The Croft

We have arrived on Lewis (on Wednesday really, but who is counting). We are staying at a farm called Ravenstar, which is just north of Stornoway (in a town called Back).
It is a beautiful traditional croft, surrounded by other crofts, right on the ocean. There are lots of fabulous animals here. I shall list them all for you (for posterity)

• 2 mamma goats; Cinnamon and Gust
• 5 baby goats; Barney, Benjamin, Boris (who are all off to the butchers on Monday, poor things), Borage, and Basil.
• 2 mama pigs; Henrieta and Penelope
• 4 baby pigs (who are nameless as they are destined for the dinner plate).
• 3 cows; Star (the skittish girl), Ginger (the big boy), and Chocolate (who is a baby and really is the colour of chocolate) .
• 3 ducks, (who are nameless for no reason, perhaps because they don't actually earn their keep here as they lay no eggs).
• Far to many chickens to count (though there is a broodie hen of interest who is sitting on a clutch of eggs at the moment).
• A herd of shorn sheep who are out in pasture, so we never see them.
• 3 sheep who refuse to be sheared, who are also destined for the dinner plate.
• 1 cat; named Shiva, who, despite protestations to the contrary, is not allowed in the house.

We feed and water all the animals every morning and evening (which takes far less time than one would assume). We both attempted to milk the goats, but neither of us have the skill nor practice to be effective at it and the goats were not appreciative of the attention. There is a market garden further down the croft that we have spent a day tilling in the paths (which was good hard work). Today it has rained all day, so we spent the time in the polytunnel (greenhouse to us Canadian folks), weeding, planting, etc. If it rains tomorrow we will probably get to wash out sheep fleece, something I would like to learn how to do.

It is funny, when we were on Skye and told people we were going to the Isle of Lewis everyone looked at us and intimated that it was so isolated here, that nothing happens on Sundays, and there wasn't really much to see or do (except the beautiful beaches, which apparently have great surf). Well...so far I have seen street lamps, stop lights, and more than one gas station; none of which I saw while on Skye. Yes it is true that nothing happens here on Sundays (church and all), but so far I have not seen a single-lane road anywhere. I am sure they are out there somewhere, but I have yet to encounter one. On Skye anything other than the main road from Kyleakin-Portree-Dunvegan all seemed to be single-lane roads. It is quite miraculous really that no-one drives off cliffs or into ditches. Stornoway, that main town in the outer Hebrides, is much much bigger than Portree, the main town on Skye. We have yet to venture down there, but we will eventually. We also plan to visit Callanish (a enormous circle of standing stones) and Arnol, which has a traditional blackhouse (peat fire included).