Author: David Miller

Not very often I post two days running, but as the snow is still here & getting thicker, thought I would post some new photo’s. The first four are from yesterday afternoon, we went for a walk up towards Loch Moraig. I do not think we would have made it as far as we did, but after what must have been a tough morning , the snow plough made it up to us (normally here before 1030am, in fact today it was up at half eight). So though on the walk UP the hill he had not put grit down, so just a bit slippery, we met him half way up, with him coming back down and he was salting the road then. Therefore the return journey for us was easier.

The first two shots were just to show you how stunning the Cairngorms look with some snow around, especially when it stays on the trees.

3/ is the returning snow plough.

4/ Is the wife walking in the wet salty road on our way home.

5/ is from this morning, in between the continuing snow showers I was able to clear all the drive down to the road, then salt it. A task that normally takes me an hour, today due to the fact that in places it was 12″ deep, It took me two hours. Okay we were not going out in the car today, but I like to have it all clear for the postie or any emergency vehicle who may need to come to us or our neighbour in the white house (bottom right of the shot). Once an emergency service employee always thinking like you still are.

6/ Just in case you were not sure if I was using my fisherman measurement to get the depth of the snow, this is the build up on our roof. I have gone around the guttering slicing the snow off at that angle, as when it overflows the guttering, it semi melts & goes into icicles, which has in the past  bent the guttering.

 

 

We were forecast some bad weather over the next couple of days and as we had a funeral to attend this morning, 50 miles away in Killin. I was up at 630 to see approx. 4″ of snow. Went out armed with snow shovel & cleared a track all the way down to the bottom of our steep hill some 500 yards, turned round to do another track a car width up the hill, only to find that I could hardly see where the first clearance had been because of the blizzard that was now falling. Very upset we couldn’t get to the funeral, but I do not think we would have made it.

Came in all hot & sweaty, jumped in a bath & by the time I was out , another two inches had fallen. How I wish my camera was back from repair ( another 10 days & a couple of hundred pound before that happens), but in a lull in the weather I went out & fed the birds & took a few shots with my old camera, so not excellent but hope they will show what it is like.

I do not think I have ever seen such a dark angry sky heading towards us, so I knew we were about to get another bucket load of snow & sure enough it hasn’t stopped for the last hour adding yet another inch.

The shots below are as follows,

1/ our drive which I had cleared an hour before with the snow shovel, burnt some calories , but really a waste of time.

2/ Rod reads my blog, so I thought I ought to include a photo of his house in the snow, very wise not to be up here at the moment.

3/ The Robin followed me around until I gave it some food.

4/The dark clouds approaching with yet more snow. The photo really does not do justice to just how dark the sky was.

 

 

 

Okay it is not as cold as New York, but it is not far off up here at present. When I got up the thermometer read Minus 10C when I looked at the minimum it went down to last night it was MINUS 13C , which in my books is pretty cold. In the 12 years we have been in this house our lowest recording was minus 18C, so a fair way off our coldest, but it is still pretty cold.

Of course the hills look wonderful & if only I had had my camera yesterday our Munro’s were superb, covered in snow & the sun shining down on them was magical. Went up to try getting them on my old camera & they were covered in cloud & totally not photogenic.

So I came down to 50 yards from our house & took a few shots of our little burn. At the point I photographed is a small dam, because in the past it was where some of the water was diverted another 50yds down the hill to a shed with a large concrete tank in it. this in turn was gravity fed down into the village to fill the steam locomotives with water. Now this shed is used as a hatchery for Loch Morag Brown Trout to be hatched in, before getting to a size to be returned back into the Loch.

This dam then comes over a waterfall which is frozen & as fresh water flows over the frozen water so it freezes again & gets pretty thick. The flowing water splashes up the banks producing the attached photos. .

These shots were taken with my old camera that I have not used for 8 or so years & I was surprised at just how good they turned out.

 

 

 

 

I have written before about the Country Life Museum here in the village, it is covered by volunteers and this time of the year is one of their main fund raising times. As you have seen, apart from the normal clubs, table tennis, choir, ballet & indoor bowls, not a lot goes on for villagers. So the museum celebrates the Gaelic New Year according to the pre- Gregorian calendar. Which is Friday 12 January.

