Red sky at night ...

...shepherds' delight.
And well may it be today as it has been sheep dipping day on Gearradubh.
Early in the morning all the sheep on the island were rounded up by as many bodies - men, women and children - as could be mustered. Then in batches the sheep were put through the dip. Messy and smelly, it can't be a day that the local crofters - or probably the sheep - look forward to. Just as it was getting dark the last sheep were returned to their crofts - dipped for another year (or perhaps on reflection it is a biannual event.) I can here the sheep discussing it loudly outside my window now.A long day for the crofters on top of any other jobs they might have but it looked as much a social event as work.
Indeed there is a huge communality to a lot of island jobs that presumably makes those tasks much less hard work than otherwise they would be. I am sure there is a Gaelic word for this but unfortunately whilst Google translate does support Galician and Welsh it doesn't support Gaelic. Sadly I support neither! There might be someone out there who knows?