Croft Madness & "The Don"

I was recently slandered publicly as a “buttfore” for my total lack of blog posts in the last month or so. After asking myself the obvious question “What’s a Buttfore?” I decided that the criticism was well deserved and it was probably time for another post. I guess I can just argue that the reason I didn’t write were because I was actually out doing all the stuff I would write about but in point of fact the real reason for the dearth of posts is the sheer madness that enveloped the croft for a period of approximately one month. This madness began, fittingly, with the worst day (weather-wise) that I experienced on the boat all summer, which was also the topic of my last post. The transformation of the croft from a peaceful sanctuary of inner reflection, deep thought and total personal freedom into the bustling summer rendezvous point that more closely resembles a hotel than a remote island cottage is one that I have never seen from the point of view of the invadee (the role my grandmother played so tirelessly for 20 years). I was always the rambunctious little child racing down from the village after just arriving on the island hooting and hollering my way right into my grandma’s kitchen. Until now I have never stopped to think about how terrifying that image must have been from the other perspective!

In a matter of a few hours the croft was piled high with luggage, groceries, general supplies and used teabags all signifying that the summer family gathering had well and truly begun. Over the next four weeks there was an ebb and flow of visitors that carried the house population as high as 22 and never below 8 with a walloping estimated total of at least 50 different family and friends joining in the festivities during that time. To say that this was a shock to my system would be a massive understatement. On the one hand, with the arrival of the family, I could look forward to four course meals, fresh baked bread and lots of entertainment. On the other hand I now hand to accept the fact that the house was no longer clothing optional and nothing would ever be in the place I had left it as a result of the manic tidying that seemed to be never ending. Those small things aside the overwhelming feeling when the hordes turned up for me was one of excitement. This excitement was much different than in any previous year because I was living at the croft and, for once, would be able to witness the entire month and still be around after everything died down again. I would liken it to an atomic bomb. I was not so involved in the launch preparations, largely because I was the one being bombed, but once the bomb made landfall I was right in the midst of the carnage. The clean up and recovery period is now well underway and most of the citizens have started to go back to living their lives in the way they had known before the explosion.

This is unfortunately the only picture I have of the dinner table and it wasn’t even during the busy time…at this point there are only about 15 people at the house and still 2 table extensions that have yet to be added

It would be impossible to catalog the entire goings on during this time but I’ll do my best to furnish you all with some of the more interesting details in my next couple of posts. I think it would be fitting to start with fishing seeing as that was basically the only thing that remained consistent for me throughout. The weather, which had been spectacular through June and most of July, began to take its first turn toward showing its vicious winter teeth. By the time we were into August the winds were significantly worse than I had experienced in the two months previous. Overall for the past 6 weeks I have been off almost as much time as I have been working and seventy-five percent of that is due to high winds. Even the days when I was working were increasingly becoming wild. One of the most significant impacts of a big gale, as far as fishing is concerned, is the unrest on the ocean that continues for a few days following the storm. I noticed that the biggest swells seemed always to come the day after we had been forced to stay ashore. Working during a storm the conditions are “choppy” but in the big day after swells it is very different, and much more tiring, experience altogether. I can’t think of a great word for it but maybe “undulating” comes the closest to describing it. Regardless of the word that best describes it the result was always the same…complete physical exhaustion.

This picture is a great one because it tells the story of a long hard day in the rain (note all our clothing hanging to dry) ending with spectacular rays of sunshine breaking through the clouds on our steam home.

I have since finished my season on the boat and in the end the weather had more to do with that than anything else. Jamie and I had planned that my last day would be the last Monday in August so that I could help with the landing from my last week and then have one last day out fishing. Once again Mother Nature proved that plans don’t mean shit when she feels like kicking up a fuss. I wasn’t to know it at the time but the Monday starting my final week actually turned out to be my last day on the boat. It was a pretty good day but I certainly didn’t give it the zest I might have if I knew that I wouldn’t be standing on that deck again. It wasn’t until that evening when Jamie phoned to say that the 3 of the next 4 days wouldn’t be fishing days and as for the one day that did look clear Jamie wouldn’t have a car to pick me up. As fast as I had been made a fisherman when I arrived on the island so now was I made a landlubber again.

I figure now is a good a time as any to put up a few random pictures that don't have fantastic stories behind them but are just worth a look...

This Conger Eel isn’t the biggest we caught but he was a good size, probably 3 feet long. This bastards are no joke and we have to dump them into the cage you see in the picture and set it aside to deal with when we have some spare time, it’s the kind of thing that you need to give all your attention to if you don’t want to lose a finger!

Me parking my ride (i.e. dragging the kayak 100 yards up the beach) after a tough day at the office

I knew I'd get a good picture of a really big starfish, this one is a solid 2-3 feet across.

This gooey stringy things are known to fisherman as "scorchers", simply put they are jelly fish tentacles that come flying out of the water attached to the rope and when it hits the winch they are sent catapulting in all directions. Get one of these in your eyes and your day is done. I had a slight sting on the arm once and it wasn't pleasant but luckily it wasn't serious. Apparently if you get one in your hair and don' notice it can run down into your eyes when you shower...needless to say I did my best to stay the hell out of the way when I heard Jamie yell "Scorchers!" every so often.

