Hello from us all at Craighead! 
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Apologies for the long silence over the winter months and in to Spring!

After a lovely break in the sun we returned with batteries recharged and with lots of ideas for sprucing things up for the season ahead and all so for the building of our very exciting Cruck House.  

Whilst we were away we were contacted by George Clark's team of Amazing Spaces fame which was very exciting.

Well things sometimes just don't run to plan and the rain tried to dampen our spirits a little but we just got going and made really good progress, then along came the dreaded virus with its own intentions!

We are really delighted to be able to say we are opening the Tree Howf, Hobbits and Summer Howf as planned at the end of next week.  Lots of visitors took advantage of us keeping open the Wee Howf over the winter and at the moment are really enjoying be able to escape away from everything to their own space down by the pond!

We have been spring cleaning, replacing things that needed replaced, fixing things where necessary and making some improvements - we are very pleased with the new hand crafted table in the Tree Howf, pictures to follow next week when its final coats of oil have dried and the Tree Howf is set up for its first visitors of the season.

Over the next week or so our two gorgeous Highland Cows will be coming home from their winter grazing - perhaps some of you saw the delightful film on BBC Alba in January of the Highland Cattle on Uist - we are proud to say that is who bred our lovely ladies.
The Ryland and Zwarble sheep will also be coming home and we are expecting them to have lambs in May.
The geese have made a fabulous nest up beside the pond at the Summer Howf and any visitors to the Summer Howf over the coming months will be neighbours with the goose family and hopefully see at first hand the arrival of goslings!
The goats are very happy that the wet weather is finally going and are very keen to get out to play. 

So if you need somewhere to go where you can get away from it all, have your own space, fresh air and time to your self, then do have a look on our calendar for a date that suits.

Ian, Heather & Family

​Ian, Heather & family, wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
We hope you manage to come and stay with us in 2020.  The New Year is promising to be very exciting as we start our really quirky Stone Howf, built using very old construction styles with a Cruck frame.  Follow us on social media or read our blog to watch it grow, to hear about general goings on and to find out about all our animals.

We are delighted that we have so many visitors making the most of the Wee Howf staying open through the winter - we are sure they will love it.  
We are thrilled to be featured in BBC Scotland's Getaways program and believe the episode that includes Craighead Howfs will be aired some time in early January - very excited to see that.

The Tiny Houses Magazine did two delightful articles about Craighead - we were really chuffed!

February will see the main work starting on our very exciting new project!

The animals are currently all in their winter quarters and we will be featuring them in our blogs over the coming months!

Many thanks to all who stayed with us in 2019, for the fantastic reviews and many happy conversations along with some very nice glasses of wine!

Ian, Heather & family.


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How did it get to May!
We re-opened on March 29th and have already had lots of fabulous visitors from as far away as Dubai and as near as Falkirk - they have all loved it so far.  We have welcomed all ages from 16 to 70 plus.  We have had lots of surprise birthday treats and such lovely comments - one we really loved was a 65th birthday treat - a visit to Bagend, a delightful message left in the visitor book declared it her best ever birthday!

The Summer Howf got a make over and we are delighted with the results - a different colour outside, lovely tiles on the floor inside, painted throughout, new curtains, bits and pieces.  A blanket of forget me not is out in front of it and it looks great. 
The Wee Howf has been painted outside too and we love the new colour, sitting on its stilts by the pond, with so much wildlife to watch, it remains one of our favourite spots in the garden.  We have started keeping a note of when birds are seen and have a running list in the Wee Shop that we hope visitors will add too.  The swallows arrived back and got busy straight away building nests - it surprises us every year that they manage to fly all that way for winter and then find their way back to Craighead - amazing!

Our animals have been very busy - spring is definitely well under way!  So far our new arrivals include - quail chicks, Brahma hen chicks, two pygmy goat kids - Hannah had a boy and a girl two weeks ago, 'Bit' the little black and tiny bit of white cat has three kittens - still only 3 weeks old - one was born very tiny indeed and is only half the size of his brother and sister - know lovingly as tiny toots he is hanging on in there at the moment.  We have three Ryeland lambs all girls and doing really well. Very excitingly Hope the pygmy goat is due to give birth on Thursday - we are anticipating twins and think looking at her today they may arrive any time soon.
Our Quails have started to lay and their gorgeous speckled eggs are in the shop. Along with some Rhea eggs and our delicious hen eggs.

Our pygmy goats - Harris and Percy Jackson have decided it is great fun to escape and head for the hay shed - self service reached new limits!

Just as soon as the next kid goats are born we will post a photo.  The little white kid in the pictures with the black boots, we think is gorgeous - he decided to be born backwards and give us a run for our money encouraging him to breath - but within minutes he was proving he has plenty of attitude!!  No names as yet.

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Meet Huff and Puff - the latest additions to our cat team! They have settled in really well and are full of fun.
Last week two swans came to visit, they have stayed and their relatives have now joined us too - it is easy to spend time just watching them - they are beautiful, but true free spirits so not sure how long they will be with us!
We took delivery of the new glamping luggage transportation system this week, tried them out in the sun in the car park - think they are going to be fab!
The Turkeys out in the woodland today really enjoying the early spring weather we are having, daffodils are nearly out - very early!
It will be busy busy this week - with only four full weeks left until we reopen - very exciting!
​Ian & Heather

This handsome couple dropped in today - such a lovely sunny day to start their stay!  We have offered them a season ticket...... do hope they take us up on it!

