Send slate, now!

We’re sliding increasingly quickly into autumn: the swallows keep a low profile or have already left; bracken is browning and starting to subside; ling and bell heather are flowering; days are shorter and last night at three I caught my first glimpse of Orion. The year’s excellent blackberries are gone, the remaining fruit soft and watery or solidly unripe; the birches already gold flecked. Foraging for fungi I repeatedly mistake the glint of a fallen birch leaf for a chanterelle, of which there are plenty; a bumper year.

Favouring Saturday’s forecast over Sunday’s Tash drove us round the peninsular to Loch Caolisport (Killisport), a deep coastal bay, passing two cyclists who’d stopped to photograph a seal on a rock doing its best banana impression. The electric car is a delight, quiet, smooth, responsive and, unlike me, free of emissions. As usual we left the car at St Columba’s cave (one of his many), walked the B-road to its end, then took the estate track winding up and over towards Loch Sween. Early on we found a few mushrooms and, to avoid carrying and maybe damaging them, stashed them in the bushes to await our return. After the first main climb away from the loch, the track levels and you pass a couple of moorland lochans away on the left, then on the right, next to the track, a picnic table sheltered in a little scoop in the hillside. At the top of the scoop a rowan leans out, towards the table, at a wild angle. Fresh chunks of stone have tumbled from where its roots were shaken by the last big storm, coming to rest a metre or two from the table where, before settling, you do an involuntary and almost subconscious risk assessment.

The nearest lochan is almost round, edges fringed with sparse reeds and lily pads round a centre of clear water. As the wind gusts across the lochan, the lily pads lift and stand on edge, a frieze of neat semi-circles at right angles to the water’s surface and as the gust chases away they lie down again.

We wanted to branch off the metalled track to follow our new, more pleasant route to the sea, via the ruined hamlet, if the bracken wasn’t too much – and mostly it wasn’t.

After poking round Stronefield’s first couple of ruins Tash suggested that instead of heading down to the sea we climb to the bealach between the two fairy peaks to see the hidden lochan that used to provide the village’s water. Great idea, it’s been on the list for some time. The bracken was thicker than elsewhere and I stopped every few minutes to brush tiny crawling ticks of my trouser legs.

We followed a small burn up to Lochan Sithean Bhuidhe (lochan of the yellow fairy hill), the burn constantly audible but, somewhat disconcertingly, invisible even when we were in danger of stepping into it. Except for a low spot, where the burn escapes, the lochan is closely surrounded by crags and full of lilies; it must have been spectacular when they were flowering. To get an overview we climbed the nearest of the crags and, without the effort of going on as far as the highest point, reached a good vantage point, a smooth prominent rock the size of a large SUV only less offensive. On the western horizon the Paps rose into cloud, above the sound of Jura while peeping over the mainland nearest us were the tops of the MacCormaig Isles.

Building:

The verge round the house is complete, or would be had I not run out of slate chippings.

As the workshop needs the same treatment I’ll get another bulk bag but when the last one came (in the spring) the driver said he couldn’t deliver again unless overhanging branches were cut back from the track. It was quite a bit of work and I cut it all back, the vigorous young birch, willow and alder, but it’s been a great growing season since then. Now we’d again be in danger of the driver refusing to come up the track, so Tash and I got to work. The little Stihl folding saw (160mm blade) is a tremendous tool, extraordinarily sharp and handy in confined spaces. My bow saw was redundant, secateurs being the only other tool needed. As of today I’m waiting for Jewson to tell me the width of their delivery lorry and the height of the mirrors so I can check whether we’ve done enough.

Reclaiming a clearing: with the same tools plus my scythe, I moved from the track to the level plot next to where the bell tent stands. Originally, and again now, we thought this might be an orchard and one winter kept the sea kayaks there, though the rushes were already getting a bit out of hand. Now the space was a mass of brambles through which sprouted a forest of goat willow saplings up to four metres tall. Rushes not killed by the shade were almost a metre tall. As well as this new jungle the surrounding trees had grown out over the space and a tall wild hedge had sprung up beside and over the track-side ditch, hiding it from view. This increasing lack of visibility made the space hard to imagine.

With scythe, secateurs and folding saw, I quickly built impressive piles of brash and now hope I can borrow a chipper to turn felled willows into useful mulch for the garden-to-come

Reclaiming the clearing took an afternoon and a morning and then I rediscovered an adjacent heather-topped ridge. It too was in danger of disappearing under trees but is too beautiful and particular a habitat to lose.

I ‘finished’ reclaiming the clearing the next day, turning a substantial and space-hungry multi-stemmed willow into two barrow loads of logs (chainsaw added to tool-kit), but left its neighbour which is growing on the bank – it’s more out of the way and serves as a notional divider between the bell tent clearing and the newly reclaimed orchard.

Duties: according to the rota I recently drafted it’s my turn to make monthly checks on the water treatment shed, tanks and pumps, though I don’t know what I’m meant to do when I look at the two pumps… I scythed the path up to the storage tanks on the hill and before positioning and climbing the ladder to look in on the float valve I put my camera on a rock in the grass. Stooping to put it down I noticed blue jewels shining…

My scatological interest continues; I couldn’t tell whether the iridescent shell fragments are from one big beetle of several smaller ones.

I was wrong; the good blackberries aren’t over and I’ve been grazing as I work.

Electricity… you didn’t tel me! I’m surprised that no one reacted to my recent blog by telling me what a poor deal we were getting (four pence a unit for exported electricity) and how there were far better tariffs available. True and not true. The dumb meter made us ineligible for a better tariff but, now the meter is ‘smart’, we have signed up for a tariff paying us fifteen pence. That’s twice as much as a unit will cost us for charging the car, charging the house battery etc at night. That’s much more like it!

Now where’s that battery…