Storm Eowyn sets us on our Heels

Well, the last fortnight has been .... interesting. And distressing. And exhausting. And unexpected. It all started with Storm Éowyn barrelling in from the west across the Atlantic and hitting us in the morning of 24th January. At about 12.20 the first major tree came down – across the drive. This is the second of the five planted by the Fletchers in c1850 to come down. The idea was that this group of standard exotics, three West Coast Cedars, a Monkey Puzzle (or Chilean Pine) and a Noble Fir would provide a suitable half-avenue to grace the approach to the castle, massing some 100 yards from the last one. With the Monkey Puzzle felled in the mid-noughties, and this loss, we will have to consider how we will fill the gap appropriately.

Ten minutes later a second tall pine, standing beside the site office - my office - fell. And it fell athwart the corner of the building, catching on the roof and pivoting over to lie on its side some two metres off the ground, with root plate suspended on one end, and tip hovering over the Dunans tractor. The door was knocked from its hinges, and the corner depressed be over a foot immediately. Luckily, because the structure is entirely of wood, including found and roof, everything flexed.

At about 1pm, three huge Scots Pines lining the southernmost burn succumbed in an almighty explosion of fractured wood. These healthy trees fell into our paddock, like three or four others over the years. Such a loss!

We also lost a Pussy Willow standing at the gable of the house - luckily it fell away from the building - several Goat Willows down by the board walk, and a lovely old Birch near the picnic platform.

All in three hours.

We watched in frozen horror.

And all of this was not without cost to our infrastructure - at about 1pm, a particularly vicious gust knocked out our electricity supply. Unfortunately our power line crosses Alt A' Chaol Ghleann some 100 metres north of the castle at a height of upwards of 30 metres in places. This was the line that was knocked out. Not in one place, but at both ends. This meant the poor SSEN workers could not simply re-attach the broken end. No, they had to replace the 150 metre cable in its entirety. Power was eventually restored on Tuesday evening. We were the last in the glen.

By the Saturday everything was calm enough to contemplate clearing some of the damage. With the help of our neighbour, Jim, and his pal Stuart (who I'd played shinty with back in the day), we cleared a path for cars through the destruction. Nearly two weeks later, we are still working and I am not sure we will be cleared before the end of April.

Here are some videos - two taken on the day, a third the next day, and the final one a walk over the grounds to show both progress and the full extent of the damage.

But let this not depress you. On the Wednesday after the Friday, we received our contract from Land and Forest Scotland for the Woodland Creation. We. Are. Go! Which means that we will have the woodland planted by the end of this year, along with soil association verification for our carbon offset scheme. At that point we will raise the funds to effect the first stage of the restoration - FINALLY!