The recent Spirit of Crofting event has opened up several conversations and questions from people that I feel that I now need to explain. The information supplied by the Scottish Crofting Federation for public view, what the panel had, what was put and said in newspapers, and a few more beside.
Question one, yes, I did apply for the award. That was after I was adamant I would never do such a thing and if someone thought I was worthy of it, they could nominate. Fast forward to getting told by said someone that they had printed off the form to nominate me but had run in to a problem so I’d just have to get on with it. Aye right, not!!! Fast forward to the Royal Highland Show’s Women in Agriculture Breakfast and after hearing three women speak, I decided I would just have to take a massive plunge and put the application in. Why? Does agriculture get promoted among young people, and particularly women? What encouragement do people get who want to get into it but have no background (typical ‘livestock keepers’ are often from ‘farming stock’)? If I have managed to break a few rules (I hadn’t realised hay making was often seen as a blokes thing), what’s stopping others?
One of the requirements for the application was either three photos of yourself on the croft or a 2 min video. Finding three photos to really show what you do in crofting is nye impossible. Besides, if you do a video slideshow, then you can put music with it which always sounds better then the usual gale force 3 affecting the sound on a video. Now, I can’t put video’s on this site but I will post it on the Birchwood Croft’s Facebook page. But it’s then that I discovered a new problem. Normally a picture is worth a thousand words. Until you croft. Then, you need a thousand words to explain the photo. So a few of the individual photos will be explained in due time (yes, it all looks fine and dandy until you hear what either happened before, during or after!).
Birchwood Croft, Inverness-shire 