scotland Archives - Auchenstroan Wool

As the new year gets underway, one of the first tasks to be done was to plant the trees I had bought in the autumn. Each year, we buy bare root trees which are planted during the winter months. While we already have quite a large area of woodland, you can never have too many trees. As well as creating excellent wildlife habitats, they provide interest and also, hopefully, some winter wood. We have planted a lot of hazel which is a tree that benefits from coppicing. The plan is to used the coppiced wood to keep us warm in the winter (rather than the oil central heating).

The planting itself took a bit longer than normal as there are a lot of stones round here. More often than not, the spade would hit a stone a few centimetres down. This meant a lot of probing around to find a gap so as to make a hole deep enough for the roots.

It was also quite wet. We have had a lot of rain and some areas just soak up the water coming off the hills. Fortunately, we had bought hardy trees used to damp, Scottish weather, so hopefully they will thrive. The really wet areas we’ll let willow self seed. Also, I had a new pair of wellies which was just as well as the old ones had sprung a leak.

Last year, we planted about 50 trees. This year I got a bit carried away and bought 140 trees. More work, but it’s worth it.

We have added the trees to three areas, down near the bottom of our patch (top photo) and then bordering a large area that we have earmarked as a wildlife area.

At the same time, I rescued two oak trees from our fields. Oak is poisonous to sheep so it’s not a good idea to have them in the pasture. They probably won’t eat the leaves, but the acorns could prove tempting.

The cows, however, helped themselves and both trees show the signs of major cow damage. Now, away from nibbling teeth, they should thrive.

Now, it’s just about watching them grow.

#treesplanting #woodland #scotland #rurallife #wildlifefriend

With the onset of winter and frosty days I’ve been busy wrapping up my gardening business for another year. This means I get a lovely rest, oh, sorry, that was a Freudian slip, I meant so say, this means I will have more time to start the Big Winter Feed Ritual for our woolly friends, in other words, keeping the sheep feeders full of hay.

The grass is low nutrient and provides little nourishment for the sheep during the winter. The hay meanwhile was cut at its peak in July, and contains plenty of flowers, it smells of summer and the wafts remind me of Swiss mountain villages from when I was a small girl. The sheep love it and can get quite overexcited each morning when they see the bales coming their way. They actually make filling the feeders quite challenging as they pile in like a bunch of frenzied five year olds on Christmas morning.

Winter also means I get to dive headlong into rug production. Making rugs is very time consuming, during the summer one rug can take two weeks or more to put together as I’m running about doing other things. In the winter my days are spent between the hay shed and my girl shed. My girl shed is fabulous, I love it! It’s actually the summer house and just a stone’s throw from the house and the kettle. It has power which means it’s toasty and warm and more to the point, makes the felting process actually possible.

In the last week I’ve made two rugs; “the Molly rug” and “the Ursi rug”. The Molly rug (see here) was made using fleece from our friends’ flock. They have a friendly family of Mules, Herdwicks and Texels. The Molly rug was made using the long fluffy locks from one of their Mules, (the offspring of a hill breed mother and lowland breed father). I love the way the Molly rug has come out, it is creamy-white with long, powder puff locks and just invites you to cuddle into it.

The second rug I made using fleece from our own flock, from Ursi actually, (see here). Ursi is a big gorgeous girl, naturally friendly, always up for a back rub and a chat. Ursi has a pale grey fleece with beige and cream running through it. I made a big rug from it as Ursi is a big girl with lots of fleece. I’m very happy with the way the rug has turned out, it’s soft and bouncy and the colours are just beautiful, just like Ursi herself.