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Apr 12th, 2023

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Snow back on the mountains

The weather has turned cold again and we have snow on the mountains today at about 400m – unusually for mid April. The solar is doing ok again though as it is reasonably bright. Over the last few days we have been almost completely grid independent and are managing to get the battery fully recharged.

Apr 9th, 2023

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Dad’s Birthday

Today was Easter Sunday and my father’s ninety-third birthday. He has seen the reigns of five monarchs – George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II and Charles III We had a nice buffet, two quizzes (both of which my brother won), and painted some Easter eggs. From left to right – J’s owl bear, […]

Apr 3rd, 2023

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Geese

R and I were walking down the coach road this morning when we heard a loud honking from above. R managed to snap them although it is not a great photo as they were too high. These are probably pink-footed geese and from the direction they were heading my guess is that they were on […]

Apr 1st, 2023

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Solar in March

As the days lengthen, the solar is producing more and more. We are now starting to produce from around 7am (very small amounts) pushing up to either full production of about 12.5KW if it is sunny, to around 8KW if overcast during peak hours of around 11am to 5pm. Production then continues until about 6:30pm […]

Mar 31st, 2023

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Marten marking his territory

A huge male marten seems to have been marking his territory – no wonder the cats get all excited and sniff that stone (which is where we put the nuts).

Mar 26th, 2023

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Made a new friend today

A few weeks ago, R and I saw a fluffy tabby cat intently hunting something in the field behind the Scout centre. I made the usual “Here kitty, kitty noises” and it gave me a look of extreme contempt and ran off. Today we saw it in the same place again and with no expectation […]

Mar 19th, 2023

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Stray cat appears to be gone

Haven’t seen it around for days now, and a lady in the village told me that it is a feral that has been in the area for several years. So on balance we are not going to try to trap it as it would be cruel to take it away from the life it knows. […]

Mar 15th, 2023

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Learning Gaelic now

I’ve always wanted to learn Scots Gaelic. I find it very sad that whilst a hundred years ago nearly everyone in Argyll would have spoken it, the language was systematically and deliberately eradicated from the area and now is not widely spoken outside the Western Isles. So I’ve tried to start learning it from a […]

Mar 10th, 2023

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Stray Cat

Oh dear – we seem to have acquired a stray cat in our garden. We saw it a few times on the webcam over night, and then yesterday it appeared in the daylight and had to be shooed away three times. It is quite scrawny and scruffy and no one in the village seems to […]

Mar 6th, 2023

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More on the Solar

The weather of late has been unusual to say the least. It has been bright, sunny and moderately cold although today it started snowing again! There is snow on Beinn Bheula at about 500m this afternoon. R did some more clever technical work and integrated the Solar/PowerWall system into a dashboard which works with the […]