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Durness Local News
10th.
August
2007
Flower
and Vegetable Show
The annual flower and vegetable show will take place in Durness village hall on
Saturday 18 August between 1 and 3 pm. Entries are invited for the various
sections, Potted plants- bets Geranium, begonia, Fuchsia, Busy Lizy, Fern
Foliage, flowering cactus and succulent. Flowers – singe rose, 3 rosebuds, 6
sweet pews 3 pansies, 3 marigolds, 3 cut heads 5 Stem flowering shrubs, vase of
mixed flowers. Vegetables- 4 tomatoes, 3 white potatoes,(unwashed) 3 red
potatoes(unwashed) 3 beetroot, 4 carrots, 3 turnip, 6 pods peas, 3 white onions,
3 red onions, pair courgettes/cucumbers, 3 leeks, cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower
selection of cut herbs tray of mixed vegetables fruit bowl. The junior
competition will be the best veggie sea monster made from fruit and veg in 2
categories 3-7 years and 8-12 years. The hall will open form 11-12 noon for
competition entries costing 50 pence each. All entries must be in by 12 noon
when the main hall will be closed for judging. There will be a trophy for the
adult winner with the highest points in each section. The overall shield will be
awarded to for the most points from the parish of Durness. The café will open
from 1pm and the results and presentation will be at 2pm All welcome.
Puffin Link
With assistance from Scottish Natural Heritage, Highland Year of Culture and
Awards for all Durness community council have been working to have installed a
CCTV link form the established Puffin Colony at Faraid Head to a plasma display
in the Tourist Information centre. This ongoing work has been disrupted by small
but fragmentary problems. The work was supposed to be completed in time for the
arrival of the puffins this year but with a catalogue of errors the puffins have
left the area and the link is still not functioning constantly. The atrocious
weather leading up to the spring at the beginning of the year hampered the
voluntary work to have concrete plinths created; camera mast erected a solar
panel installed and cables laid between the cameras and the solar panel. With
this completed the electrical work and technical matters were started. The
contractor had given all the details of the system to the supplier as there is
no “off the shelf system” but the loss of power between the cameras and panel
with a 250 meter run was not accounted for. A further cable had to be laid and
adjustments to the components to compensate were undertaken. The power for the
system, running the cameras and transmitting the signal is from six heavy duty
batteries charged from the solar panel. As more than 12 volts is required to be
carried to the cameras the batteries had to be wired in a sequence that gave
sufficient voltage for the 2 cameras and allowing for loss on the cable but had
to be wired to allow the trickle charge from the solar panel to maintain each
individually. This has taken many visits, each time arrangements for transport
and volunteer time has to be arranged, to get right as only after a lapsed time
period was it clear if all the settings were correct. Further more a timer
switching the equipment on and off at set times had to be incorporated to ensure
that for a period in 24 hours there was no use on the batteries and the system
could charge. Due to an ongoing unidentified fault in the timer the whole system
kept failing to maintain a constant level of charge and therefore continue
operating. The system has worked but only for 24 hours at a time without having
manually to recharge the batteries. All involved are now confident that the
system will provide the CCTV link allowing recording of the colony for times
when the TIC is closed and out of season but unfortunately the puffins will not
be televised this year. There is yet a further interruption due to the
reluctance of using vehicles unnecessarily on farm ground while the Foot and
Mouth scare affects Britain. As soon as this is cleared the CCTV puffin link
will be switched on!
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