Balancing act

The brilliant sunshine of the last few days of the year have been a welcome bonus to the flocks of wimter migrants, the fieldfares and redwings. The wet pasture is a smogasbord of wriggly delicacies to augment the few haws and berries left by the flailing hedgers. Why do the farmers choose the winter months to obliterate the food supplies of so many birds? I suppose they can't do it in spring because of nesting and, in the summer, it is just too much work, too much foliage. There can never be a right time to cut hedges but trimmed hedges are better than none at all.

It's all about the balance between us and our needs and those of the other inhabitants of our planet, the ones that don't have a voice. Difficult to maintain the balance but the responsibility is ours.

As a supporter of the reintroduction of the beaver to Scotland, I am pleased that the five year trial in Knapdale has been judged a success. Far from creating havoc as the doom-mongers predicted, the beavers have improved the natural environment as well as attracting tourists and their money to the area.

http://www.scottishbeavers.org.uk/

The next proposal is the introduction of the lynx, ostensibly to reduce roe deer numbers.

Which would you chase?

 Our own Scottish tiger, the wild cat, is highly endangered, no longer by persecution but by hybridisation with feral cats. Once widespread – there are cat-cleughs and cat-hills and cat-holes all over the country – these famously untameable, even if captive reared, predators are reduced to less than a hundred pure bred specimens.

 http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/

It is all about balance. Do we really need to continue to support subsidised borderline sheep farming when there is no demand for the wool and no profitability in the meat or should we re-balance the land use by “wilding” the rural landscape in favour of eco-tourism, forestry, and responsible access to the remote wild places that help us reconnect with the landscape?

Local fishermen are turning to providing transport for sea anglers and sub-aqua divers as the fish that sustained their forebearers are no longer there to be caught.

Communities can find other sources of revenue. It's all about adaptability.

Bison bred in captivity in Scotland are helping to bring genetic diversity to the herds of Romania, reintroduced there after extinction in the wild in the 1920's and there are calls for the wolf to be brought back to control deer numbers in the Highlands. 

http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/scottish-bison-to-be-reintroduced-to-wild-1-3391190 

http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/bring-back-wolves-to-highlands-john-muir-trust-1-3415318 

Now that is controversial. The wolf given the choice between chasing something that can run like Usain Bolt and is armed with a vicious kick and multibladed headgear and a fat wooly creature is likely to pick the latter. Keeping the wolves in the place they are meant to be will be problematic.

A difficult balance to achieve but it can be done.

While wandering about on the moors, I had an old map that showed some of the features and names missing from the latest editions. Crossing the Endless Knowes and passing the Boundary Stone, the names making me feel like I was in a passage from Tolkien, I came upon an ordinary little valley distinguished by the name of Wolf Cleuch.

Wolf Cleuch

The Boundary Stone

The last wolf was killed in Scotland in the 18^th century in Morayshire, how many years, how many centuries has it been since there were wolves at Wolf Cleuch?

Our land is too small with too many people on it for there to be any truly wild places. The wilding  would have to be managed. It would always be a sort of wildlife park. Wolves and lynx, bison and bears and even the wild cat are always going to be maintained in an artificial environment. We cannot go back to the 11^th century.

 If there is to be a move towards the reintroduction of predator species in this crowded island,it would be well to remember the Fool's words in King Lear

"He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf”

Still... it is an exciting prospect.

The rising of the sun

The solstice is past. The shortest day has come and gone and we are moving towards the long days of summer. They are far off but at least we are going in the right direction. 

The hellerboris niger, the Christmas rose, is in flower, just in time for Christmas.    Usually, it is weeks early or late but this year it is bang on cue. 

What evolutionary advantage does it give a plant to flower in winter? Far fewer insects about to act as pollinators but then no competition from other flowering species. Hmm? 

Unlike the hellebore, the winter sunrise did not appear ... well, at least, not in this airt.    Early morning found me up on the cliff tops scanning the eastern horizon.   Alas, cloudy skies resulted in a non-event. 

