drumsticks!!

sweet... they've finally arrived.

poor Annie.

Wow... no rugby scrum, but the ceilidh was a blast. I think I may be turning into a Croft No. Five groupie. If you haven't checked them out yet, go here and you can download some songs (I think). Paul was kind enough to let people have a rip on his makeshift kit (a floor tom for a bass drum, which sounded awesome) so myself and Garry jammed out a Hendrix tune and some various other traditional songs that just left me holding a pair of brushes with a confused look on my face. Can't wait for the festival.

I've started helping out in the castle kitchen, under the watchful eye of Head Chef Norman (the only chef). Yesterday was my first go and I don't think I've ever peeled so many potatoes. Got some good cooking tips, which is why I volunteered in the first place, and I'm going back this afternoon for round two. Other than that things are pretty laid back at the moment. I think this is the lull before the storm (ie. tourist season).

cheers

Live from Rum

It's another ceilidh night... featuring 3 members of Croft No. Five. I'm on the shop PC right now, with the sound check going on around me. I'm also the lighting tech for this evening... which consisted of carving candles down so they would fit in wine bottles (gotta set the mood).

More to come later tonight...

The Sound of Rum Music Festival

Got the urge to travel? Dig live music with celtic influences? Missing beer tents and outdoor venues? Well the Isle of Rum has something for you... The 2nd annual Sound of Rum Music Festival: May12-14th. Featuring such hard hitting acts like Croft No. Five, the Peatbog Faeries and 3 days worth of other bands, you could hardly go wrong. Throw in daily workshops for various instruments (for all levels) and you're laughing.

Flights to Scotland are cheap as chips, and once here you can stay at the beautiful 5 star Chateau Harris, which is rumoured to have the best view around. Alternatively there is the castle hostel and camping right near the event (where I'll be... oh who am I kidding, sleep is out of the question).

Give it some thought for your travel plans... this is going to be one hell of a festival and I'd love to have people to share the memories with.

I'll get the official website from Sandy (the man with the plan) and post later... but for now:

Croft No. Five
Peatbog Faeries

The 3rd Anniversary of the Iraqi War

Was actually yesterday, but I was down in Harris watching goats and couldn't rant. But I'm here now.
So, we have a bit of a situation here. A sovereign nation has been illegally occupied for 3 years. The main constituents of the 'Coalition of the Willing' (or what ever semantic slant is being used this week) are the USA and Britain. Not up on my British figures, but to date the total cost to the United States for this blunder of all blunders is $248,302,671,361 and rising. George W has just asked the US Congress for an additional $70 billion.
Perhaps a better way to measure the costs of this war would be to look at the body count. To date, the US has lost 2319 and the UK 103 military service personnel. More shockingly, the amount of innocent civilians killed has been estimated at '30 thousand, more or less' by US figures, or as high as 250 000 from other sources. This is on top of the hundreds of thousands killed during the UN imposed sanctions on Iraq following the first Gulf War. The majority of casualties comes from the indiscriminate bombing of Iraqi targets. Despite the propaganda we see daily on Western Networks like Fox and CNN, the overwhelming majority of ordinance used in Iraq are not 'smart bombs'. An example of this is the 'daisy cutter', a 15 000 lbs 'dumb bomb' that produces enough power to level buildings and trees.
Why did these two nations initially decide to wage war? Admittedly national security has become a complex issue since the events of 9/11, but the two main reasons repeatedly tossed about were 1) Saddam Hussein supports international terrorism and has been linked to Al Qaeda and 2) he has weapons of mass destruction and currently furthering these capabilities.
His links to Al Qaeda were unsubstantiated claims from the Bush Administration. Saddam's 'regime of terror' was largely secular, and hated by the various Islamic fundamentalists groups in the region. His WMD program was largely defunct from the severe damage, defections, and subsequent sanctions that hit Iraq after Desert Storm. Iraqi scientists were not procuring fissile material; the 'yellow cake' from Niger was falsified intelligence. It was initially received from Italian sources, stovepiped straight to the Bush Admin (bypassing those trained to interpret it) and used in media broadcasts. Upon exposure, Bush Admin officials blew the cover of the investigating officer's wife, a long time CIA covert operative, which is a felony offense.