I feel that now, being done on the boat, it is an appropriate time to do a character sketch of a man who played a major role in my day to day activities but whom I very rarely had contact with. The man in question is the owner of the shellfish company that buys most of the shellfish caught in this area. I think I will call him Biff Dingo for the purposes of this blog. I have only had three encounters with Biff during my three months fishing and it is from those experiences that I color the brush with which I will attempt to paint you his picture. Bearing that in mind it is completely plausible that my assumptions and impressions of Biff could be entirely incorrect….but I’m pretty sure they aren’t…(apologies for no pictures of the landings but Scottish fisherman aren't too keen on cameras and landings are far to much work to accommodate a photo shoot)

I could hear the roar and strain of the engine even before I could see the big white truck emblazoned with name and logo of the local shellfish buyer “Biff Dingo Shellfish Ltd”. I felt the trucks pain as I watched how it was being hurtled around the narrow windy roads at top speed in order to keep on schedule to make the all important ferry to the mainland. Biff came racing down the pier almost daring you to believe that he wasn’t going to stop and then at the last minute slammed on the breaks and came to a skidding halt just a few feet from the edge of the pier sending a stack of fish boxes toppling over. He jumped out of the cab wearing massive blue and orange fishing boots and kicked a wooden palate to one side in disgust. All the fishermen kept steadily sorting and boxing their catches as they had been before he arrived. I had let the excitement of his entrance momentarily take my mind of the task at hand and returned to reality to the unpleasant sensation of a large velvet crab dangling from my finger, as if to somehow rub it in a second velvet dangled defiantly from a leg of the first. I swore, shook the pair lose and went back to sorting the box. The large velvets go into one box and the mediums into another to be loaded onto the truck. There are also the occasional egged, undersized or dead crab all of which we chuck in another fish box at our feet to dump back into the ocean at the end of the landing. The result is a feast for the hungry seagulls that have been hanging around just for that moment and also a reprieve for the few crabs that either had eggs or an amazing talent for appearing dead.

That morning all the boats had made their way to the pier half an hour early as per the request of Biff and we were all just finishing packing up the last of our catches when Biff pulled in. In typical fashion he was late and so the 30 minutes of sleep given up by everyone that morning was for naught. “Hurry up you lot, I need to go home and do a poo!” Biff Dingo now stood hands on hips on the lift bed of his refrigeration truck listening to the half hearted smattering of laughter from the fisherman in response to his coarse entry. Normally Biff sent one of his henchmen to take care of the landing but on this morning we were lucky enough to be graced by an appearance from the don of Mull shellfish himself…and we were impinging on his desire for a poo. Biff is the kind of guy that you meet and spend the whole time nodding and smiling as a torrent of mostly bullshit comes out of his mouth. As far as small to medium sized shellfish operations located on tiny Scottish islands go Biffs’ is hot shit…and unfortunately he knows it. He sets all the prices (based on god knows what scale) and drives all the fisherman mad with his inability to operate in a timely fashion and failure to provide them with the fish and crab boxes in which he demands everything be packed when he arrives at the pier. Biff’s role, as far as I can deduce, when he actually manages to drag himself off his toilet seat and down to the pier for landing is to lord over the proceedings like a small town judge in a one room courthouse. He normally doesn’t stray far from the bed of the truck where he can stand elevated above everyone else so they can all hear him as he pokes around the boxes already loaded into the truck making disparaging comments about the size, quality and general appearance of the shellfish inside them.

The complaints about the catch did not always end simply with words. One of my only other encounters began in the much the same way as the first with a landing and an impressive display of truck driving, this time reversing at top speed down the pier. Everything after that was going like usual and I was carrying boxes of brown crab up the pier to stack by the truck to be weighed. Suddenly a flailing velvet crab came whistling past my ear and bounced off the pier behind me. I looked up in time to see Biff grab another one from a box and hurl it out of the back of the truck. “I’ve had enough of these soft bloody velvets,” he roared as he sent yet another unsuspecting crustacean careening off the edge of the pier. What Biff was complaining about was that he felt some of the crabs he was picking up from the various fishermen were “soft”, meaning they were close to molting and so had weak shells. A crab in this state will rarely survive the long trip to Barcelona and can jeopardize the other crabs in the truck if it dies and begins to decay. On top of that the soft crabs do not have as nice a flavor as the hard ones. Surely the source of Biffs rage was some feedback from his Spanish contacts that there were too many dead crabs in recent shipments they had received. This complaint was now coming back to the fisherman in the form of the temper tantrum now on display on the pier in front of me. Biff definitely got everyone’s attention with his antics but I could tell that no one was feeling genuinely threatened. That suggested to me that it was a fairly commonplace explosion from Biff to send the message that he was keeping an eye on the size and condition of the shellfish he was picking up. He wanted every fisherman to know that he wasn’t afraid to make an example of them if he felt the quality of their catch had been declining. To top things off that morning a couple of our lobsters were refused because they didn’t meet the minimum size. At first it seemed to Jamie and I like another power display move but after taking a second measure of our own back on the boat we saw that they were indeed each one millimeter short. We took them with us and dropped them in Jamie’s secret lobster bank. The bank is a particular spot Jamie knows where smaller lobsters seem to thrive, “get ‘em next year, eh?” Jamie shrugged to me. The inherent optimism propagating that statement is the glue that keeps the fishing industry going. One cannot spend all ones time bemoaning the inevitable ups and downs of working the ocean because they would become all consuming. Jamie embodies the perfect balance of optimism and realism that are so important in his line of work and when all is said and done he probably will get ‘em next year.