This always becomes a well attended night, it maybe minus 10C outside (as it is this morning) but be assured the people inside will be warm. Entertainment includes a ceilidh band, pipers, sword dancing & an open mic session.

Of course there will be a well stocked (and used) bar, plus food, comprising of one of my favourites, clootie dumpling & some delicious home made soup.  All this for £10, you cannot beat that. All profits from the evening go to the Museum funds.

This will be my first post without any photographs on it, at the moment my camera seems to have a focusing fault, so it has had to go away to a Canon repair shop, lets hope it can be fixed, as I never go anywhere without it firmly glued to my side. I have my old, old camera that shall have to resurrect & see if it will be good enough for some future shots on here, getting a bit fussy about quality in my old age.

Firstly, Happy New Year to you all, yes I did go out & shout up the glen at the bells but due to the low cloud & general dampness I only heard 3 echo off the hills.

Now if I still lived down south I would have lots to report about the horrid weather they are experiencing, gale force winds coastal flooding etc. But up here it has been so “normal”. Occasional flurry of snow, minus temperatures on waking, warming up to a stunning 5C during the day, overcast, bit of rain. Just nothing happening at all. My son came up for New Year & he is more crazy on wildlife than me & being young has wonderful eyesight, which he points things of interest out to me & I put the bino’s onto & can just about see. So it was of no surprise when he found a herd of Red Deer stags way over on the distant hillside, this is where they can often be seen  & only come closer when the snow is deep & they struggle to find food. This year being no real continuous deep snow has meant they can stay more out on the moors to feed, away from humans.

But it did remind me of when the hills were heavy with snow in March 2015, but down at our level it had all gone. A large herd of young Red Deer got spooked by something & ran into the field below our house. They were really spooked & just ran round in circles not knowing where to go, they stayed here for a good twenty minutes in shear panic. Of course out came the camera & below is just one of the many shots I got before they ran up the field, over the fence into the next one & were off. A wonderful moment for us & our neighbours, who, during their 30 odd years of living here had never seen anything like it.

 

Firstly may I wish all the loyal people who have encouraged me to carry on writing this nonsense, a very happy new year, may 2018 bring you joy, happiness & all you want out of life. I can assure you I am looking forward to this coming year with a great deal of hope. Hope to take better photos, hope to catch more trout, hope for good health & most of all, hope that I make it to our 50th wedding anniversary in August. That is mainly because of the wonderful understanding misses I have & I know this milestone will bring her much joy.

I must say after all the cold weather, snow & ice it is so unusual to say that this is such a mild day, 4C and still creeping upwards. A very strong wind & loads of heavy rain overnight has left us with green fields & pools of water everywhere. The first photo is the field in front of our house, when this large puddle arrives we know we have had a fair downpour. somewhat to our surprise a young Heron obviously thought this was a pond for it to catch something, waded across it, saw there was nought in it & flew off again.

The second shot shows how the rain is still falling with the spots on our window, also how this mild rain has melted the snow from the adjacent hill. No doubt we will here the Fender Burn thundering through tonight, as all that snow melt goes down to the River Tilt, then onto the River Garry, which eventually enters the longest river in Scotland The Tay.

I shall be out at midnight (as my own tradition dictates) shouting at the top of my voice “Happy New Year” and see how many echoes I get back bouncing of the hills, one year, on a particularly still night, I had six, but normally it is 4. Silly old fool that I am.

 

 

Firstly, I hope you all had a great Christmas & that you were all good enough to allow Santa to deliver all your hoped for presents. I must have been so good, because I got more than I could have ever wished for.

I had posted on the blog 3 or4 days before Christmas, but for some strange reason it has not been published, I can still see it on my admin site, but just did not go out to you all for some reason. It had nothing rude, pornographic or political in it, so not sure why ?????

Anyway, lets hope this one goes out okay. I think we have had the mildest two days of Christmas since we have been up here, yesterday we were out walking while the turkey cooked & it was 12C. Overnight the temperature did just go below zero & therefore we had some fresh sprinkling of snow on the high tops. On this mornings walk (just under 5 miles today) the wind made it colder than it was but the thermometer showed 4C, which made for a brisk walk.