Yet, despite the progress UN weapons inspectors were making, the invasion went ahead. What is worse, officials have acknowledge that the initial claims were false, and the war persists. Iraq is not democratic, nor will it be anytime soon, the government is miles away from stability and functions only in the Occupied Green Zone. Outer regions of the country are controlled by various warlords and Bathist supporters. Iraqi citizens are not safer now than they were with Saddam at the helm, in fact, Iraqis are 58 times more likely to die in the period following the invasion than before. I don't think I even need to mention the torture allegations and detaining of suspects, denied of legal and family contact (illegal under US and International Law).

The majority who will read this blog are Canadian. Sure, we wisely said no this hair-brained attempt to secure energy resources in the Middle East, but we have done nothing since to forward our anti-war stance. Outside of government officials publicly condemning the invasion, imposing sanctions, or raising complaints to the UN, I'm not sure what we could do. But ignoring the issue and continuing to engage in cozy relations with the occupying nations (which looks suspicious to those on the other side of the fence) is not the right course of action. Quiet complacency will only make us future targets.

With that off my chest... I'm headed back to study the goats.

some alone time

Annie's off the island today for a week or so, leaving me with massive amounts of time for reading and tin whistle practice. Thanks to Kim and the Forestry people, I have enough tomatos (Kim: it's TOE-MA-TOES) to feed a small army... and bread, and milk, and onions. I'll be able to post during the week now that the quad is fixed and I can pick up my vegetable order on my own time.

Chris: did you win your football game this weekend? And how did Hearts get on?

Good times on Rum

Another sunny Saturday on Rum. Spent the night celebrating with the Forestry people (last night on Rum) and watching Napoleon Dynamite. I think it was after 4am when my head hit the pillow.

Came into the village on Thursday for a meeting on Habitat Restoration and was greeted with three, yes count them, three pieces of spectacular news:

1) the Isle of Rum is getting a drumkit! A 5 piece Yahama something or other complete with cymbals. I may have to import the goats to this side of the island as I am never leaving town after it arrives. Tentative plans for the Isle of Rum band are in the making... the name... 'The Rummies'... Brilliant.

2) the quad is fixed! It's already survived two trips to Harris and back. Annie and I left Friday morning to do some work. Well, she did work. I played on the beach during an exceptionally low tide, searching for weird and wonderful aquatic life. After cleaning the Bothy I decided to walk an alternative route back into Kinloch, leaving Annie the quad as she had a lot of stuff to bring. So off I went. Took about 4hrs but worth every second. Visited several new lochs along the way (Long Loch being the nicest and featuring an old damn at one end), saw some deer, and managed to get within 10' of a Golden Eagle. It was massive, and scared the sh*t out of me when it took flight. I was just wandering along, minding my own business (singing some Megadeth song) and saw movement out of the corner of my eye... and there it was. Unfortunately I was unprepared with my camera so the whole event goes undocumented. I did snap some great photos of other Rum wildlife... especially in the Shop.

3) my honors thesis is getting published! The Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B (for Biological) has accepted our paper. Not sure what month it will be, but it's relatively soon. Sweet. Don't be afraid to run a literature search for MacDonald, I.F. :D

More to come tomorrow. Annie and I are on Shop Duty tonight (5-8pm), so it should be interesting.

Bonjour

Back in the village. Obviously. I saw somewhere on the Blogger webpage that you could post via a mobile phone, so I may give that a try if ever I get a signal at Harris. Utter crap weather here at the moment. Annie and I had a wet walk into Kinloch yesterday, but it went by quickly. Nothing much to report really, it's kind of quiet here now with everyone gone for the season. The goats are still doing goat things. We just named the new batch of kids... after fruit (Leslie's idea). My favourite is Pumello, who is Flo's kid and has the best horns of the little ones yet. Quality stock.
I'm at the end of my rope with my current facial hair situation. The plan was to take some pictures this weekend, then shave it all off. But I'm still waiting on my camera, so the beard will stay for now. It's just an unruly mess, and doing me no good in the looks department (Jess - I finally see your point ;).
Last night was a solid night in the shop, bolstered by the productive week we had at Harris. We rocked hard with some students from a forestry college (they're over for 2 weeks). According to Annie we retired around 5am. Last thing I remember was catching peanuts in my mouth in the castle kitchen... and just making a mess in general.