Sunrise

Unlike last year's spectacular burst of light (Blog 22/121/2013), this year was more like an Abstract Expressionist painting, a Rothko in blues and greys. Blocks of seeming emptiness with just a line of light between. I'm sure the shamans would have understood the meaning of it. 

Which is the Abstract Art?

Back in the village, the flashing electric blue and diamond white of the Christmas lights were stridently defying the winter gloom.We make our own sunshine now.

Signs of the times

Our last sat-nav had a lisp..” in thix hundred yards turn left”... “at the next roundabout, take the thecond exthit”. Obviously, it was a glitch somewhere in the circuitry but rather endearing nonetheless. It gave her, for it was a female voice, a personality.

 Our new one has perfect diction and a somewhat school-teacher demeanour, possibly one dealing with a less than able pupil. “In one mile, bear right” followed by a higher pitched, slightly desperate   “ Bear Right!” as if expecting the obtuse driver to have forgotten the original command.

 The voice of the sat-nav like that of the primary teacher of yesteryear, rules our every move.

Maps and signposts are no longer consulted with care. Mileage signs after every junction scarcely merit a passing glance.

We are now so dependent on our on-board electronic guides that these old friends have been forgotten. 

I remember, as a student on the long drive back, enjoying seeing the digits dropping from three to two then counting them down ... 90+ 80+ 70+... as the miles passed and, though my tank emptied, my destination neared. Now, the sat-nav tells me not only how far it is to go but how long, given my current speed, it will take.

They are still there, those old friends, the fingerposts and milestones. Some rusty old RAC signs erected before the standardisation of the 1950's can still be found. 

Milestones now are more used by paediatricians than motorists but in the days of the horse and cart or Shanks's pony they must have lifted the spirits of weary travellers as yet another one was passed en route to a destination.

Going back to Roman roads...”mile” comes from milia passuum, literally, one thousand paces... the Romans erected a stone at each distance, the heirs of these markers can  still be seen in the verges along our minor roads. 

They can be delightfully quirky.

If you were travelling to Kingshouse, you're there!

 Some give the distances down to quarter miles presumably from times when villages and towns had an immutable edge to and from which distances could be measured. An important distinction in the days of Sunday drinking laws when only bona fide travellers i.e. those who had journeyed more than four miles but “not solely for the purpose of drinking” were entitled to alcoholic refreshment. 

The latter restriction was almost impossible to prove

This accounts for the preponderance of Four Mile Inns around Scottish towns and, certainly, it was a valuable source of revenue for country pubs and hotels if not the ideal way of promoting road safety. Those partaking had to sign a ledger confirming their bona fide status.

There is another group of obsolete markers scattered about the countryside. The triangulation points or trig points beloved of hillwalkers. Once used for geodetic surveys, they are no longer needed in these days of satellite navigation but are still collected by ramblers who find Munro bagging too demanding. Many have been adopted and are maintained by local walking groups.

Perhaps local milestones and signposts deserve the same, pointing us, as they do, not just down the road, but back into history.

 O' a' the airts      A finger in every direction

Time and tide

The warm weather has allowed the late painting of the beach hut. Usually it gets done before autumn has set in but, luckily, the weather has been kind to a lazy blog writer.

The beach

The huts are a feature of our beach dating back, at least, to the Victorian era. Technically, they are called “bathing huts”and  may have been first built when sea bathing became fashionable in the 18^th century.

Our wonderful sandy beach has a lesser, shingly companion hidden behind a large knowe or hillock. In Edwardian times,this was known  as “the men's beach”. The enclosing rocks make the waves stronger and the depth allows for diving. The young callants could pit themselves against the sea and each other without upsetting the delicate sensibilities of the matrons and maidens on the main beach who might otherwise catch a glimpse of an unclad male leg.

A few of the huts are possibly a hundred years old, built with seasoned timbers by local shipwrights to withstand all the North Sea and Scottish climate could throw at them.

A safe distance for male bathing!