Gale Force

The past two weeks have been defined by the wind. Wind represents the only weather phenomenon that means anything to a fisherman and starting two Sundays ago it made its presence felt. I was just setting about making a mackerel dinner for myself and a few friends when I got a phone call from Paul at the village. “Do you know it’s meant to be a force 10 tonight?” he asked. I was taken aback a little as this was something I’d never really experienced. A force 10 is a major gale and just a few steps below a full blown hurricane, which starts somewhere around a force 13, and its serious business to be sure. Serious enough that Paul was suggesting that all the boats be taken off their moorings and out of the water for safety. Just last year a few of the boats had broken free during similarly strong gales. In fact the past Friday I had been out fishing with Jamie and we’d seen the wrecked remains of a fishing boat that had broken its mooring and been dashed and splintered on the rocks like a cheap toy sailboat. Paul said he was bringing their boat around to the croft bay and the tractor was coming down to help us haul the boat up onto the beach. The method, simply, was about a dozen logs acting as rollers under the boat and a rope from it attached to the tractor with us on each side keeping it steady as well as grabbing the logs as they passed beneath the boat and running them back up to the front of the convoy. There were just four of us to get three boats out of the water and after over an hour of pushing, pulling, lifting and swearing we had the lot of them high and dry. In actuality only two were beached the third, Glens boat, we had heaved onto the trailer to be taken back up to the village for safekeeping while Glenn was on holiday. It only took about 5 minutes for me to get a boot full of water and the rest of the time I was sloshing around with what felt like half of the Atlantic keeping my toes miserably icy while I tried to ignore it and keep a grip on my side of the boat. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had my guests round for dinner, one of whom is a hardy former fisherman with a pension for being helpful, it would have left us with just three to deal with the boats and looking back that would have been nearly impossible. I’d planned on a relaxed evening but when I finally stumbled back into the kitchen with Matthew (said former fisherman) I was hit with the reality that the mackerel was still staring up at me from the counter very much uncooked. Luckily deviled mackerel isn’t a labor intensive meal so I had it together fairly quickly and we spent dinner bitching and moaning about how cold and wet the past hour had been and saying all the things we’d do if that bloody gale didn’t do some serious damage to prove all of our labors worthwhile.

The chickens always head for the old WWII mine during nasty gales, I think something about the croft programs them to do so; my grandmothers always did the same.

I went to bed totally unimpressed with the gale and got up to see what I’d missed during the night. Initially the results seemed equally unimpressive but as I looked longer I began to notice signs of a major storm surge. The beach was littered with seaweed that had been dredged up and deposited there by the swell and random items that had not been firmly secured to the ground had been strewn all over the grass and beach around the croft. Nevertheless we all wondered if the storm that had obviously come through in the night was really worth all the fuss it had been given the previous evening. I don’t think we’ll ever really know if it was necessary to bring the boats out of the water but the potential consequences of inaction were not ones we wanted to gamble with. That gale proved to be only the beginning of the next two weeks of meteorological upheaval and I didn’t know it at the time but I was in for some time off. Over the next two weeks I sat and watched storms more than I worked in them and when all was said and done I had done only 7 days of fishing in 14 (instead of the standard goal of 10-12 days).

One day I walked to the high point to take in the storm that, on that day, was pounding the island from the South. The fact that you can see these waves suggests they are huge as I'm quite far away from them.

The nature of Scottish weather is such that you can experience all the seasons in a single day, on the day of this sunset we'd had a lot of wind and rain only for it to give way to this evening scene.

