Np 79. THRASHAN DOON & BUILDAN OOT.

No 79. THRASSAN DOON “ AN “BUILDAN OOT”

At Whitehaa I remember some Springs when “Building oot “ was done. By no means every Spring were stacks left over after a hard winter, but sometimes. This meant a run of days of thrashing down stacks left in the stackyard after winter end before the rats and the mice completely demolished them. Sometimes there were more, sometimes there were less, sometimes there were none at all.

Obviously the straw would have to be built outdoors, the barn could not hold it all. So a clear level space in the stackyard just beyond the barn door was made ready. We actually had two hard standings of many flat flag stones set out for that purpose, ever so slightly raised above ground level to keep the straw dry.. One was in the stackyard, one was inside the Square, both as near to the opposing barn doors as reasonable, not too far to carry the straw. The one in the Square is to be seen in the photo we previously published of Billy the Horse in the square with the bairns, including myself !! Obviously a space was left in the stackyard between the gilt and the barn wall to let the carts get in to the sheaf window. No travelling steam mills were available in Stronsay so threshing doon was a homer with your own thrashing mill in the barn. A dusty job too at winter’s end.

Extra hands were needed if the straw was to be carried direct from the mill as thrashing progressed, hauled in burdens out of the door. It needed two men to carry the straw from the mill, one man with a pitchfork at the gilt to pitch up to one man on a half loaded cart used as a platform on the way up. Pitching straw from the ground to any height at all was a no-go, especially on a windy day..
The cart we used was usually the Long Cart, handy if you had one, less shoogly and a longer platform, the shafts sitting on a barrel. It was better to have two men building on the gilt if you could get them.
Otherwise if not enough hands were available the straw was first stored in the barn on thrashing day, and then another day it was tediously carried out. and pitched up onto the gilt. Not too often was there enough people to keep everything going at the same time, so many days the straw just had to be barn stored. but it was double handling. Often enough that was the method when but few people were available
At Whitehall our father could usually rustle up enough extra hands to do both thrashing and carrying out at the same time. Sometimes a neighbour came to help to thrash down the left over stacks. A cart load of straw might be his wages, if you could call it that, loaded direct at the barn door and saving a bit of building into the gilt. A tricky building job, straw was not as easy to build on a cart as sheaves but I remember some mighty good loads being built, then tied tightly down with a couple of ropes thrown over the finished marvel. At Greenland Mains a certain Mr Campbell from Castletown was very good at so doing, never missing a chance of a free load of straw in return for his help. High entertainment thrown in as an extra.
He used to cart herring for our father in Stronsay in the fishing days gone by. Fancied himself as a good horseman, and it was so. Except for the time he backed a young horse in the cart into the sea to wash both the horse’s legs and the cart. after a day’s herring carting. The horse would not stop backing further anhd further into deeper water until Cammelly’s bum was under water, as helpless with laughing as the on dry land spectators. There was more to a load of straw than one would think!!


More often the extras were some hands from the Village. There was a nicely balanced barter system of setting some drills of tatties for a Villager, the favour being returned with a bit of occasional work when needed. We had another farm at Airy, four miles away, and the men interchanged when needed.


Not all stacks were at risk from rodents, only those built on the ground level steathes. I remember not needing to thrash stacks built on special raised stack steathes, or steddles to give the Caithness name. These steathes were usually kept for the seed oats, they were more or less rat and mouse proof.

They were built on stone pillars, or fancy bought-in iron pedestals on a few farms, with wide flagstones laid flat over the pillars so no varmints could climb into the stack. They were usually kept for the seed oats, always grown on the clean-land, a a field after a crop of turnips the previous year. They were used before winter’s end anyway as the seed was normally all needed. Any left over on raised steathes could be safely left unthrashed to next winter. That clean land crop was usually pretty free of weeds, shorter in straw length, more often cut standing and more regular and indeed giving a better and cleaner seed oat than any crop of lea, which usually, being very heavy, was prone to being flattened by bad weather.
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But don’t count on total safety. Rats were wonderfully self reliant. There is the oft told story of the two rats night raiding the hen house. One rat lay on its back and held the desired egg on its stomach, the other rat gripped its tail and sledged the rat with the egg to the rat hole, or under the hen house. I never saw it done myself, but, as they say, “I knew a man who knew a man who had a wife etc.” Nuff said, believe it if you will. I do know that when we moved a hen house in the field there was always a number of eaten out egg shells underneath. So sometimes even a stack on pedestals would have a tenant. These rats must have grown wings.

Thrashing down left over stacks made use odd days of spare time for the men, a day of wind and rain mostly when land work was impossible. Or better, if all the land work was so up to date that time was available.

Straw gilts were a different kind of building than the sheaf building of harvest time when the outer ring of sheaves had a downward slope which ran off the rain. Even if not thatched, which I never saw in the North of Scotland, a well built stack was rain proof.
So too with the straw gilt. Keep the heart high, tramp it hard, place the loose straw with practiced care just so, pat it down into shape, keep an outward convex curve to the gilt topsides. Two men on top of the gilt, one keeping the incoming straw clear, the other doing the careful building. Stack nets over the gilt to keep it all down when finished. An art form.
We previously published a photo on the 11th June Groat issue of a gilt being built, have a look back unless the editor can reprint it. Good old photo too !!!