Old sepia photos exist of large-hatted, billowy -frocked matrons with parasols supervising their offspring on the sands in years before WWI .

Most of the huts are now later editions as is our own one, replacing the original which finally succumbed to the elements many years ago. The sea- and wind- facing frontage soaks up preservative like blotting paper.

The full moon has produced a spring tide – a spring tide in November - nothing to do with the seasons, just a name for the big difference between high and low tides. The sea was far off as I painted the hut door, too far for the surfers who would come back to enjoy the waves as the tide rushed back in.

Surfers

The moon is the Hunter's Moon. Each full moon has its own name. The next will be the Moon before Yule and so the annual cycle continues as it has done for millennia, from before the beach huts, before the people, even before the beach itself existed. The tide surging in and retreating out, obeying the commands of the Moon.

Walk this Way

Last weekend, the warm October weather meant a pleasant stravaig along the last stretch of the West Highland Way from Kinlochleven to Fort William.

Looking back to Kinlochleven

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/kinlochleven/kinlochleven/

Half of our party intended to climb Carn Mor Dearag and thence along the ridge to Ben Nevis but, after my last ascent of the big ben (Blog 1st July 2014), I opted for the gentler lower walk.

 A zig-zag climb to about 800 ft above sea-level, then an undulating path of approximately 14 miles into Fort William made for a pleasant day out.

The Pap of Glencoe in the distance

The Way followed the old Military road along the glen of Allt Natrach ( the stream of the adders?) and passed the lonely ruin of Tigh na Sleubhaich (the house of the mountain man ?) before it crossed The Lairig Mor, the big pass, the old path to Callart.  Looming above were the stony slopes of Stob Ban

Stob Ban

There was a information board about the Battle of Inverlochy where in 1645, during the religious civil wars that so beset Scotland, the Royalist Macdonalds slaughtered the Covenanter Campbells.

The next day, I stopped to get some pictures in Glencoe where, in 1692, the infamous massacre of the Macdonalds by the Campbells took place. Our history is strewn with such enmities and feuds.

Gearr Aonach and the way to the Hidden Valley in Glencoe

The path climbed slightly around the edge of Mullach nan Correan and Ben Nevis came into view, with its customary chaplet of mist. There are few days in the year when the summit is clear.

We passed the vitrified fort of Dun Deardail. An Iron Age construction, that has been subjected to such heat that the stones have melted and become glass-like. The rationale for this isn't understood as the stones are brittle and less strong afterwards, nor is it possible to produce the sustained high temperatures required by mere burning as might have occurred in a battle. A mystery. It may have been some ritual to cleanse or sanctify the structure or to imbue it with supernatural powers.

Vitrified stone

After this, the Way descends into Glen Nevis and then by road into Fort William and draught Guinness.

 http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/fortwilliam/fortwilliam/

Quince-cidence.

Scrog

The recreated medieval orchard planted in the grounds of our ruined 14^th century priory has started to mature. So far,the mulberry and  the medlar have remained barren but the geans and scrogs.. cherries and crab apples to anglophones...have born fruit...and so have the quinces.

Our word marmalade comes from the Portuguese marmelada, a quince jam.

Golden and aromatic, they were cultivated long before the apple.

It may be that references to apples in legends really apply to the quince... the apple in the garden of Eden, the apples in Solomon's Song of Songs, the Golden Apples of the Hesperides.

In Greek mythology, having been excluded by Zeus from a wedding, Eris, the goddess of discord, rolled such a golden apple among the guests. It was claimed by three of the guests, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. Zeus asked the mortal Paris to decide who should have it. In the fateful Judgement of Paris, each goddess tried to bribe him and Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman in the world... Helen, wife of Menelaus, the Greek king.   Paris gave Aphrodite the golden apple and took Helen back to Troy. This provoked the Trojan War.