The two weeks of wild weather concluded this past Friday with the most intense conditions in which I’d gone out since I began fishing. I noticed the night before when I checked the forecast that it called for winds to pick up to well over 30 mph during the afternoon and generally winds around 25 mph throw up a red flag for Jamie and I. I waited to get the phone call telling me to sleep in but it never came and as I sank into bed I was still unsure what the next day would have in store. When I woke I could already here the wind howling around the croft and I was certain that the phone would ring before I left with the word from Jamie that we were staying ashore. I went about my morning routine none the less and by the time I was dragging my kayak to the water the wind had intensified to the point that it was difficult to even get into the kayak. I figured there was nothing to be done except paddle across and wait to be picked up as I always did. The paddle was difficult to say the least but being constantly blown in the wrong direction will do wonders to wake you up in a hurry. As I hopped into Jamie’s pickup I could already tell that he had a weather eye out to sea watching the white horses tear violently through the Iona sound. Passing through Fionnphort we stopped just long enough for Jamie to note that only one of the 6 or 7 fishing boats there had gone out. I decided not to remind him that we work on the smallest boat in the area by a far margin, these kinds of details don’t seem to mean much to fisherman and are better left unsaid. For my part, when I see that boats three or four times as large as ours have decided not to bother leaving their moorings it sends up warning flags but, as I learned from Sam last year, the mantra to live by is: If the captain isn’t worried you shouldn’t be either. Sounds like a fishy philosophy to me.
By the time we got to the boatyard Jamie was already scaling back the plans to only a half day of fishing and I figured we’d probably turn back before we hit the first fleet…I was way wrong. We struggled just to get our dingy facing the right way and ourselves and our gear loaded in before setting out to Arianna. Just as we had gotten ourselves going we were lambasted by a sharp wave that sent a chilling stream of water down my back, into my overalls and completely soaked my sweat pants underneath…great, a wet ass and I wasn’t even on the fucking boat yet. I tried to ignore it, knowing that there was absolutely nothing I could do to remedy the situation at that point and that lingering over the soggy situation I was in wasn’t getting me any closer to being warm.
I quickly forgot about my water logged overalls once we rounded the point at Ardtun and hit open water. The waves were already rolling in fast and furious despite the fact that the storm wasn’t really meant to get properly going until after noon. The northwesterly direction of the wind meant that the waves were coming at us first head on and then, once we made the turn to head into the Loch, diagonally from behind us. Steaming into a storm head on is the ideal way to tackle any sort of big waves as the boat can ride over them and maintain its balance fairly well so the first part of our journey was rather fun as we crashed over and through wave after wave. I tried to snap some photos but I wasn’t really able to keep the camera still enough to do the seas justice. It was once we turned the corner at the point that things began to get a little hairy. With the wind now behind us we could neither see the waves coming nor control how we wanted the boat to take them. Waves began hitting us side on from the stern and the boat was now rolling from side to side as if precariously balanced on a see-saw (or teeter totter for the red coat readers among you). I was clinging onto the hauler for dear life and couldn’t decide if I’d rather keep my eyes forward on where we were going or backward to see the next massive wave wildly careening toward us. I am not the best judge of wave height on the water as perspective is typically hard to gain on the open seas but at one point I glanced to port just in time to see the crest of a wave roll past the top of the wheel house…I was looking up at it from where I was standing on the deck. If I had to estimate I would put that wave at least in the 15 foot range and I’m sure it wasn’t the biggest wave of the day but it was one on which I had a decent angle to make a judgment on its size.
I figured that once we got into the Loch the waves would let up somewhat and we’d be able to get at least some of our fleets hauled in relative calm…the fundamental flaw in this line of thought was, of course, that the wind was originating from the northwest and so blowing directly up the Loch. In point of fact it seemed that the shape of the Loch served only to intensify the wind and waves by acting as a funnel channeling the wind and forcing the storm through the mouth of the Loch. Nevertheless when Jamie launched the grappling hook over the side to catch the first float I knew that I had to snap into working gear because it was, after all, the job for which I was getting paid. It’s hard to explain what it’s like trying to do ones job in conditions such as these because there is no frame of reference for the average person. I guess if you were sitting at your desk…on a rocking chair… and that annoying guy from HR was rocking you, not only back and forth, but also side to side, while a radio blasted static in your ear and your boss sprayed you in the face with a garden hose you might be able to begin to recreate the conditions in which I found myself on Friday. Come to think of it you better change that so that you are standing on your rocking chair…and holding a 50 lbs weight…and your boss is also trying really hard to pinch your fingers with a stapler and tie your legs up with a phone cable…fuck it, I don’t think I can really make this one work but you get the idea I hope.
Usually our goal with most of the fleets of creels is to get them in nice and tight to the shore so that they draw the lobsters out of the nooks and crannies they like to inhabit under rock shelves. This involves Jamie steering us in next to the rocks, often within a meter or two, and me throwing the creels as close as I can to the edge. It’s dangerous work in fairly normal conditions because any slightly larger than average wave or a reasonable swell (swell and waves are not one and the same) can push us over the top of the reefs and rocks we are trying to take advantage of but in gale conditions, like those on Friday, we don’t dare get within 50 meters of the shore if we can help it (which typically we can’t). The margin for error when you have 10-plus foot waves and 40 mph winds is basically nonexistent and hauling the creels from where we had last left them was mentally and physically draining. After we got each fleet on board we would high tail it away from the rocks and head offshore directly into the waves while we set the creels out again. Working with the pitch (front to back rocking of the boat) is not too bad and once you get a feel for the movement it’s possible to get through the normal routine in some fashion. It’s when you start getting the waves side on and the boat begins to roll (side to side motion) that things get dicey and this was what Jamie was constantly struggling to try to avoid while he maneuvered the boat so that I could get everything on and off the deck without any mishaps. All in all most of the first 70 creels we did went by remarkably well and I can really only remember one time where I honestly thought I was going over the side of the boat. I had just picked up one of the larger creels and was trying to navigate through the snaked coils of rope that were sloshing all over the deck, being careful to keep an eye out as the rope rushed over the side following the last creel down to the ocean floor. The boat rolled back and I started forward towards the shooting table (where we put the creels on when I don’t throw them) but just as I was heaving the creel up to my chest to set it on the table a massive wave caught the boat and threw it over towards the side with the table. In an instant I found myself on top of the creel on the table with my feet dangling over the deck my head hanging over the side looking down into the churning black water. Although it was largely due to the weight of the creel that I found myself in the precarious position that I was in, I also have the creel to thank for keeping me on the right side of the gunwale. It was because I was in the act of setting it on the table when the wave hit that I had something to grab hold of to keep myself on the boat. My weight combined with the weight of the creel had created enough friction with the rope bound around the shooting table to hold the creel and, by default, me in place…I also have the fisherman’s obsession with binding everything they see with rope to thank for my safety in this case.
The storm, with a few fleeting exceptions, only got worse throughout the morning. Somehow despite everything that was thrown at us by the gale we still managed to work our way all the way down the Loch (approximately 140 creels). As I bungled the final creel over the side I felt a sense of accomplishment that we’d done so much in the face of, what Jamie described as, the worst conditions he’d take the boat out in. He had even apologized about half way through the morning and admitted to me that he felt a little guilty about bringing me out in the storm to which I replied that I was having a blast and as long as I ended up back on dry land I wasn’t much bothered with anything that happened along the way. We had even been pleasantly surprised by getting 5 lobsters in the final 20 creels (we tend to average 1 in every 10 creels) so the day was, in terms of the catch, reasonably successful. The real fun, however, came on the nearly 2 hour steam back up the Loch towards home (normally this would take us about an hour). We were heading straight into the teeth of the gale and it was just reaching a fever pitch. It made cutting the crab a very interesting task whereby I spent half of my energy trying to keep my ass on the bucket I was using as a seat and the other half trying to keep whatever crab I was dealing with at that moment under control so I didn’t lose a finger all the while receiving a healthy dose of spray in the face every time the boat crashed down on another wave (which was every other wave). When the engine finally came to a rumbling stop after I had tied us onto the mooring I was soaked from head to toe, despite my thick oil skin jacket and overalls, and all my muscles were screaming for a hot bath.

This video is only a few seconds long because my camera died but it gives you a little idea of what I see from where I stand next to the wheel house.

