Alan’s Highlanders and Sheep Dogs 28th Feb

I was so disappointed that we were out yesterday when the latest of Alan’s Highland Calves arrived - at about 4.30pm. He was there at the actual birth and I could have been too but for the fact I was gadding about elsewhere on Skye - I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

In any case I was hoping to get out there today to see the newborn who was still less than 24 hours old. Alan arrived about 9.30am and Vince and I were ready to go - kitted out in our wet weather gear, and me in my wellies, we set out across our back yard and over the stye behind the Byre. We crossed two fields of deep boggy ground that had be turned over by the cattle and sheep into a quagmire and we had to use our hiking poles to both check depth as well as keep us steady from slipping. We were in squelchy muck up to our knees in many places.

But by the time we made it through to the second gate we had to cross a stream, which proved quite slippy on the rocks in places but at least it gave our boots and wet weather trousers a bit of a wash down.

Alan came via another route on his tractor carrying bails of hay on the forks on the front. Two of his sheep dogs, Yohan and Pia came with him, and they were a pleasure to watch and totally besotted with Alan, constantly looking at him.

The cows, seeing the tractor started to come down from the hill towards the ridge before the gate and we got to see the bull, some cross breeds and 6 of his Highlanders, with 4 newborn calves in the past few weeks. They were sooooo cute. The youngest one, from yesterday was the last to come down the hill with it’s mother, and one of the others was quite comical at the bottom of hill with a ridge to pass to get onto the field, its mother was on one side and the calf on the other frightened of coming over the ridge. It was our true privilege to watch Alan at work.

The field they are in is even more boggy and dangerous than the previous ones, and although highland cattle are generally very placid and docile this changes when they have calves - so for safety sake Vince and I stayed on the other side of the fence and took photos.

We spent a good couple of hours taking shots of the cows, sheep, dogs and even Alan at work. It’s his 70th birthday coming up and I want to give him a special surprise gift before we leave as we won’t be here for his party.

When we got back, we all came into Wille McLeods and I made us some cheese and biscuits, with a side of Scottish tablet. The boys had a dram of Game of Thrones Dalwhinnie Winters Frost, and I had a Misty Isle Gin and tonic. A very civilised way to end the adventure!

Alan was heading back out to feed his sheep dogs so I went with him and he introduced me to them all …so that’s me met all of his dogs now…His two older dogs, Perko (1st) and Beau had died a while back so we never met them….Darky, Cini, Cala, Yohan and Pia I have come to know well, but today I met Perko, Amelie, Glen, Scampy and ?(I can’t for the life of me remember!)(NB This was Corey).

Back in Willie McLeod’s it was a quiet day warming by the fire as the rain poured down and the wind whistled.

Dinner was lamb chops and veggies - the cupboard is getting bare and we will shop tomorrow at the Co op in Portree.

We enjoyed a quiet night.