Only Heracles of the twelve labours and Perseus, slayer of Medusa, managed to get one of these prized fruit guarded, as they were, by nymphs and a dragon

 Perseus was helped by the nymphs of the Hesperides to kill the Gorgon. He saved Andromeda despite her mother Cassioipea's perfidy and can be seen in the Northern sky with his bride and her parents and the winged horse, Pegasus, that sprang from Medusa's severed neck. The red star, Algol still glares as the Gorgon's eye.

 I've just downloaded an app for my I-pod that shows the constellations overhead. A great boon to the star-gazer.

 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Perseus_%28constellation%29#mediaviewer/File:Perseus.gif

Having made a few jars of quince jelly, an ideal accompaniment to venison, I wondered if we had captured the myths. Certainly, the pan boiled over in the process, cascading boiling hot, sticky liquor everywhere.
 Was Medusa still spitting with fury? Was the rage of the Trojan's at being tricked erupting?

The jelly still came out clear and sweet. We must have defeated the ghosts.

See the conkering hero come

The balmy weather continues into October, all the more appreciated when we recall the snow storms of previous years. A local farmer ironically admitted that he was finding it difficult to find anything to complain about. Butterflies are still settling on the rotting windfalls and dragon flies still dart over the water of the little loch. The fields that have been cropped, ploughed, harrowed and re-sown are, with the warmth, are starting to show a shimmer of green.

Dragon fly  at the loch

….and it is conker time, though, as boys, we always called them  “cheggies”. 

 Their prickly outer husks must have evolved to allow them to bounce and roll away from the parent tree and so increase their chance of fulfilling their destiny and creating another chestnut tree …..until they fall prey to boys looking for conkers. Now they are probably safe to spread and grow. Do boys still play conkers? I doubt it.

In my distant youth...in history as my grand daughter put it....I recall hardening them with vinegar, drilling them with a nail and then fixing them on to a string to bash my specimen against another's and whichever survived the trial of durability was the winner and so graduated from a one-er to a two-er. The rules were that, if your opponent had a sixer and if you had, say, a fiver and you triumphed, you could add his score to yours and so have an elevener!

It is said horse chestnuts got their name from the horse shoe shaped scar left on the twig when the leaf falls. I think not. There are lots of species with the “horse” prefix – horse mussels, horse mackerel, horse radish, horse mushroom – and all are larger, coarser versions of their non-equine equivalents. The horse chestnut was perceived as a inedible, coarser version of the sweet chestnut.

 In fact, they are not related at all.

Another chestnut gets ready for a canter on the stubble field

The sheen on the brown nut emerging from the outer covering is a pleasing sight and one can see why brown horses came to be called chestnuts, the glossy horsehide mirroring the lustre of the conker.

Now, I collect cheggies not for playground battles but to grow in pots and, after a few seasons, plant out in hedge rows and field corners for another generation to enjoy. 

 Simple pleasures.

Planted some years ago

And summer's lease hath all to short a date

Summer is drawing to a close. The swallows are still here but the days are getting shorter and the winds have an autumnal feel. The fields have a shorn look as the combines gather the grain and the balers leave the giant rolls of straw to be picked up later on the prongs of a tractor. No chance of boys making forts out of these as we did with the man-handled bales of my childhood.

Yesterday, I had my first bramble from the hedgerow, a sure sign of autumn and the sloes are just taking on their bluish tinge. Next week it will be St Philbert's day when, traditionally, the young hazel nuts, the filberts, are edible though we are too far north. It will be a week or two yet before ours are ready.

I visited Pease Dean and Duns Castle reserves to try out a new app on the I-pod. It is a bird song identifier.You record the song and then ask for a match from the songs on the app. It works fairly well. It quickly and accurately identified the test subjects ...goldfinches, wrens, blackbirds etc but the thirty-second recording time means that you have to try over and over because, birds being birds, they will stop singing or calling just after you've pressed “record” and start again after the thirty seconds are up! It was less efficient with calls such as the buzzard circling over head. I suppose the wind noise distorted the recording. Still, a useful tool for the bird watcher.

