sustainable?

 does it harm the environment or an animal?

will it end up in landfill in a few weeks time after the initial 5 minutes of laughter?

has cheap/child labour been exploited in it's manufacture?

will it just add to the world's plastic mountain?

is the item really needed?

?   ?   ?   ?   ?

Can we be a part of the solution,

 not part of the problem ?

No matter what governments do or don't do,

collectively the people of the world have the real power

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Some local roadside fun

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Big thanks to Dorje and the Blue Men of the Minch for organising an amazing event with lanterns, beach procession, percussion, poetry and song and mulled apple juice to mark the end of summer and the beginning of winter.

Black Pearl Creole Kitchen

(photo from Black Pearl Creole Kitchen Facebook page)

          and big thanks, too, to Anji and James of 

Black Pearl Creole Kitchen

 (follow them on their Facebook page)

 for the delicious food to come back to after the procession

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Don't forget

 "when it rains look for rainbows, 

when it's dark look for stars"

🌈      🌈      🌈       ⭐     ⭐    ⭐

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Until next month we wish you all a cosy, safe November

Malcolm and June

💜  💜  💜  💜  💜

September 2021

 

Hello everyone, welcome to the blog, what a wonderfully colourful month September is ! Hope you enjoy this month's photos.

You can't blame the geese for waiting patiently for the windfalls, they are delicious !

Our first time for growing sweetcorn, lovely and messy to eat and it makes you take your time eating.

Wilma still makes time for plenty of rest and relaxation

and Wilma's photo made it into the local paper's "pet portraits" pages with their caption 

"wheelie cute", made my day.

Zara has her own fan club, too and Miss B fell in love with her;  good luck with all your plans, we wish you happy adventures !

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(from Scottish Women's Institute Facebook page)

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What do you think this is? Have a guess

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This month we had a great few days away Orkney- island-hopping, there is something for everyone in Orkney

we love ferries

beaches and sand dunes

seals

wide open spaces

geese

harbours

and chimney pots in Kirkwall

The cottage we rented in St Margaret's Hope had a beautiful conservatory with an amazing grapevine

grapes growing in Orkney !!

Wilma is not used to stairs at home, so on holiday she wasn't sure whether it was best to be upstairs or downstairs, big decision

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Fleeces

This month I have come by some lovely sheep fleeces, it was difficult to decide which one to start on

So I started work on a lovely grey Herdwick fleece, to make a lush rug; laid  it out on the grass

 (with the help of Wilma the quality controller)

 and took off the not so good edge bits for washing and carding.

Using an old door the fleece is laid out in the workshop, skin side uppermost

The edge bits of the fleece were washed in an old bath outside and then put through my drum-carder to produce these wonderfully soft "batts"

The soft batts are then teased apart and laid out over the upturned fleece in one direction

a second layer is laid out in the opposite direction

and a final third layer is put down in the same direction as the first

an old net curtain is then laid over the fleece and wetted down

Then come the felting stage, lots of circular motion rubbing with warm water and soap, about 2 hours to felt this size of rug.

After the felting of the "skin"/ underside of the rug comes the "fulling"/shrinking of the felted base; this is done by rolling it up and rolling backwards and forwards in all 4 directions for about an hour.

The rug will have shrunk a bit by now.

Then comes the washing of the rug in the bath, drying it, fluffing it up and then you will find out whether or not the project has succeeded !

Next month I'll show you the final result

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A bit of local roadside humour

love it !

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Autumn colours of this month's seaweeds, glorious!

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Quote of the month

"Be as simple as you can be; you will be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life can become".

Paramahansa Yogananda

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Loads of books of the month !!

Our friends seem to know exactly what books we will enjoy and we love it when they arrive in the post to us for us to enjoy too.

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Thank you Karen and Gary, just what we like

💙💙

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and three more we loved ....

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Thank you Hayley, we're on the same wavelength !

💜💜

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Answer to "What is it?"

Seaweed

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Pause for thought

(taken from Tao & Zen Facebook page)

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So, at the end of another month, we wish you a beautiful autumn full of colour, abundance and joy.

              (from Scottish Women's Institute Facebook page)

💚💚💚 Malcolm and June 💛💛💛

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