Ah, September! One of my favourite months of the year…..especially when it gives us those sunny, barely crisp days with a slight bite in the wind. The rain of previous months has given way to a stillness that only September can provide. As the earth starts to rotate on its axis, the days are slightly shorter but the skies have been a heady mix of peach, pale blue and soft yellow as the sun sets over the West End.
The season is coming to a close, the island feels less busy with visitors but the residents are all still busy with keeping the island going. We don’t really stop and there is always something else to do or to be done.
The first lorry load of sheep left the island this month soon to be followed by the cattle. The young calves have outshone themselves in their ability to be destructive with a fence coming down and them still not understanding that they can go through the gap that they themselves have created. They choose instead to flex their jumping muscles, leaping over the fence instead of sauntering 10ft to the left. We’ve had the now familiar 72hrs of cow bellowing echoing across the island, keeping everyone well aware that separation by a wall is tantamount to high treason.
Gerry had a record sale at the market for her sheep. Not surprising with the exceptional care the animals receive and the lush fields and landscape they have to roam in. Excellent work as always from Gerry and the farm team.
We had the Cosmos Planetarium come for a couple of days. Steve and James delighted both residents and visitors with talks and tales of the cosmos. The planetarium was erected inside the Shearing Shed and they put on nightly shows that took us deep into the Milky Way, taught us about planets, our solar system and we are all now going around feeling a bit dizzy and singing songs about black holes and a love story between the earth and moon.
Steve and James took us outside to look at the sun through a solar telescope and up to the fank for an evening of stargazing. We saw Jupiter, Saturn, globular clusters and nebulae through telescopes, did some light painting and stood in awe and wonder at the Milky Way arching across the Canna Dark Skies. We really are very lucky to have such Dark Skies above our island. Please keep an eye out for more Dark Skies events happening in Canna as part of our Dark Skies Sanctuary Status application. Thank you to Steve and James for coming to Canna and sharing their enthusiasm and knowledge with us.
Simpsons have now started demobilising the compound as they finished up the building part of the Canna House Project. The conservators have returned most of the house contents back into the house and are now busy with the final touches ahead of the interpretation and AV install team arriving next month. Canna House will be opening again in 2025.
We’ve made some small but mighty changes to the community shop. New shelving has replaced the old, giving us much more room to display items for sale and more space to store goods in our shop shed.
Roll on the Autumn - we’re ready for you!
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