A few people must be wondering what the hell 'observing goats' entails, so here's the details for any interested parties. I do two kinds of observations:

1) Activity Budgets: pick a focal animal (we are recording female behaviour only at the moment) and watch them for 30 minutes. Every minute, or close to, I write down what the animal is doing. There are five categories: moving, standing, feeding, lying down or ruminating (chewing their cud). Also, if there are any interactions with other goats, I record what happened and with whom. Usually the sheet consists of nothing but 30 F's down the page, as all they do is feed. I also record group composition, overall quality of the animals, weather conditions etc.

2) Vigilance Rates: basically stare at one animal for 5 minutes, recording the number of 'looks' out it makes. A look is classified by the head being raised above the horizontal. Personally I think this is a crap measure, and getting high inter-rater reliability between myself and Annie is an ongoing problem. The difficulty lies in recording what the goat looked at... a male, female, kid, or just 'out'. It totally depends on your vantage point, and really hard to do when staring through binoculars as your field of view is limited. Anyways, the data will be compared to another goat population in Wales, one that has natural predators unlike these beasts on Rum. Additionally, we record what type of vegetation the goats are feeding on at the time. In theory, the vigilance rate should decline as the food quality increases, to allow for maximal energy input. Again... a crap measure, I think it's more influenced by group size and experience (age). But I am just a peon.

So... we aim for at least 8 activity budgets and 10 vigilance samples per day. We simply follow one group around as they graze in the hills then move to another if we run out of goats to sample (have to wait at least 2 hrs before we can repeat an animal).

Welcome to my life.

so I lied...

No hill trek for me today. Chris was too hung-over. lol. I went on a solo walk out to the point to watch the boat come in... little did I know it was coming from the other direction (from Canna). Built another snowman (a monsterous one) with the Sasha and Nell. I've always had a soft spot for kids... they keep you young, and are always genuine. Not much else to report... chilling with Kim and Annie tonight, watching Johnny Depp and eating cheesecake.

Feel like a chick...

up and up

Going up in the mountains for the first time. The plan is to do Allabhal (AL-lu-val) and Barcabhal (BAR-ku-val), but I'm not sure in what order... I'm just going to follow Chris. If you have Google Earth and some spare time, you should be able to see them no problem. Apparently the whole trek will take about 5-6 hrs.

I spent yesterday afternoon engaged in all out war with the local children. As mentioned previously, the snow has remained on the ground, and prompted the kids to attack mercilessly anything that moves with a barrage of snowballs. Their favourite targets include Canadians and Land Rovers. I managed to pacify them briefly with the idea of building a snowman... actually I believe it was a snowwoman named Hally. Then they thought it would be a good idea to gang up on me and shove snow down my jacket and in my hat. I put up a solid resistance, and got them all back one by one (the oldest was 9 I believe). At the end of it all I was more tired than if I'd been following goats at Harris. Have to be careful though... or I'll end up babysitting the rugrats everytime I'm in the village ;)

enough is enough

The nature of the responses to my posts has to change... currently they discourage others from posting, and subsequently undermine the whole purpose of this blog - ease of communication with those back home. I really look forward to hearing from as many people as possible and recent events are starting to annoy me. I shouldn't have to be saying this - keep the posts relevant and respectful.

Now, on to more positive things. It's another sunny day in Kinloch. I assume it's the same down in Harris but we're still here pending the risk of being snowed in. In a few minutes I'm heading down to the beach front again to practice my two tin whistle songs. Maybe the dogs will join me again... I'm sure it must be agony to their ears and they come running only to see if I'll stop. But the festival is only 2 months away and I need to be in top form.

UPDATE: the posts in question have since been removed... no hard feelings ;)

All's quiet on the western front...

A quiet day here in Kinloch. A lorrie full of random hedges came of the boat today, and are being placed in neat little rows out front of the castle. The snow has decided to stick around, with the grand total amounting to 3". Had a snowball fight with Marcel, Leslie and a bunch of kids yesterday evening. Tried to make a snowman but was met with limited success. I spent an hour or two this afternoon sitting on a bench practicing my tin whistle skills, with the snowcapped peaks of Sleat and the mainland off in the distance. I can now hack my way through two songs, and managed to summon 2 of the local dogs for an audience (Danner and Zappa).
I'm not seeing this harsh weather that was predicted, so tomorrow looks like more of the same. I may see if I can be of some assistance around the village - maybe distribute more hedges. Kim returns on Saturday with promises of cheesecake and Johnny Depp movies (I'm a fan of the former, her and Annie... huge fans of both), so I'm killing time with music, Plato and showers twice a day.