The bath, however, was not in the cards as I got back to the wood pile just in time to help load my grandfather (who had just arrived along with my mother and family friend Dorothy) along with all the supplies they’d brought into the tracker to take across to the croft. By the time that was all done and everyone was getting settled with a hot cup of tea I was just learning that Katy, who was also scheduled to arrive that night, was stuck in Oban (her train had broken down and there would now be no bus to meet the ferry she would have to catch) and so I turned around and walked back across the bay to the car to drive the hour to pick her up off the ferry. My grandfather’s car, however, had other plans, namely its gear box giving way 20 minutes into the journey, resulting in me having to drive the remaining 40 minutes with only forth gear. This might not sound like much to many of you who are used to driving on nice highways and big open roads but when it’s done on a single track road (yes, that means one lane with traffic going in both directions) winding around mountains and lochs with the constant threat of tour buses and crazy locals suddenly appearing around any turn it adds a certain element of excitement (not sure that’s quite the word but it’ll do). I’m not sure exactly how but I made it to the dock before Katy’s ferry and just in time to realize that the handicap space I’d pulled the car into would be its final resting place that night (thankfully my grandfather actually has a handicap sticker so I wasn’t completely out of line in parking there..as long as no one sussed out that I wasn’t the 91 year-old man in the picture on the dashboard). Fortunately for me and Katy, when she learned of the situation upon disembarking from the ferry, two things were on our side; the first, the little pub just down the road from the ferry and, second, the unrelenting kindness and good nature of James Chitty (quietly enjoying his last night in the croft when I phoned to explain our situation) who immediately announced he was getting in his car to come get us (a 2 hour round trip and it was already 9:30 at night). We were just finishing our second round when he smilingly strolled into the pub to save us from the prospect of spending the night in the back of my grandfather’s temperamental van. How glorious it is to have people who will drop everything in an instant to help you out of a frustrating situation even if it means leaving a piping hot dinner on the table to do so. I close this entry with thanks and a cheers of my dram to James, Slange!

The Mystery of the Disappearing Eggs & the Epic Battle for Croft Bay Security

Disclaimer: This entry contains subject matter not suitable for bleeding heart animal rights activists or those who do not understand actions based on necessity. Having said that it also contains one of the greatest victories I have experienced! It is a victory of good over evil, love over vicious hatred and preservation over destruction. Now go ahead, I dare you not to read!

---------------------------------------------------WARNING------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------Seriously you’ve been warned--------------------------------------------------------

I walked out to the chicken hutch on Sunday to collect my daily installment of soon-to-be Bunessun Show prize winning eggs. I was feeling great about the eggs because their size had been steadily increasing over the past few weeks. I could already see the red first prize ticket along with the monumental £2.50 cash prize sum being handed to me as all the other chicken keepers on Mull pouted about the new comer who had ousted them of all their glory in a matter of weeks. I lifted the roof to reveal my spoils...but something was amiss, there were no spoils to be had. Hang on a second, no eggs?!? I had not experienced an eggless day since I brought the hens back down to the croft. Dark storm clouds instantly filled my head and I stormed off looking for the culprits. A few calls of “Chook, chook” later and I had the guilty parties happily strutting around my feet, oblivious to the wrath that was about to come raining down upon them. I unleashed a barrage of “how could you” and “after all those hand feedings,” and “not even one measly solitary egg!” The hens stopped their parading and looked at me cock-eyed as if to say “Who? Us?”, “Yes you, you feathered brained pigeons!” I replied. I was not having any of their innocent tricks this time; I was getting to the bottom of this. I called upon my vast knowledge of chicken psychology trying to determine the cause for this mockery of their biological duties. The only two things that came to mind were, firstly, they had inadvertently pecked open one of their own eggs and gotten a taste for the sweet glory that lay within (this is a big problem, believe it or not, and one that caused my mother to devise a cunning strategy of inserting golf balls into the coop so that when the hens pecked them they figured the eggs were rock hard and decided they were not worth trying to eat), or secondly, something had put them off their usual laying schedule (either an illness, which I was sure wasn’t the case, or something else…). I decided that some serious investigation was in order.

The egg on the right is one of the normal eggs I get. Its good size compared to any egg you’d see somewhere else but compared with mega egg on the left it looks tiny. I heard the poor hen trying to lay this the other day and when I saw the size I understand why the clucks were so strained. Mega egg has been referred to as “a duck egg” by several who witnessed its majesty before I turned it into breakfast.

If there’s one thing I know about chickens it’s that everything begins and ends at the coup. If there was a clue to be had I was betting it would be somewhere in or around their house. I took off the roof and set it aside. At first glance everything within seemed normal; chicken shit in the water dish (when will they learn that the dish is literally the only place they shouldn’t shit?), a little round nest bed in the corner where each hen takes her turn at laying every morning (or not laying, as has been the case recently), the bar on which they roost…everything seemed in order. Then just as I was getting ready to put on the roof again and go back to have another kick-off at the hens I noticed something lying against the wall by the entrance…it was a small piece of egg shell. They were pecking their own eggs, I knew it! Oh they were in for it this time; there would be no shirking of their responsibilities on my watch. There was still, however, something niggling in the back of my mind; one piece of broken shell does not three eggs account for. I decided to look around a little more before I condemned all three to their punishment, which I was still trying to decide upon. I walked around the banks of the stream where the chickens often gather while they wait for me to feed them or to hide among the grass and reeds in nasty weather. Almost immediately I nearly trod on an egg nestled into a small patch of grass. That’s odd, I thought, but at least it meant they were still laying (or at least two, since there was still one egg not accounted for) and one hen was now off the hook as its egg was still intact if not slightly misplaced, but that could be excused this once. Another few yards up the bank and I had a third egg…or what was left of a third egg. I found about two thirds of the outstanding egg, obviously empty of yoke, sitting on the sheep path that leads to the grassy hill behind the croft. Suddenly all of my theories of egg pecking sabotage and hen laying strikes where cast unceremoniously out the window. No chicken was capable of picking up her egg and carrying it off to have a little picnic and they wouldn’t bother to do this even if they could. If they wanted to eat their own eggs they had the comfort and privacy of their hutch in which to do so. There was much more to this mystery than I had at first assumed.