Last week we made good use of the lovely weather, Ian and Lewis made great progress on the new home for our lovely free range hens - really is a room with a great view!  I snapped a photo early in the morning doing the animal feed round,  the Ryeland sheep having breakfast in the misty/frosty sunrise under the Tree Howf, it was a gorgeous morning.  Ra Ra the wee fergie tractor has been busy moving hay into the hay shed.  
We managed to get away for a couple of days at the end of the week and were treated to some gorgeous Scottish scenery.  There is such a great range of places to visit if you are enjoying a bit of luxury glamping in Perthshire.
Now we are full steam ahead getting ready for our first visitors of the season due in only seven weeks.  The Summer Howf has already had a lovely new floor and is waiting to be painted inside and out.  The Wee Howf is getting a new look, due to be painted outside as soon as the weather lets us - watch this space for photos of its new look.  
We are hoping to increase the animals over the coming weeks, Quail will be joining us soon, we are expecting Ryeland and Zwarble lambs this year and fingers crossed both Hannah and Hope our gorgeous pygmy goats will have kids in the spring too - Ian has plans to build a goat tree for them in their outside space!  We also have two new kittens - Huff and Puff - photos in next blog.
In January we played host - well the Tree Howf did - to an American travel film group working on a short film promoting Scotland in America. We were delighted that Visit Scotland suggested us and assisted.  As soon as we have access to the footage we will share it.  
That is all for now - will be back soon with more updates.

Hello everyone from a very sunny and warm Craighead.  We have been just loving the weather and so have all our visitors!  

Derek & April joined us for a week in the Muckle Howf, Derek's day job is driving seriously big tractors and machinery in the South of England - he fell in love with our wee grey Fergie - one of these was the first tractor he drove as a boy!!!

Like everyone else we have loved being able to spend most of our time outside and it has been great to see our visitors outside enjoying the BBQ's.  The animals have been much admired too, the kid goats have grown like mushrooms and are making their debut outing to Braco Show a week on Saturday - we will post some photos - bath time first for them!

The Hobbit Howfs have had lots of visitors which is great and the shire is really beginning to mature with the grass growing nicely and the wild flowers we planted have done really well.  Ian got the slates on the roof of the wee shed - every discerning hobbit has a wee shed and this now houses the recycling area for the shire!  He still has to tackle the walls on the way down to the shire - must get that done or we will be getting notification from Gandalf!

We have had some great photos taken by Mike Dow and some of them are already on the website, he will be back in the next week or so to get some drone pictures and soon we will have a video to put on the web site too.

We welcomed two new kittens to Craighead recently - a little black one with a tiny white mark and then a younger one a couple of weeks later - a wee scruff who arrived hissing and spitting but is now a happy glamper - they are now lovingly known as Bit & Bob!

We do hope you will come and visit us soon, we will get some pictures of the goings on put on a blog soon, keep your eyes on the blog too for pictures of the outing to Braco Show!

Guests that have stayed with us have left some fabulous comments in the books and some great reviews and we are really grateful for those, hoping to gather some of them together for a slot on the web site.

Enjoy the Summer - Heather & Ian

It has been quite a winter here at Craighead. 

As you can see from the pictures we really did get a blast from the snow and the Burrow and Bagend all but disappeared.  It really was quite something to see!  We have managed to keep going with the Hobbits most of the time but the snow had us beat and so we have a slight feeling of been a bit behind at the moment as we head rapidly to the opening. 

We have got lots of bookings already which is great and have had a lot of enquiries about more pictures.  We will get internal photos on just as soon as we can.  Particularly like the little yellow window - looks very cute and once the fascia above it is finished it will be gorgeous.

​Hoping to start planting the wild flowers around the outside in the next day or two.  The tile floors are just about to go down and then it really will be the home straight as the beds are made and the basins and sinks go in.  We have still to bring the highland cows back from their winter grazing, we need to wait until the grass starts to grow a little and the new fence is up - they would be far too curious about the Hobbits!  We did some poultry shopping over Easter - very fitting! 

We got a lovely mix of new hens to add to the clan, a little collection of ducks and Pete the Buff Orpington cockerel.. He is in the huff in the picture as he has to be inside for a few days until he settles down!  He is very grand though.

Once the garden and weather pick up in May/June time we have a photographer booked to come and take some professional pictures, videos and aerial shots of us, we can then put them on the web site and on all the other places we get a mention.  Looking forward to that because our photography never does us justice!  We had a lovely visit from Quirky accommodation last week to do some filming for their web site, despite it being really too early for the garden the weather was quite kind and we hope they got some good pictures.  Scotland on Sunday interviewed us over the phone last week too!  Looking forward to seeing what they pull together which is going to be in one of their supplements! 

All good fun. Hope to see you at Craighead soon.

We are very pleased to that we have finally agreed on a name for each of the Hobbit Howfs!
They will be The Burrow and Bagend! Descriptions of both and photos as they complete will follow!