Its been a busy weekend and a lot has been going on today! Have added some pictures of today's sights. This morning collecting the eggs yielded an amazing variation - check out the picture. By 8am the very large tractor and trailer were here to start the job of moving tons of earth - removed from the Hobbit Hole sites, the donkeys were not that impressed about the 200 horse power!  The Red Kite came a visiting at one point today and got into an amazing battle for the supremacy of the sky with three oyster catchers, only phone camera to hand so no fantastic pictures am afraid. Our Tree Howf guests left this morning and sent us a lovely email - made our day so have added that here too.  
Despite the chill in the air the garden is coming along and  the swallows returned this weekend, we love it when they come back!

Hello!
 We are delighted to be open again and this weekend we had our first visitors of the season enjoying the Tree Howf.
 They left a lovely message in the book this morning - a couple of snipits are "What a place.. it didn't disappoint, what a beautiful design and place to stay.  Surroundings are beautiful and its not far from places when we needed to nip out... although the wintry weather outside the Tree Howf heated up quickly and we enjoyed relaxing by the fire for the weekend and hardly moved! Will definitely be recommending the place to family and friends, planning another trip ourselves in the Summer."

 We have just returned from a brilliant trip to New Zealand to see our son and of course travel the lovely country.  We were very excited to receive our planning permission while we were out there for our Hobbit Houses - so off we set to Matamata to visit Hobbiton - the Lord of the Rings set.  We had a fabulous trip round it and came back inspired to create our own little bit of Middle Earth at Craighead.  Just as we got back the Courier newspaper picked up the story and Ian enjoyed a full spread and pictures on page 3!  We generated interest also with Radio Scotland and other papers so that was a great start.
With the Tree Howf already open we are concentrating on the Wee Howf, it has been painted and is having a make over and will be open in a weeks time.  We think it is going to look lovely.
Today work is going on to do some alterations to the Wash Howf courtesy of Lewis of Keir Joinery and we will be stocking up the wee shop for our customers to enjoy.

The animals are looking forward to sunny spring days, they seem to have fared well over the winter but it is always nice to see them enjoying the early spring sun.
We have some new arrivals - last night we took delivery of three Zwartble lambs, they are delightful and seem very settled already.  Our goose from the Goosie Goosie Gander team is sitting on eggs, the birds are busy nest building and we are  hoping before too long to get our two highland calves from North Uist.  We have a regular 6.30am visit from a fox at the moment, so that is keeping us on our toes.  Out and about there is a lot of wildlife on the go including a good number of hares.
We will be keeping everyone up to date with progress on the Hobbit Houses here on the blog.  We hope to start work in the next week or so! Looking forward to seeing lots of visitors here this year, thank you to those who already have your bookings made, am sure you will love it.
​
Heather & Ian

Our last guests leave us this Sunday morning and we have begun to close down all the Howfs for a short break.  We have met some lovely people who have said great things about their stay at Craighead in the past year.
We are all set to open up again on the 10th March when everywhere will be having a spring clean and the daffodils will be opening.
Really looking forward to the year to come and am hoping to get two highland calves to follow in Hero and Honey's footsteps.  Will keep you posted on any animal news and how the open up for the season is going once we get underway.
Many thanks to all our visitors.
​Ian and Heather

We are really pleased to say that the Wee Howf now has its own facilities - the Wee Wee Howf.  Built in the same style across a small bridge it houses unbelievably a shower, a compost loo, a wash hand basin, a dish washing sink and the cooking area.  This means no more late night trips to the loo in the dark( or day time!), more space in the Wee Howf.  It is looking very cute - pictures to follow.
What else have we been up to - in August we went down to Wales and collected three Rhea chicks, they are still under the lamp but are growing fast and are very friendly and will eventually become friends for our single Rhea.  We also picked up some Pied Turkeys from Nick and Nells in Wales, three in total so they are lovingly know as Nick and his two Nells and we are ever hopeful that we can breed from them in the spring!
We did say on our last blog that we would share some of the comments left for us by out visitors over the summer and we will definitely do that - they have been great and much appreciated.  We need the dark evenings to keep us inside to do all these things!
​Look out for the photos we will get them on soon.

... And in the blink of an eye we are coming to the end of August. Wow. 

The Tree Howf has certainly kept us on our toes and with the beautiful Summer Howf surrounded in flowers and the Wee Howf with its friendly donkey neighbours we hope that our guests have enjoyed their stays!

In the coming weeks (we say optimistically) we hope to share with you some of our Tree Howf reviews and other Howf reviews - we are flattered with each and every one and it really makes us proud to be able to offer you such a wonderful getaway!

Post by Heather:
Almost a year ago the idea for the Tree Howf turned in to plans.  Since then on it has been a major ongoing project driven by Ian.  Assisted at times by others including family and friends he has imagined, planned, designed, pushed on and kept going.  

Joined by our son Lewis on his return from Canada the serious joinery work took shape and on the 20th May the Tree Howf welcomed its first guests - though not quite ultimately finished and with only five minutes to spare!

Today we officially opened it with our family and a glass of bubbly in the lovely sunshine.  

We will get some photos on here soon and more detailed photos on the Tree Howf page but in the meantime we have posted on Facebook a few images from the weekends fun!