COLUMN: Taking a sample of peat to show others what we like to burn up here is different to taking the whole bank
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The Postie Notes by Mark Gilbert
Straight after a long and bad winter, we went into summer, with no apparent spring, then into drought conditions on the rivers in May and June.
But even though the summer started early, it then stopped being summer for quite a while. I have been wearing more winter and bad weather gear in the summer, than I do in winter.
You couldn’t define which season we were getting on a daily basis, and as a gardener, I was duped into getting everything started early.
Then the weather kicked me up the backside and thwarted my early plantings, by sending God awful cold northerly winds that “burnt”, to within an inch of their lives, most of my efforts in Anson Mackay's Auld Hoose garden.
But, with a few swear words and a bit of tidying up, they somehow survived.
The cuckoos came and went as usual, and the heather finally showed its true colours mid-August.
The midges have been very busy too, thanks to the warm, damp conditions after the torrential downpours. They’ve been a pain. I saw two cyclists last week whose skin looked like a pink polka dot suit, from head to toe.
The good thing about the amount of rain we’ve had is that the crofters are taking plenty of grass off for winter feed. In fact, their timing between showers is amazing, just how they cut it and bale it before the next storm is a miracle.
The peats were cut early too, and most have been set, dried out and brought home by now. Unfortunately, the peats have attracted sinister attention this year, in that they have become a target for “peat rustlers”! – I know, you couldn’t make it up.
But there I was, coming back from Kinbrace, through the wilderness of the B871 – 18 miles of nearly nothing, apart from sheep and deer. And there they were, the people from the three off-road type vehicles that had spent the night in a popular little pull-off, near the peat banks.
They were ferrying the peats from one of the banks, and loading them on one of their trucks. There were several of them, both male and female and they had a production line going.
Knowing whose peats these were, I stopped up by the Palm Loch and phoned them, and shortly afterwards they turned up and got the offenders to return all the peats.
I did say that they should have got them to deliver them to Strathnaver, as they were already loaded on their big truck, and ironically, the three vehicles did go through Strathnaver later that day. Opportunity missed.
More breaking news regarding peat rustlers – others have been spotted loading bags of peats onto vehicles up at peatbanks at A'Mhoine near Tongue (spaceport country).
If the rustlers knew the hard work that goes into getting the peats ready to bring home, they might be shocked. I used one of those kneeling/sitting stools this year, after my bad leg issue, and it was quite easy.
Taking a sample to show others what we like to burn up here is different to taking the whole bank.
On a similar subject, the Crumbs Cake Cupboard, which was only set up recently and has proved to be very popular, was cleared out recently by a thief.
Whoever it was nicked all the goodies and left no money. The bad buggers; I hope they choked, but they wouldn’t have done so, because they don’t understand our trusting way of life up here.
n Mark Gilbert is a postman at Bettyhill.