With a slither of sunlight going up the glen it was a good light to show off the trees, as I hope you can see from the first two shots. As for the third I just had to grab that one. I had my big lens on & the cow was a fair distance away from us & it seemed like the cow was just looking at that beautiful scenery and saying “all this lovely grass is all mine & that snow can stay up on the hills so I can chew away without searching through snow for my grass”. Well that is what I would be thinking.

When we reached Loch Moraig, there was just two cars in the parking spot, some brave souls up climbing the two Munroes for a Christmas treat, rather them than me, I will stick to the road, that is steep enough for me these days.

 

 

 

Went out about 1040am for the first photo having adjusted the thermometer at 9 when it was reading minus 10C as you can see not warmed up much, just one degree. But I think this is how winters in Scotland should be with a crispness, clear skies, sun shining and clean air. Just love it, especially when all the roads have been gritted, ice free & dry, so it doesn’t stop you getting in the car to get the essentials & walks away from home.

One other bonus is all the migrated birds know where the Miller house is to get some grub to keep them going. I have never seen in the 12/13 years we have lived here as many Chaffinches as we have in the garden at present, we estimate well over 100. they eat from every type of feeder we have, peanut, mixed seed, Niger seed, &  fat balls & black Sunflower seed. They just go mad for anything, though they are very nervous birds, a Blackbird flying in is enough to send them scattering, then as you can see from one of the shots, they scurry back & eat peacefully with the Blackbird. But if the Jay or Sparrow Hawk comes you will not see them for ages. Don’t blame them really as we often find the remains of an eaten Chaffinch or Blue Tit around the garden.

Of course one of the downsides of all this food is that the Pheasants arrive in great numbers, eating up all the food put out for the smaller birds. The upside is there is nothing better than a roast Pheasant on a cold night. 🙂

As you can see the G.S.Woodpeckers love the Peanut Butter, I forgot to say so do the Chaffinch, at the moment we are getting through 2 jars in 3 days. I know our bird feeding bill is larger than our feeding bill (except for Christmas), but it is so worth it to see the volume of birds we get in the garden.

In fact I have said to my wife, if ever I am bed ridden, just put me in front of the lounge window & I can be entertained for hours.

 

 

Like the rest of the North of the UK we have snow, though in truth less than what we expected, but I still had to clear our drive. This is not an easy task, having to scrape the snow off then apply a layer of road salt. It takes me roughly an hour, depending on the depth of snow, but I must admit the older I get, each year seems a bit longer.

The forecast for the rest of the day & tomorrow seems like we will be getting a load more dumped on us, so I hope the amount of salt I have put down prevents me having to go out & clear it again. Though some years I have had to go out 3 or 4 times to clear it.

One good thing coming out of this is Avimore have opened their ski slopes early this year, so allowing what is a relatively short season to be extended. We may not have it very thick, but with their runs all being above 3000 feet & the use of snow blown onto the slopes (via mechanical snow blowers), plus compacting it down, they have more than enough to satisfy the skiers.

In the before & after photos below, you will notice the brown mixture at the top end of the drive, this is the sub standard road salt they gave us to use up, which contains more sand & grit than salt. The bottom half is done with the proper near 100% salt, so much better. That is the same neighbours house though the colour is different, it wasn’t repainted in between shots, it was just in the first shot n it.

 

 

I did warn you that Christmas was on it’s way in Blair Atholl. Saturday was the start with Father Christmas having a break from his busy schedule  & seeing nearly 50 of the villages children. This was followed by the turning on of the village Christmas lights, which I am sorry to say I was a total failure at taking photos of. I blame it on the extremely strong mulled wine that was on offer, not to mention the delicious mince pies which did rather distract me from getting any decent shots. It is such a shame because our huge Christmas tree (supplied by Atholl Estates) had the near full moon right on the top of it & I really tried to get that shot as it looked like a very bright bauble sitting up there.

I was a bit more with it today at the Christmas Market. Many locals had stalls & also attended as you can see from my shots. I stayed for just over an hour & I think the attendance was up on last year, though it was very mild compared with it being cold last year. As usual the cake stalls & Rami’s bread were popular, along with local handmade jewelry, woolies & honey. The framed photos made me very envious as they were excellent scenes from our area, with a large number showing harsh winters of the past. All in all a good weekend in the village & I promise in the week I will go down to the village & capture the lights as best I can, hopefully.