Haar

We've spent today bathing in Kilchoan sunshine hurried along this morning by a force 6 wind from the southwest; one of those days when the haar never lifts long enough for us to see the passing ships or the coast of Mull four kilometres away.  So, by way of exercise, we zipped ourselves into waterproof clothing so only our eyes were showing and took a walk along the seaweed-slippery pebble beaches of the Ormsaigbeg shore....

....seeing nothing in the way of wildlife except some bored gulls, a curlew, and a couple of oystercatchers....

....though a passing otter had left a reminder of his presence, his spraint including the crushed carapaces and legs of the crabs he'd recently eaten.

Our only other company was a camper on Trevor Potts' Ardnamurchan Campsite, who'd pitched his tent right by the shore and was sitting in it, looking disconsolately out into the mist.

The warm summer of 2012 already seems an age ago, a time when children crowded the foreshore and even a one-eyed pair of sunglasses might have been of some use.  The children are back at school, the crofters are busy getting their lambs to market and buying in the beet pellets that will keep their flocks healthy through the winter, and we have the annual bikers' festival in the Community Centre at the weekend.

Today may have been gloomy, but for many of us we're moving into what is the best time of year, when the bracken and heather glows across the hillsides, the sky burns with rainbows, skeins of geese fill the sky, and we often get some of the year's most dramatic weather.  After all, this was the view looking back along Ormsaigbeg only two days ago.

In the Hills

The Diary spent some time early yesterday evening with a glass of wine in one hand and a telescope glued to its eye, watching HM Coastguard Kilchoan practise its cliff rescue techniques on the hill above the Coastguard station.  They have an assessment coming up in a few weeks.  If they fail it, they'll lose the cliff rescue capability of which they are justifiably proud.  Not all Coastguard teams are cliff teams, and it's not a skill that - fortunately - they often have to use, but a dark night will come when there's a force 10 gale blowing, the rain is coming down like bullets, all helicopters are grounded, and someone is lying at the bottom of a cliff needing urgent medical attention.

It was our turn this morning to be up in the hills, on the sort of brisk two-hour walk that gets ones blood running, but we stopped frequently to admire the heather which glowed in the fast-moving patches of sunlight.

This view of a silver sea is seen from Druim na Gearr Leacainn, the ridge that runs along the back of Ormsaigbeg, looking southwards down the Sound of Mull.  Tobermory lighthouse stands off the nearer headland on Mull, with Tobermory Bay just beyond it.

2012 Ardnamurchan Transitions Dig - 2

The second area in this year's dig was a steep-sided ridge which runs north from the Ockle road half a kilometre to the east of Kilmory.  Called Dun Mhurchaidh, a number of pits were dug along it last year, and produced so much of interest that a great deal more time was invested in it this year.  The word dun suggests an Iron Age fort, but last year's excavations had already proved that it was far more complex - and this year's work has produced yet more mysteries.

In all, five sites were excavated.  This view looks along the ridge.  The far end of Site 1, in the foreground, has the remains of a small, probably roofed structure whose walls were formed of a foundation of stone with possibly two metres of turf blocks above to complete the walls.  A hammer stone was built into the walls.

Site 2 shows evidence of a hearth (nearer end of excavation) which had been used over a long period, with a ditch beyond filled with orange-brown soil.  It's not at all clear what this is.

Site 3 has a small oval building (to the right) formed of a stone base and turf walls into which hammer stones had been built, and a cobbled surface which may have been a path.

Site 4 has another wall (to the left) and a flat, paving area (upper right).  Slag, which suggests iron working, and beads have been found here.  Paul Murtagh, a PhD student at Durham, is specialising in Iron Age structures.

The paved area was carefully built, but its purpose is, again, unclear.

The ridge may have been some sort of ritual site associated with iron working.  That the iron workings were carried out on such a raised area, so they would have been visible for many miles, is unusual.  The structures the team found suggest that thought and effort had gone in to how the ritual area was approached.  The buildings are too small to have been permanent dwelling houses, but they might have been guard houses.

The team is hoping to return in January.  So far, their researches have unearthed material from the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, Viking period, 17th/18th centuries, and 19th century, all in the small area around Swordle.  It's fascinating to watch as the land reveals layer after layer of secret history.

The Ardnamurchan Transitions website is here.

The Seaweed Crop

Long-distance readers of The Diary will recall our efforts back in January to use seaweed, the traditional fertilizer of Highland coastal communities, to prepare our vegetable garden for this year's crops (post here); and those with even more marathon memories will recall that we attempted some novel methods of moving it up from the beach below the house (post here).  For people like us, who are complete amateurs at vegetable gardening, the result has been a bumper crop, though it may be as much to do with the unusually fine summer we've enjoyed as the seaweed.

Our peas had a very slow start because of the cold weather at the beginning of May but, once they got going, they excelled themselves.  As well as being deliciously sweet, the record so far is eleven peas in a single pod.

Courgettes, dwarf and broad beans, spinach, cauliflower, mixed salad leaves, a greenhouse full of tomatoes, and a porch which is home to sweet peppers have made us self-sufficient in vegetables through the summer, and we have calabrese, leaks, onions and carrots to keep us on into the winter.

The most spectacular results have come from our soft fruit - and here there is no doubt that the warm, dry summer helped.  The strawberries have been magnificent, producing steadily throughout the season - and, amazingly, some are still ripening; and we've had blackcurrants and gooseberries

But top prize goes to our raspberries.  We never thought that this soft fruit would be such a winner in the West Highland climate, but the pleasure we have had from them defies description - and they've yet to reached their main cropping.

So now it's raspberries for breakfast, raspberries for lunch, raspberries for tea, and guess what's for dinner - all of which explains the faint red stain on The Diary's beard.

Wildlife

We enjoyed a fly-past of sea eagles at lunch time - much appreciated as we have visitors staying who were suitably impressed.  The two birds were moving with their characteristic, but deceptively slow wingbeat along the Ormsaigbeg shoreline before turning away to head out over the Sound to Mull.

As the number of visitors in the village falls away, so the wildlife seems to close in on us.  This little pile of half-digested fruit, which is on the stone wall which separates us from croft land, is probably from a passing pine marten.  We've seen them on the wall before, using it as a highway down to the road.

On the subject of wildlife, we were down at the pigs with our visitors this afternoon when The Diary noticed that there was something missing from the boar's left ear.  Close readers of this blog will know that there should be a piece of aluminium in it, and that the boar wanted a large diamond (see earlier Diary entry here).  Its absence means that the boar is now illegal in this country, along with all the other people the UK Border Agency has lost.  Deportation is likely to follow unless Hughie braves another encounter in the pig bullring.  If he does, The Diary will be there to record the event.