More visitors and some rain

After eight dry weeks we have had almost 24 hours of solid rainfall. Accompanied by some very gusty wind. It's south, south east in direction which is fairly untroubling for us on the croft or in the static although it does mean our bed gets rocked a bit, a slightly unnerving experience when you are trying to sleep in it!

We had more day tripping visitors yesterday, friends who have been with us at every step of the way on our adventures so far and ones we have missed dearly having not seen for a year. It was very special to share Rum with them yesterday and catch up over tea and venison sausages. They got a great 10 hour between boats overview of the island, the village, the croft, what's happened over the last year and what we plan on happening next. It was all too brief and the only down side to the day was waving them off on the ferry yesterday evening.

No new birth or seeds popping their heads out of the ground news just yet and the rain has meant that Barbara Pig's maternity pen is rather a mud bath so we spent the dry spells in between showers today collecting some strimmed reeds (ah the benefit of 8 acres of croft land which is mostly reeds is that you have ready made straw to strim and collect when it has been sunny and windy for weeks having turned the croft into a big field full of animal bedding. Who says we don't have crops yet!) and throwing them into her pen. We chopped some wood and checked on the broody hen. We got all five duck eggs today so overnight penning of the ducks and drakes has proved the right move. Mice have been raiding our planted seeds and stolen all the sunflowers and some of the more tasty herb seeds so we need to pay some attention to the holes around the foot of the polytunnel and install some frames or staging inside to keep our crops off the ground - a next dry day job that one. I chopped lots of firewood so we have a few days supply incase the rain sets in.

We used the weather to give us a reason to take most of the day off though and watched a couple of films - War Horse and a re-watch of Nim's Island which is a bit of a family favourite, ate popcorn and had a lovely Sunday roast. The weather has meant nobody walked the nature trails today so we've not seen anyone at all or left the croft. One of those days when the four of us was enough.