Scattald – n – the common pasture ground allocated to crofters in Orkney and Shetland for use as grazing.
Our croft is surrounded by scattald. The hill sheep live there. I needed to get half a bucket of crumbly peat earth for my Venus Flytrap plants so taking bucket and trowel, I went for a walk.
It wasn’t very far to go but it was a bit of a steep climb.
The views were rewarding.
Stourborough Hill is in the distance along with a few treacherous bogs too. I know this because Haakon and I have fallen in them on occasion. Possibly not our best ride, to be honest.
I wanted peat as this is the poorest type of earth around.
Local folk have been cutting peat here for millenia. I was told that they used to bring their ponies carrying large baskets either side to carry them back home too. They would walk in a long string there and back. I don’t know where they found such well-behaved Shetland ponies. I wouldn’t trust mine to the end of the track and back!
Anyway, I only needed half a bucket.
It is for my three Venus Flytraps that have been flowering all summer. They have turned to seed now.
I am going to experiment – ie, plant the seeds and see what happens.
I bought these three flytraps last Spring and I am very impressed with how hard they have worked keeping the houseflies down. They never stop eating.
So that’s the plan. I might look at a YouTube video just to check I am doing it vaguely correctly. Like most things in this house, it will either work or it won’t.