The rest of my Sunday afternoon was spent pondering the possible explanations for the strange scene that I had uncovered earlier in the day. After many interrogations of my hens and deep ponderings of their lack of credible explanations I was no closer to cracking the case when I finally sank into bed. I had to put my thoughts aside and get myself prepared for a long Monday beginning with and early morning and the weekly landing. After Kayaking across the bay I waited at the Fidden farm house for Jamie to pick me up. It gave me time to ask some of the locals their take on the mystery I was struggling to solve….

Some seemed to contemplate my story carefully although I gathered it was too early for them to really get their horns around it…

Others were completely uninterested in anything I had to say, instead focusing

their attentions on things they could round up…or scratch…

With no plausible suggestions coming from any of the locals I was again left in a state as confusion as I hopped into Jamie’s truck and started off for the boat yard and a long tiring day at sea. The mysterious egg mystery (is that too repetitive?) would have to wait until I returned to dry land.

Upon beaching my kayak on the Erraid shore that evening I had very little time to wait before the full frightening reality of the cracked egg case would come to fruition. I walked towards the house and watched happily as my hens sprinted across the beach towards me, as they do every day, expectations of bread swirling around in their heads. After reassuring them that I would return with some snacks I entered the garden where I found Anna, who was living at the village, sitting in the garden enjoying the sunshine. I had barely managed a “hello” before she said that she had solved the mindboggling egg mystery. It was her day off and she had come down earlier in the day to get some peace and quiet and read in the garden. While she was sitting there she had spotted the culprit of the egg thefts. It was none other than a Mink, scourge of the Scottish isles, pillager of innocent wildlife and destroyer of eco-systems; the ultimate enemy of any Scottish farmer. She told me of how she had watched the Mink unabashedly going in and out of the garden and the hen hutch during the day completely unconcerned with her presence mere feet from the coup. She had seen it retreat under the bridge that crossed the small stream just beside the hen hutch and watched the hens obliviously peck around not more than a meter from where she had last seen the cold blooded killer. Instantly I flew into a bloodthirsty rage, blinded by anger. It was fueled in part by fear for my poor hens who could do little to protect themselves if the Mink decided it wanted more than just the eggs it was already helping itself to, in part by the fact that the Mink was, in fact, helping himself to my eggs, and also by the fact that I knew that for the majority of the day I was gone and could do little, if anything, to prevent what I believed to be inevitable…retuning to find one, or all, of my hens murdered by this savage little monster.

Who wouldn’t want to protect something that looked like this, eggs or no eggs?

I spun away from Anna, who was still trying to explain what she’d seen, grabbed the nearest weapon, a pitchfork, and stormed off around the house. I rattled my pitchfork into every cave and crevice that I could find, yelling vicious threats and explaining in detail to the mink, who I was sure was within earshot, the terrible things that would befall him should he even so much as think of harming a feather on any of my hens. Unsurprisingly my vengeance fueled tirade did not uncover the perpetrator but it did allow me to blow off some steam so that I could approach the situation with a slightly more rational outlook. I set about re-baiting the Mink traps, which I had already set out when I first repatriated the hens to the croft after my arrival, with some fresh fish heads. I rounded up the hens, gave them some bread and unceremoniously stuffed them all into the hutch (after first lifting the lid to make sure the Mink was not laying in wait inside). I was reminded of a story my mom told me of when my grandmother had locked her eight hens into their hutch for the night not realizing that in doing so she had also shut the Mink in with them, only to awake to the carnage of all eight birds viciously murdered during the night. I was not about to make the same mistake, especially given that I already knew this Mink was very familiar with hutch. The hens were very confused as to why they were being put to bed several hours before they would normally make that decision for themselves. I got several very fussy clucks and a few attempted escapes as I shooed all three into the hutch and latched the door. I was taking no chances. I swore on everything I believed in to Anna that I would have that Mink before he took another egg and that I wouldn’t let any harm befall my beloved hens. She could tell by the serious tone of my voice and the fire still burning in my eyes that this was not an empty promise to be questioned, she simply smiled and nodded.

Tuesday was one of the most difficult days I have had at work and it had absolutely nothing to do with the work on the boat at hand. I had left that morning with an empty feeling in my stomach as I let the hens out for the day. After much deliberation I had determined that I could not keep them locked up all day and that if the Mink had wanted to kill them he could have done so during the past few days or possibly weeks that he had already been around. I was not about to give in so easily to the threat and let this shady little beast get the best of me. Nevertheless my day was filled with thoughts of hen hutch massacres and frantic chases ending always in my hens being killed in cold blood by the evil, murderous Mink. I was even having some trouble getting excited by the fact that our week on Arianna had started as the best yet with the promise of a huge catch to be landed the following Monday.

