To Backies for Eggs

On yet another grey morning, with the temperature hardly above 15C, we set off to walk up the quiet, single-track road to Backies. It's a steady uphill all the way until one reaches this section of road, part of the Sutherland Estate's 'Queen's Drive' named for Queen Victoria who was a not infrequent visitor to Sutherland in her time.

The house on the corner was a post office, witness to the days when Backies was a thriving crofting community. Today the community's neatly mown verges are evidence of a gentrification of the crofts. However, this house is part of the working croft which is the source of our eggs of which, happily, there were some available. Not unsurprisingly, in view of the weather, the chickens aren't laying well while some have gone broody.

Some things, like the wild raspberries, seem totally unaffected by the weather, and we continue to harvest a bumper crop in our garden. There are also an increasing number of fungi to be found, some....

....like these golden chanterelles, good for eating while....

....this one is probably best left in the ground, not because it is poisonous - my app identifies it as a blusher which, if properly cooked, is edible - but because it is easily confused with very poisonous Panthercap.