Rumiversary

Yes I know, I celebrate way too many 'versaries' - moving to Rum, being told yes we had the croft, heading off WWOOFing in the first place... what can I say, we like celebrating!

I realised earlier that it was about three years since we first came to Rum between ferries to view the croft and meet a couple of the people here so I checked. 10th November was the first time we stepped foot on Rum, walked the north side nature trail which took in three sides of our croft and then got back on the ferry and started the two day drive back down to Sussex.

back in Sussex - everything we owned aside from the contents of Willow. We don't even have all that now!

Celebrating being back in Sussex. This bottle of fizz traveled all around with us and we opened it when we returned home to my parents - 3 years ago today!

walking the croft boundary - 3 years ago.

As rollercoaster rides go it has been a long one so far. And it's not over yet!

Cob on

We've had a fair bit of interest in coming and being part of the cob build already and I have written a couple of articles for various newsletters and magazines which will come out over the next few months and should drum up more. We already have a couple of people 'booked in', the 'whiteboard of control' ready to be filled up with plans and action points (currently it is a wipe clean graffiti wall in the bathroom which we are all enjoying!) and we have been re-reading our library of cob build books.

Today though we were out 'getting practical' on the house site. After nearly three years familiarising ourselves with this bit of land we are confident that we have selected the best spot so today we cleared a large area with the scythe - all of which went to the pigs and marked out the northeast corner point from which the south and west points are marked and the quarter circle shape spans.

The next step is to begin digging out the perimeter of the footprint and laying in drainage. It was very exciting today to stand in the space which will be our bedroom or lounge and imagine ourselves standing on that same spot this time next year and being inside.

Distractions

Living in a community like we do is both a privilege and a responsibility.

When we were interviewed for our croft here on Rum one of the questions we were asked was what we could offer the community here. Our reply was that if we were to move to Rum and make our lives here then we would be expecting an awful lot from Rum. It would need to be our everything - meet all of our social, educational, recreational, financial needs. In order to expect that much from Rum we would need to be prepared to give at least that much, probably a whole lot more, back.

I think we do that. We do it in lots and lots of ways.

We do it by the small part time jobs we work - at the shop and post office, the castle, the venison company and previously at the school. We work for hourly rates lower than we earned 15 years ago in our mainland lives but it keeps the local economy turning, ensures those jobs do get done and while we know if we didn't do them someone else would being the people who do them gives back as much as we get back in wages.

We do it by working our croft - putting energy and time and money into making good the land we took on and slowly improving the soil, demonstrating that it can be done, growing local produce, supporting the tourist trade by creating our brand and adding to the offering of goods and services visitors to the island can buy from.

We do it by attending events, being there and making up the numbers. Competing for Rum in the small isles games, going to the ceilidhs, the quiz nights, the parties, the nativity, the halloween party, the bonfire night, Burns night, hogmanay, the birthday celebrations, the cinema evenings, the ranger events.

We do it by supporting the other small businesses here on the island, by buying food from the shop, arts and crafts from the other makers, tea and cakes from the teashop, meat from the venison company.

We do it with the voluntary posts we hold - director of the community trust, small isles community councillor, sitting on steering groups, attending meetings, interviewing employees, writing for the local newsletter, the website, editing and compiling the community newsletter, emailing, talking to, liaisiing with....

We do all of this because we want to be here, we want to take back from this community to meet our needs so we need to make sure it exists by giving to it as much as we can. We understand how lucky we are to live here and be part of this and how much energy and effort is required to ensure it is here at all.

But this afternoon, despite having 101 other things we could have been busy with on the croft, or doing on the computer, or planning or talking about we bunked off. Between at least five meetings already this week and another scheduled by phone for this evening (and it's only Tuesday!!) we headed off where we knew we'd see no one and just enjoyed neither taking or giving anything other than to each other.

November

Making the most of the dramatic landscapes that this time of year offers Ady and I have been out and about lots with cameras this week. We have had a couple of days of sunshine and a few of torrential rain. All of which make for drama, gorgeous light and stunning photo opportunities.

It might have gotten a bit competitive... :)

Falling in love again

I am sure I have mentioned before that it was Bonfire Night on Eigg which fully sold us on island life. This year there was no community built bonfire, no barbecue, no soup. But it was still a group of my favourite people, children (of all ages!) excited about sparklers and plenty of whizz-bangs lighting up the sky.

And this year it didn't rain. Result!

A thin place photo

I've blogged before about thin places. Look at this photo Ady took tonight from the croft.

It looks like you could hold your breath and jump through that hole in the sky. This time of year certainly brings it's challenges but it brings a whole load of stunning photo opportunities too...

cha cha cha

I read a great quote this week:

An optimist is someone who realises the one step forward followed by two steps back is not a disaster, more like a cha-cha

The onset of November and winter is looming a bit this week - there has been a *lot* of wind and a *lot* of rain which means a *lot* of condensation - bane of our lives each winter. I am sure we spent the whole winter wearing clothes adorned with splashes of mud with the aroma of mildew clinging to us.

Fortunately with Halloween last night that was perfectly appropriate! We attended the annual party at the school, played spooky games, danced frankly terrifying dances and won scary prizes. Then we headed to the shop for the pumpkin carving competition.

Davies and Scarlett were declared joint winners - the clearly winning entry was disqualified on the basis of being on the wrong axis - it was awesome, as was the clear runner up - we do live with some very creative and artistic people here on Rum.

This week we were visited on the croft by a rather unusual guest - a young whooper swan who hung out for a whole morning on the croft trying to join in with our birds. He seemed to think he might be a goose - our geese were having none of it though and kept seeing him off with much hissing. The ducks were most impressed with him but he knew he was better than them. Eventually after grazing all morning, having a bit of a splash about in the river and having his photo taken he flew off, hopefully to rejoin his family group who were hanging out at the north side of Rum.

Meanwhile Operation Cob House 2015 continues in the background. We have not cleared the site yet, we spent time building a turkey pen and extending our fruit cage instead during outside weather windows. The turkey pen is because we have lost two more of this seasons turkeys. We have decided not to buy in any more birds and concentrate instead on making better housing for our current stock to breed and rear their own. We are trying to find a way of working an incubator without electricity too. So the three remaining (from eight bought in - grr) are now penned in a large area to get fattened for the next 8 weeks or so.

The fruit cage extension means we now have an enormous fruit cage with a nice big space ready for the apple trees which should be arriving fairly soon. It's netted at the top too to make it both deer and bird proof - fingers crossed everything does well next year.

On the Cob House Build front we have agreed for 2 more WWOOFers to come and join us next year with the project and my giant white board purchased to keep control of the whole plan has arrived, been 'tested' by Davies and Scarlett and is now up on the wall in the bathroom ready to start filling with dates, lists and masterplans.