Farm Stays on Islay

If you choose to stay with us at Persabus, you will be treated to experiencing farming life on Islay first hand. Farm stays on Islay and no two days are the same. Our busy Islay farm is always a hive of activity. There are plenty of farming activities going on. Duties include lambing, and calving, to marking the sheep, and dosing the animals. There are winter feeding rounds, and then the summertime silage crops. The combines arrive in September and the barley is harvested. Ready to be sent to Bruichladdich Distillery.

Enjoy reading about another happy day of Islay farming, or better still, why not come and enjoy a farm stay with us at Persabus and enjoy life on the farm.

This morning, and the sun streaming through the bedroom window. Sitting with a morning cuppa, the Happy Farmer and I were busy contemplating the day’s breakfasts when the peace was abruptly disturbed.

Initially it was a clanking and rattling sound

then footsteps crunching across the yard. A loud whistle and then a yodel or two. The Happy Farmer was out of bed like a shot. He was poised at the window to see which of our sprightly campers was up so early. The yodelling stopped and the ‘singing shepherd’ waved back at him from the yard below. Up at the crack of dawn, sheepdogs at heel, the shepherd was ready to round up the girls for a morning’s work at the fank. Sheep were to be dosed and lambs marked.

It just so happens the farm is also buzzing with campers and guests

just now. They too, got to enjoy the hearty rendition of an early morning chorus.

Across the single track road, and the campsite is resembles an adventure playground. Outside the pottery, there is a tent to eclipse all tents. It is one of those amazing looking ‘treehouse’ tents. A tent built on childhood dreams and adventures. It has a Landrover below, and several step ladders that lead up to a cosy ‘roof top’ home.

This of course provides the campers with the most amazing viewpoint. They look right out across the farm to the Paps of Jura, the Sound of Islay, and beyond. Below, at ground level, there is a canopy with table, chairs, coffee percolator and a fancy bbq. This fantastic piece of kit comes with all mod cons. The boys, I mean men, staying in it are having a real adventure, getting to enjoy those proper ‘big boys toys’. We have been looking on enviously. It reminded me of the climbing frame I bought for the children when they were little. Only this one looks even more fun as the tent happens to have a real Landrover attached below it.

Back in the farmhouse kitchen it was all ‘gas and gusto’ around the table.

As the Happy Farmer was busy cooking breakfasts for all the guests Mairi ‘the magic sheep lady’ came racing in. From her cottage down the road, she had also been woken from her slumbers by the loud whistling. She was just trying to work out the species of bird when a loud yodel burst forth and the penny had dropped that the shepherd had arrived to mark the lambs. She arrived to lend a hand just as the singing shepherd was tucking into a hearty breakfast, as guests’ breakfasts were being served all round, the farming talk getting louder and more hilarious by the minute.

A short while later and the Happy Farmer was handing breakfast rolls up the climbing frame,

or step ladder, to our treehouse campers. Breakfast in bed for the campers then. The sides of the treehouse tent, had been zipped open so the boys could make the most of the morning entertainment. Watching the antics of the Singing Shepherd rounding up those girls from their rooftop beds, as the sun rose higher in the sky. The yodelling of the singing shepherd was interspersed with the bleating of the sheep joining in the chorus line. Happy Days.

Normality has resumed as the day has gone on and even the Happy Farmer is now whistling and yodelling.

Until next time…