Upon being dropped at the wood pile by Jamie I leapt into my Kayak and raced across the bay. The boat had barely scrapped onto the sand at the other side before I was out and running up the beach calling to my ladies. I waited and called and finally two hens came in full sprint around the corner of the house. My spirits lifted until I did not see the third hen on their heels. Where was she? I again called frantically, already wondering where the mangled body might be lying and wondering if I could bare to see that sight before I had even taken my oil skins off. Before my depressing thoughts could sink any further, however, the straggler turned up huffing and clucking around the house thinking that it was already missing out on some tasty little treat from me. I was instantly full of happiness and heaped lavish praise on my brave hens for going about their lives without fear. They simply looked at me, confused as to why I had called them so vigorously and yet stood here now with no food for them as if to say “Come on then mate, you just made us hoof it all the way from the beach for this, where’s the bread then?” I gladly obliged and retuned from the house with several choice bits of bread and some leftovers from the night before. I sat with the hens fussing about me fighting over the bits of food I held out for them to jump for thinking that I could not go on every day like this. The emotional rollercoaster that had been my 9 hours away from the croft was unacceptable and was detracting from my immense enjoyment of fishing. I had to come up with a better plan to combat my enemy. The Mink traps had been baited for the past three weeks with fish heads and had returned no Mink. To be fair I had only added fresh bait on two occasions because I had not thought a Mink to be living in the area but nevertheless it seemed that this particular Mink was not interested in the fish. Then I had my cartoon light bulb flashing revelation; if the Mink wants fresh eggs why not give him fresh eggs? I had been getting three eggs a day, far more than I was consuming, and I was more than willing to risk a few of those if it meant I would continue to have three hens. I immediately ran to the house and retrieved two of the freshest eggs (ones that had not been refrigerated yet). I set about baiting the traps and this time I was not fooling around. I spent nearly an hour carefully setting the trap doors on my two Mink traps so that it would take little more than a mouse sneezing over the metal plate at the rear of the cage to trigger the door to close. The eggs were placed all the way at the back behind the aforementioned metal plate so that when the Mink entered to retrieve them he would have to set at least his front paws on the plate and that would be more than enough.

The bait. I was really torn between using these for bait and just making a nice omelet and sticking with the fish heads.

I had been invited to dinner up at the village that night and so I shut my hens up early again, giving me some peace of mind, and set off for dinner. The night was spent with me talking to several of the long time residents about their own Mink experiences and receiving the same quizzical looks and questioning responses when I told them what I had decided to use for bait. I assured them that I was certain that the Mink was far more interested in the eggs than any other sort of bait I could think of and that the typical fish head bait had been ineffective to say the least. I left them no more convinced by the end of our discussion but their doubt had only served to strengthen my resolve that I would have the Mink. I again swore to anyone that would listen that I would catch the Mink before the week was up, my pride only slightly dented by the laughs I received in return.

Wednesday passed much as Tuesday had, with nervous thoughts back to my hens innocently pecking around the seaweed and grass unaware of the danger that could be lurking behind any corner. I again rushed home and was greatly relieved when all three again responded to my calls. I ran to check my traps but they empty, the eggs were still sitting just where I had left them at the back of the cages. I double checked the spring mechanism to make sure it was still set to the “sneezing mouse” sensitivity setting I had arranged the day before and covered over the traps with some netting, grass and other random bits to conceal the obviously unnatural metal bars of the cage I hoped would be the final holding place for the dark villain. Again I shut the hens in very early and had another walk around the croft to try to see if I could find any other clues that would suggest a Mink hiding place. The fact was that the hiding places around the croft where so numerous that I could never hope to find them all let alone do anything more to catch the Mink even if he really was hiding in one of them. I had to hope that my traps would do the trick.

That evening I got the call from Jamie that a nasty gale was blowing in and that our next several days of fishing would be jeopardized beginning with us not going out the following day due to the high winds that were already rolling in from the West. I was glad for a day off as I had started to feel slightly under the weather and was greatly in need of a lie in and day of recovery. My friend Britta from the village kindly offered to let my chickens out and feed them the next morning so that I could sleep in late. I woke early to the sound of the wind battering the house and listened for a minute or two before rolling over and going back to sleep. The next sound that awoke me from my slumber was not one that I would simply lay and listen to. Instead it started me from a dream and had me out of bed and dressing as I rushed out the door moments later. It was the sound of a very frantic and uncomfortable chicken and I feared that I had played with fate one day to long and the Mink had finally attacked the hens. There are only three real calls I understand from my hens. There is the proud clucking declaration when they have just finished laying a fresh egg, the unhappy drawn out clucks when they are hungry or have just been pecked off the food by another of the hens, and, lastly, the fearful and excited clucks when they feel threatened or frightened about something. I have heard it before but not this year and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to hear it at all.

As I rushed out of the dorm I grabbed the pitchfork, which I had stationed by the door on the first day I had realized that there was Mink about, and burst out o the gate. There I quickly began calling for me hens and waited as two came from around the front of the croft. The third I could hear but could not yet see and this was the hen that had raised the alarm. I listened and again the call came…from inside the hutch. The hair on the back of neck bristled and I slowly crept to the hutch and threw open the roof, pitch fork raised waiting to stab at the Mink should he be inside. All I found was a very frazzled looking hen, unharmed but surrounded by feathers pacing back at forth near the entrance to the coup. All chickens accounted for and unharmed I relaxed slightly. My eyes shot down to the entrances to the two Mink traps that were set near the coup. The first was still open and my eyes shifted to the second, hidden beneath a net and some reeds to the left of the hutch door…it was closed!

I pulled away the netting to reveal the long, sleek black frame of the Mink. I had captured it and all three of my hens were still alive to see! I celebrated, dancing in a Crile around the Mink, pitch fork in the air, laughing maniacally and shouting “I told you I’d bag you, you mangy little bastard,” to the Mink, who for his part, had not yet seemed to realize that he was caught and was more concerned that someone was interrupting his egg lunch. The egg was lying at his paws, carefully cracked open so that the shell served as a little bowl to hold the precious yoke inside.