Butterflies are everywhere. Their presence, just seeing them, seems to make life a bit more pleasant. They will be getting their eggs laid and it is a great excuse not to be too tidy a gardener. Nettles? ...Oh, I leave them for the butterflies. 

Red Admiral

Peacock butterfly

Unfortunately, the ride-on lawn mower has induced people to extend their mowing operations down the verges from their houses, farms and caravan sites for long distances, creating neat, barren strips of turf and further reducing the availability of weeds and seeds necessary for our wild life.

The insect world is getting its breeding done before the winter takes its toll. The bumble bee queens will be looking for a nest to overwinter with next year's generation in their abdomens while the rest, their jobs done,will die. 

A buff tailed bumble bee queen is impregnated

The forest shield bugs will lay their eggs in cracks in the bark of oak trees ready for next spring.

 Forest shield bugs mating

The blackbirds are fledging their second broods of the year.

Young hen blackie

.

  It is all hustle and bustle, the lazy days of summer exist only in song and time is passing.

The Blankit Preachin'

It fell about the Lammas tide,

When the muir-men win their hay

LotH and I attended the Blanket Preaching at the site of the old Kirk of St Mary of the Lowes –  by St Mary's Loch.

A reminder of the Covenanting days when the religious divide between the Presbyterian people and their king forced folk to worship in the hills to escape the soldiers of “Bluidy Clavers”, Sir John Graham of Claverhouse, latterly Viscount Dundee. ( Blog 18^th March)

 

A piper welcomes the worshippers to the old kirk

A blanket was held over the minister's head as a shield against the weather for he wouldn't be returning to a warm hearth afterwards.

The preacher needed no cover today

The present day service is a token nod to those violent times but also a celebration of a much a older rite.   

 Lammas, on August 1^st, is one of the Scottish quarter days – Candlemas, Whitsun, Lammas , Martinmas - correponding to the old Celtic festivals of Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasa, and Samhain.

Lammas signalled the first of the harvest being secured, a reason for rejoicing when supplies would be getting low.    On the quarter day, rents were due and may have been paid for in grain, farm servants were hired and terms and conditions for the forthcoming months agreed.

 

Rain clouds gather over St Mary's Loch

The setting above St Mary's Loch was perfect even down to the smirr of rain arriving at the end of the service to give a hint of how it might have been in more inclement times.

On the path back to the road, we gave a nod to Binram's grave, where one of the incumbents of the Kirk of St Mary of the Lowes, who was shot by the Covenanters is buried. He was accused of dabbling in the dark arts but may have been thought of as a spy for the king's forces.

A pleasant drive down the Yarrow valley with all its romance and tragedy, a meal at a local hotel, and the satisfaction of having supported an ancient custom

 A Harebell, the Scots blue-bell, on the path

Hay-ho

I drive past a sign sign saying “Well got hay for sale”. It has such quaint, bucolic charm that it invariably makes me smile.

Well got, the very sound of it speaks of hay meadows and sun and cider with Rosie. Another time. Well got hay is hay cut at its peak of growth and properly dried, the sort of hay that smells sweet and summery.

Hay-making, so dependent on the weather, seems to be in decline. Silage is easier and not so reliant on the vagaries of the British summer. This year has been different ... long sunny days and warm breezes.

The Dell

I wandered up through the Dell, one of my favourite places. A beech wood where pig-nuts grow. Probably planted a century ago with pigs in mind...pigs like beech-mast as well as pig-nuts... it is now the haunt of roe deer and buzzards. It leads on to a small hay meadow that the farmer cuts yearly but apart from that, because of its small acreage and the cost of fencing it for stock, it is usually left alone.

The hay meadow above the Dell

A hay meadow from the past, it is a refuge for wild flowers long since banished to the edges of farmland or worse, eliminated altogether. Orchids, thistles, vetches, corn-mint, self-heal and wound-wort all jostling for their place in the sun.

A meadow that may possibly be, when he gets round to it, well got, but is also well left, thanks to the farmer.

How spectacular even the common dock can be when left to it s own devices