Fair Isle Shetland

What does the dog on top of the house say? Roof, roof View this post on Instagram View this post on Instagram

Skyelark's Green Adventure: Splendor In The Grass Splendor In The Grass Skyelark's Emerald Isle Adventure Skyelark's Splendor In The Grass Skyelark takes early retirement , out of the Sheep Herding business (HAHA). Rock Pool Rocks! The resumption of the Cold Water Immersion baths, after yesterday's gale winds stymied the ritual. 🌿 The Great Green Awakening 🌿 The morning mist lifts like a curtain, revealing Fair Isle's most spectacular secret: an endless carpet of emerald that stretches from cliff edge to cliff edge, undulating like a green ocean frozen in time. Skyelark's ears prick forward as she catches the first whisper of adventure on the salt-tinged breeze. Her compact terrier frame trembles with ant...

Malcom's Head Hike Today Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Malcom's Head Hike Today The word “genius” in the modern sense, after all, originates in the Latin phrase genius loci — “the spirit of a place. So Fair Isle is/has a genius! It's a great place to get lost. Huh? The question then is how to get lost. Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction, and somewhere in the terra incognita in between...

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Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Fair Isle is a lyrical reminder to break the momentum of busyness that fuels  the sadness of never understanding ourselves. It makes a place to sit down. So: Sit down. Be quiet…The impulse to create begins… in a tunnel of silence.    Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy. It’s worth remembering, here, that “busy is a decision” — one we constantly make, and often to our own detriment.   Travel is an activity not an accomplishment, yet lately, because of the global pandemic, one of the great cruelties and great glories of  traveling nowadays is the wild discrepancy of timelines between vision and execution. When we dream up an itinerary , we invariably underestimate the amount of time and effort required to make it a reality. Our  Fair Isle return took 6 months!   Rather than a cognitive bug, perhaps this is the supreme coping mechanism of the pande...

  These North Atlantic Grey Seals want to make a happy meal outta me! I was confident that seals are generally gentle creatures unless they feel threatened. Seals default is to choose flight over fight, but they are most likely to be aggressive if you come between:them, which is what I have been doing all week! SO I had to rework my plan, and change venues for the Cold Water Immerssion Therapy-back to the South Lighthouse on Fair Isle. Seals are the largest land breeding mammal in the UK and can be very intimidating in the water. Always let seals make the first move – let them approach you. Sit back, wait quietly and observe. Nah, I just won't get in the water with them.... View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ed Reif (@edreif)

 The Medicine We Take: View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ed Reif (@edreif)

Our 2020 Lake Tahoe Trip View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ed Reif (@edreif)   A tree is a little bit of the future Trees dominate the world’s oldest living organisms. Since the dawn of our species, they have been our silent companions, permeating our most enduring tales and never ceasing to inspire fantastical cosmogonies. Hermann Hesse called them “the most penetrating of preachers.” A forgotten seventeenth-century English gardener wrote of how they “speak to the mind, and tell us many things, and teach us many good lessons.-The Scret Lives Of Trees There are no trees on Fair Isle FADE IN: Beneath the canopy of trees, with  roots in the earth and arms stretching toward the sky, I come back to that place I have never been before - and this imense wonder comes over us as  if the trees are there to seek and to know the greater mysteries. I find this comforting, but on Fair Isle, and Shetland in general, there are no trees to spea...

Historically, the Scottie was bred by farmers to help them manage vermin problems. They  would follow prey, such as badgers, foxes, and other vermin, right into their burrows and then try to dig them out. Such breeds of dogs are known as Earth dogs. Scottish Terriers do well in earthdog trials, which are a simulated hunt. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ed Reif (@edreif)  

  We didn't wake up this morning, we came to. Set in the middle of the North Atlantic, 38km (23mi) from Shetland and 43km (27mi) from Orkney, Fair Isle is as far away from civilization as it’s possible to get in the British Isles. Measuring barely five kilometers across and two kilometers wide, the island is home to a tiny permanent population of just 45 people. In fact, it’s the most remote inhabited place in the UK. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ed Reif (@edreif)