Weather the same with only the Grace Anne out on the crabs so far this week. Although not stormy it is way beyond what I am going out in. Down to the boat to check out a report of my bridle rope slipping off it’s roller and sure enough the north westerly storms had torn the metal along the side of the bracket and bent the unit to the side.
A tie down and something to add to the list when I am next ashore. Need some electrics seeing to as well as a couple of welds on my mast, still not too bad wear and tear. Picked up Liz’s dinghy on the way in and got our tea as well before changing over my out hauler and making sure ropes around the tree trunks are loose so they do not cut into the bark. Had to cut a few free and could almost feel the relief of the trees…..makes me a tree hugger I suppose.As I went down in the van it was good to see some seaweed by the roadside so a quick stop and into the van it went.
The tea by the way were the mussels scrapped from my own dinghy, and they were beautiful and fat.
Up the road and it was a busy little Inn with no customers but a shed change over in the offing. Horse box filling, emptying existing sheds, funny to see the notice appearing at the back of the old veg shed,
and taking the almost constructed new one across the road to put in place of the old two. Nice to see a blink of sunlight on the north shore of the Bay.
Swinging back into action myself although not doing as much paper work as I should it is slowly taking shape…it has to as several deadline deadlines are approaching. Dougal took up most of the evening’s activity as he went walk about around seven and was still walking about at eleven. Phone call from Jill at the Inn said he was walking about up there and seemed happy to jump into her car. Don’t think she realised how smelly he had become again and it was straight into the shower when I got him home. Must be going through some sort of adolescence stage, well that is what we are hoping. This evening on the couch it is as though butter would not melt in his mouth.
Today it was a little of this and that, wood chopping, seaweed spreading, paper working, and then out to do last stop painting and decorating at the toilets. They are looking good and are soon ready for opening.
During a bit of prepping at the toilets the shed moving went on and seemed successful. A couple of months and it will always have been there.
Community Council meeting this evening and it was actually very interesting. We have a problem in the community that needs solving and good to exchange views on how to go about it. It is a very unusual situation and everyone is going to have to wait for the minutes to be fair. Good to have a bit of humour when trying to resolve local difficulties. Small place and mixing politics and personalities, you canna beat.
Comments on: "Mussels, food for free." (8)
Those mussels look good and looks like the classic cooking, none of your chillies or what not in here !
Mussels from the dinghy, garlic from my garden, onion from the school garden, cream from the Inn and a dash of wine vinegar….no wine in. They were good.
What’s the shed on the Inn for
Liz x
Elizabeth Harris
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Replacing the beer shed and veg shed. They were falling apart.
Mighty fine plump Mussels Ali. After farming them for nearly 3 years in Kishorn I do like a good plate of mussels but I have always been disappointed down here when I have ordered them in a restaurant. The best I did have were in an Indian restaurant where they were served in a spicy tomato sauce, different but very nice.
Harvested and cooked the same day. They were surprisingly fat for their size. It is a pity the mussels never worked in Kishorn. Not sure why.
It was a very labour intensive process we used to have 4 of us to harvest a tonne of mussels which probably only sold for £600-£700 so little profit. We used the Galician mussel rafts which because of their size meant using the Fionn with her crane just to lift the the ropes out of the water. In Spain I suppose labour was cheaper back then as well and they certainly worked harder and longer. I went and worked on a Galician mussel farm and 6 people could work 10-15 tonnes a day, we would barely manage 1 tonne.
The Irish with there Long lines probably had the best system for this part of the world, which i see is what they still use over in Loch Eishort. We use to by up small mussels from two crofters in loch Eishort and bind them to our ropes to grow them on.
I certainly think that there was money to be made in Shellfish farming and it is one of the most sustainable forms of aquaculture. But probably only on a small scale on the west coast as they didn’t grow fast enough to warrant large scale production and the cost of expensive rafts and boats.
Oysters were also labour intensive, but with the right system of grading on shore and access to the oyster trestles from the land and not by boat, the process could be speeded up no end.
Reading a book just now about a place in Andalusia where they were eventually given some land and they cultivated it by looking at the most labour intensive crops to give everyone work and it seems to be working. Have not got to the end yet but still optimistic. Goes against what we are preached about our wonderful capitalist system, where we are supposed to cut back on labour costs to make money. I wonder….