Midsummer 2008
After just about recovering from the Folk festival our gallery season is now in full swing!
Farm News
June was mixed as far as the weather was concerned but it seemed to be particularly good for the vegetables and garden. By now we are eating baby cucumbers & courgettes out of the greenhouse, which is great! I found a great variety of yellow courgette called ‘One Ball’ which as its name says , is actually round!
The piglets are now weaned from their mum & are fattening along quite nicely! They are enjoying days out in the field in front of the gallery munching on the grass & anything they can find! It is great to see them outside enjoying their freedom.
One very wet day Roger happened to look out in front of the gallery window & saw one of our call ducks in the grass & to his amazement a fluffy little yellow duckling was waddling behind! It was wet & windy so we brought it inside & put it in a box near our rayburn to keep it warm & snug. See our Flickr photo of ‘Friday’ as she was named as we found her that day. This puts a new slant on being a ‘bird watcher’?
Another amazing sight in July were young swallows flitting about catching flies in our garden & landing on the washing line. There must have been about a dozen at one point! You can just about make them out in a photo on our flickr photo’s. That was really quite a magical moment. Another incredible sight was the Merlin outside our gallery window which Roger discovered after it had killed a meadow pippit. He managed to get his camera in time! See the photo on Flickr…
Whales
Finally we saw our first whales on the 2nd July. A pod of at least 5 Orca’s feeding on a shoal of fish in Eynhallow sound, Evie. We happened to be at our friends place for dinner that evening. Very exciting as we watched the family group for about an hour.
Jo saw a Harbour porpoise the next evening in Birsay Bay about 10pm! A beautiful calm evening. She also saw 2 porpoise in Birsay Bay during the middle of July. Where are those Minke whales??
Craiglands
We enjoyed ‘The St Magnus Festival ‘along with my Aunt & Uncle (Jo’s) who had never been to Orkney before & they were enthralled by the diversity of Orkney’s magic! Midsummer week was mixed but we did have some gorgeous Orcadian skies. We toasted midsummer on our cliff along with the puffins!July was more settled weather wise & we were able to enjoy some glorious sunny days & sit outside. Jo’s nan enjoyed sitting out in the garden in the warm Orcadian sunshine drinking elderflower cordial!
The Elderflower was particularly good this year & saw Jo making plenty of Elderflower cordial & champagne for the coming year. What a beautiful smell the flowers have when picke. What a gorgeous & easy drink to make!Starting enjoying our First tatties of the season. What can I say but YUM!! If you haven’t tried them the variety is ‘Lady Chrsitl’. Jo is starting to plan what produce she might put into the Dounby show next month…watch this space.
Fluke News
Roger has been busy keeping the gallery fresh with a few new pieces including rings, brooches & colour corded bracelets with groatie buckies on them. It has been great to see so many familiar faces over the last two months so thanks for popping by.
August will see the annual Agricultural shows which is a busy time on the farming calender on Orkney. So we look forward to that.
Until then, keep well & enjoy the summer!
Jo & Roger
Glorious May!
Our first swallows flew over our garden on the 11th May. We wondered if it were our swallows from last year? We hoped.. The whole weekend was stunning with huge skies & wonderful sunsets. The sky seems to pull you outside when it’s like that up here particularly around 10pm. I (Jo) toasted the sunset over the weekend whilst listening to a great Orkney band ‘The Chair’ from the gallery.
We seemed to be accompanied by a resident Kestrel for the week, hovering over the nearby fields. Our friend Kevin took some stunning photo’s of it, see our Flickr photo’s. At last we have enjoyed some fabulous sightings of the Short eared Owl which we hadn’t seen for a while. He looks like a huge moth in the evening sunlight, wonderful. We love that time of day in the summer when that huge orange sun hits the dry stone walls & it creates a feeling of warmth & tranquility.
We have had Blackbirds nesting in our Byre’s & I managed to photograph one that was perched on the gate for most of the day. See our Flickr photo. Also hatched some ‘Bluebell’ hens & a ‘Call Duck’ . Very cute when they are so wee…
At the end of May we enjoyed an amazing ‘Orkney Folk Festival ‘again full of great music, meeting up with old friends & making new ones & plenty of late nights! See a gorgeous sunrise we experienced on the way home from the last night of the Folk Festival it was stunning! The morning mist was suspended above the fields, the lochs were like glass aahh & we were exhausted but happy!!
Hope you are all having a good summer? It has been nice to see so many familiar faces over this month.
Until the next time..keep well & happy.
Jo & Roger
Piglets at Last!
Farm News
At last Olive gave birth to her litter of piglets on sunday 27th April! Unfortunately it was a very small litter of only 5. She started farrowing about 5pm & finished around 8pm. Have a look at the pictures on our Flickr account. Both photo’s were taken at a couple of days old. Mother & piglets are all doing well. You forget how small they are when they are first born!
Wildlife News
I saw our first House Martin on saturday down by the Birsay pools beneath the house on saturday 3rd May when taking Selkie for a walk. It was a lovely warm, sunny day. Still no swallows arrived at our place yet?
Seen two male Hen Harriers last week hunting the fields opposite our house. One swooped over the garden dyke at an amazing speed!
Two Orca’s were seen off Hoxa, South Ronaldsay on the morning of the 5th May. So all eyes to the sea as the weather was perfect for Fins!
New! Fluke Diary
Hello and Welcome to our first article of our new diary section!
We are aiming to use this section on our website to keep you in touch with the latest happenings here at ‘Fluke’ & ‘Craiglands smallholding’. We receive many emails from you wondering how life is here on Orkney, so we thought it would be a great way to communicate to you all on a regular basis.
We are just gearing up to the season ahead & given our gallery a well needed spring clean! Roger has been busy preparing stock for the season ahead & is designing & making new pieces as we speak. Although it won’t always be possible to put these on the website, we can now post a photo of the new piece on our Flickr section with details and you will be able to phone through an order if you want to!
Farm news
‘Olive’ our sow is due her litter around the 21st April so we will keep you posted about how many she has. Last time she had 10 & the largest litter she has had was 15! We lost ‘Merlin’ unfortunately at the end of March but he had serviced our sows well & produced plenty of offspring!
Wildlife news
I (Jo) saw 2 otters from the gallery window at the end of March bounding after one another which was a very exciting moment!
We are seeing more Hares around & look forward to them chasing & boxing outside our kitchen window. Our days are accompanied with the constant bubbling of the Curlew & song of the Lark. It won’t be long before the Puffins arrive & many of you have seen them on the cliffs beneath our house. We are wondering whether our swallows will return as we had our first pair breed in a byre last year, so fingers crossed.
We hope for better ‘whale/dolphin’ sightings this year, so keep an eye on our sightings section. There is a real sense of anticipation of what is ahead for the coming season.
We hope to see some of you again this year so please come & say ‘hello’.
Until our next news… Keep well & happy
Roger & Jo