I know what you are all thinking at this point, “Awww, he’s so cute and furry and cuddly.” “WRONG!” He is, in fact, the most foul, vicious, bloodthirsty killer that exists (unnaturally I must add) in all of Scotland. He is responsible for the decline in population of all ground dwelling animals and nesting birds in the Scottish Isles. He can swim exceedingly well and so no island is safe from his marauding ways. He only exists in Scotland because a bunch of do-gooder animal rights folks decided that Mink farming, for their pelts, was cruel (which I agree it is) leading to the amazingly foolish decision to simply open all the cage doors and let the Mink lose into an environment that was completely unprepared for them. They are amazingly adaptable and as such have thrived in the area. Everything about them is designed to help them catch and kill whatever they want. The worst part is that they seem to have a pension for killing even when it is totally unnecessary (remember my mom’s tale of an entire batch of hens killed in one night in the infamous coop lock-in murder) and will leave bodies of their victims totally untouched. They seem to be one animal, maybe one of the only, that kills for pleasure. Now I had this sadistic creature captured at my feet and the task of what to do next was now mine alone to determine. The decision for me, however, was an instantaneous no-brainer; the Mink had to be killed.

Now I cannot remember ever killing a mammal in my life. I have always loved all things furry and fluffy. I was raised with rabbits, gerbils and hamsters and have always had an interest in ferrets, which are extremely similar to Mink, although never actually owned one. So for me, killing a small, fuzzy, cute-looking critter is something I never expected I’d be faced with and until now, if you’d asked, I probably would have said I couldn’t do it. But in this moment surrounded by my hens which, judging by the feathers around the hutch, had just had a close encounter with the Mink, I had complete conviction in the task at hand. My only real decision was not if, but how, to kill the Mink and there were really only two possibilities I could think of. The first was some sort of physical battering of the animal either with a rock or something sharp driven through the cage but I really didn’t want to risk not finishing it swiftly and end up maiming the animal. I wanted one action to finish the job. I also did not want to face listening to the painful screeches of the Mink. He was already beginning to hiss and screech at me as I stood over the cage obviously starting to sense the danger he was in. I decided that I would drown him in the stream. It was a method I had remembered hearing of being used when I was younger and it seemed the best option to me. I decided to let the Mink have his last meal of the egg and went off in search of some rope to fix to the cage so that I could lower it into the stream.

As I searched around for a suitable length of rope to use I began to have strong feelings that I had conquered a great evil and that I was doing a service not only to my hens but also to all the small birds and animals in the area. I thought about the Shell ducks living on the beach and about their nine little ducklings that I had been watching everyday being taught to swim, forage for food and even the early stages of their flight lessons. I thought about the sand pipers who had been nobly guarding their nests along the beach and among the rocks, doggedly chasing away seagulls and anything else, including me, that got too close to their secret nests. I thought about the rabbits and hares that I see sprinting around the grass and about their litters of babies hiding down holes, holes that Mink would have no trouble entering. I obviously thought most about my hens, who greet me so excitedly whenever I get home and peer through the gate waiting for the door to swing open every morning as I carry out their breakfast. I thought about these things and realized that I would gladly take on the duty of executioner in exchange for the daily joy I get from watching all of these animals habitually go about their lives. As I pulled down a rope hanging in the boat shed my mind and heart were firmly set upon the task at hand.

Returning to the trap I began tying the rope to two points on the handle of the cage. The mink, by this time, had finished his last meal and was anxiously looking for a way out of what would soon become his metal coffin. Upon seeing me his body tensed, I could see the muscles tighten as he crouched in the corner of the cage softly hissing and barely his small dagger shaped teeth. As I fumbled with the knots his hisses grew more fervent and then turned to screeches which pierced the air and sent the hens into another bout of uncomfortable clucking. Any feelings of hesitation that might have still existed in me were driven off when I heard the awful screeching. It was not the sound of a gentle creature it was the sound of evil captured and out of its element. The rope firmly fixed to the cage I hoisted it up and began carrying it down to the bridge to the front right of the croft. I set it on the bridge while I went to get a large rock, which would serve as a weight on the cage once it was lowered down into the water.

The Mink peering nervously into the stream, if only he knew why he was on the bridge

I was now at the point of no return. I was the only one around and there was no asking someone else to do the deed. I lifted the cage, gave one last look to the Mink and quickly lowered the cage into the water. It did not need the rock as the weight of the steel was enough to drag in to the bottom but I put the rock on anyway not wanting there to be any doubt. I watched for a minute but something told me not stay and l left. I busied myself with some chores for 20 minutes before returning and hauling up the cage. The Mink was dead and I felt first a weight lifted off my shoulders followed by a moment of pity for the creature that now lay motionless and dripping in the cage.

The moment of pity passed quickly as I remembered what I was avoiding by killing the Mink. There was no question in my mind as to what was to be done with the body of the tormentor of my chickens. I marched the cage up to the old swing set where last year Sam had hung the head of a massive conger eel he had caught while fishing. Donning some gloves I opened the cage and pulled the Minks body out. I had decided that he would hang next to Sam’s eel and serve as a warning to any other Mink that this croft was not one they wanted to pick to terrorize. I fixed his tail with a solid knot (one of my newly learned fishermen’s knots!) and tied the other end to the cross bar of the swing. Much as a farmer would erect a scarecrow in his fields to ward off crows now so too do I have my Mink deterrent swaying in the breeze, a constant reminder that my hens and all the creatures of the croft bay are protected by a force to be reckoned with!

Note: In the days after all of this I have started to find myself coming out with really tasteless dead mink jokes but I still felt that they were worth sharing.

I cannot help, every time I leave the croft, giving a glance up to the Mink and saying “Oh, you still hanging around here?”

The cream of the crop came when I recently went up to the village for dinner. I was standing in the line to get some food with several others including my good friend Britta, when I turned to her and said “Oh Britta do you think it’ll rain this evening?” “I don’t know,” she replied, “Why?” “Well it’s just that I’ve got this Mink hanging to dry and it would be a real shame if he got all wet again.”

…I’m evil, I know but don’t tell me that didn’t make you smile too.