Ok... here's the lowdown on my favourite BBC Radio One snipets:

Laura's Diary: the younger sister of a current intern (Laura) on the Scott Mills Show got hold of her diary and is reading passages out on air everyday at 5:15pm. The diary dates are from fall 1997, and absolutely halirious. It's now season 4 of Laura's Diary, dubbed the Uni-Years, as she is attending the University of Glasgow. She has a boyfriend (Ben) back home in York, but fancies her flatmate Allan, who she has gotten off with several times in the first months of Uni. She is also dating a mysterious famous person (who can't be named for legal reasons) and suffering from an acute case of alapesia. A real jem of a show. Unfortunately, Annie and I missed the episode last night... all the radios in the castle have broken antennae.

Flirt Divert: Radio One has set up a phone number to give out to anyone who tries to chat you up and you don't feel like leaving your real number. Once called, a generic answering machine plays and the unsuspecting victim leaves a message... which gets played on air throughout the show. You get drunk people slurring words, people calling about various items for sale, and someone has won a free carpet (which Radio One then gave away or sold on Ebay). It has generated about half a dozen key catch phrases Annie and I employ... 'fancy a bit of minky-minky?', 'shake my lap-a-tap-a-da, lappy-tappy-ta' to name a few.

Now you understand how little there is to do at Harris once the day's work has finished.

chaos, ceilidhs and cameras

Good news. Got an official email from HM (her majesty) Customs saying my parcel has been released and cleared of all charges. Excellent, my drugs should be here in a few days...

Island News: this past weekend feature a series of 'farewell' parties for various SNH employees. It was kind of depressing as Monday and Tuesday rolled around, and everyone boarded their respective ferries, but the events of Friday and Saturday more than made up for it. Let's start with Friday... um... can't remember... move on to Saturday (Mum - not another word about 'my liver' ;)

Saturday was the main event. A traditional live band was brought over to play tunes like 'the canadian barn dance' and 'stripping the willow'. You'll be happy to know that my trousers remained intact for the entire night, which, as I will explain shortly, is somewhat of a miracle. After about 2 hrs of stuffing our face with Norman's finest curries and indian breads, a bunch of us decided it would be a great time to have a wrestling match on the hall floor. I think it started between Niall and his older brother, but regardless, it quickly snowballed into the funniest thing I've seen in some time. For about 40 minutes, 10 of us tackled, tripped, dropped, flopped and rolled each on the floor. All smiles mind you... I don't know what hurt more, the laughing or the bruises. It certainly got the blood flowing, and the influx of female participants was an added incentive ;)

After we've had enough of that, or enough of the bewildered stares from everyone else, it was back to regular shop activities. I think I spent a little time 'resting' in the soft play area (for the kids... filled with mats etc) but quickly came back around. I believe the night ended with all of us cramming into the castle common room for conversation, more live music and various other things. What a 'crackin' night.

For all you interested in music, here's a list of some of the stuff I've been exposed to recently and enjoy:

Croft # 5: awesome... blends celtic with world and rock music
Alabama 3: umm... kind of electronic/rock/folk, one of my new favourites ('Outlaw' album)
Asian Dub Foundation: weird, worldy feel, nice
The Coral: indie rock band from Liverpool (courtesy of Annie)
Beatbog Faeries: celtic
Goldfrapp: good music to dance to in the shop

Music to avoid like the plague (but played to the point of abuse on BBC Radio 1):

Arctic Monkies
Kazier Chiefs
James Blunt

More to come later this week. The weather here is crap (by Scottish standards) and we've been recalled into the village to avoid being snowed in. There is all of 2 inches on the ground... in the shade. But hey... who am I to complain? a warm bed and shower never hurt me.

ps. remind me to tell you all about BBC Radio 1 and 'Laura's Diary' and the 'Flirt Divert Number'... these two snipets are the highlights of our days down at Harris.