Storms, Chainsaws and a Change of Plan
It’s been slow going on the home front lately. I’m back at work full-time, and K is working full-time on 12-hour shifts, so any job that needs two people has mostly had to wait. Then Storm Boelo came through and either wiped out some of oured on a whole load of new jobs. Probably both. progress or pil
The trees
The immediate damage was two of our huge Scots pines coming down. Between them, they blocked the only vehicle access to the house and outbuildings, for both the neighbours and us.
We couldn’t find a professional willing to take it on because of the way they’d fallen: down across the track, over both drainage ditches, onto the drystone wall, and into the field. Both trees were being held up by their branches (in the end, by a single branch acting as a leg), so there was considerable tension and some very unpredictable movement.
So, four days and one newly purchased chainsaw later, we tackled it ourselves. “We” were me and the neighbour: Computing Guy and Retired Guy, with a brand-new chainsaw and no practical knowledge. What could possibly go wrong?
Somehow, we got it cleared. I then found a tree surgeon to fell the remaining Scots pine and deal with another pine that had fallen across the rear drive to the house. Along the way, it turned out that two more trees had to come down as well.
The aftermath
That has left us with literal mountains of branches and cut trunks all over the property, generally in exactly the wrong places for the jobs I had planned. And it’s mostly just me, myself and I doing the moving, cutting and stacking, in whatever gaps work leaves before it gets dark.
What I was supposed to be doing
By now, the plan was to clear out the old dead branches the previous owner had stored all over the place, then start planting the harvested willow to form the beginnings of a living fence: around the walled garden and along the field boundaries as a small windbreak. I also wanted to take elder cuttings to root and plant them in the same line. I believe the proper term for this is a fedge (fence + hedge).
But since there are now piles of branches and timber exactly where I planned to start, that might be delayed. A tiny bit.
On the plus side, I’m very glad I hadn’t got round to putting the poly on the polytunnel yet. The storm tore through, and with all the flying debris, I don’t think it would have survived intact.
Meanwhile, in the rest of life…
PhD supervisor wanted. I’ve put out a call for a PhD supervisor on LinkedIn and elsewhere (details below). If anyone reading this has any space, please drop me a message.
I am preparing an application for a self-funded PhD through the UHI Graduate School and am seeking to connect with researchers who may be interested in joining a supervisory team or who could recommend potential supervisors.
I am currently exploring two possible research directions.
Fair learner analytics for RPL students
Predictive analytics increasingly influence learner support, yet they remain largely reliant on traditional academic metrics. Students entering through Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) often appear “data-poor” to these systems, leading to an algorithmic cold-start problem. How can learner-support analytics in a federated, multi-partner tertiary environment represent prior learning fairly and effectively, rather than treating RPL students as anomalies? This inquiry builds on my MEd research into RPL and alternative pathways into higher education.
Re-placing the Machine: LLMs and place-based learning
Large language models are fast becoming the default mediators of learning, yet they are trained on largely global, urban, Anglo-American data. What happens to place-based pedagogy when these models mediate learning for geographically dispersed students in rural and island communities across the Highlands and Islands?
If your research touches on learning analytics, AI in education, RPL, or rural and place-based education, I’d be glad to hear from you. Comments and messages are welcome, and please share with anyone who might be interested.#PhD#LearningAnalytics#AIinEducation#RPL#TertiaryEducation#HighlandsAndIslands
Back to studying. I’ve also started the HNC Next Gen in Horticulture (Year 1 of the undergraduate degree) with UHI Argyll. There’s no grand reason beyond the fact that I have all this land, I’m doing things on it, and I plan to spend more of my time there anyway, so I may as well learn to do it properly. So far, it’s going well, with some really interesting lectures. The one weak spot is that the published timetable doesn’t always match reality, so I keep either missing the start of sessions or turning up very early.
The video backlog. I have a lot of footage to get out. I’ve fallen into the trap of waiting until a “topic” is finished before releasing anything, and some of the bigger projects never quite reach that point. The result is terabytes of video sitting on drives. So I’m going to change my approach: release on a regular schedule and let the projects run as long as they need to, rather than waiting for a neat ending that may never come.
More soon. Probably involving a chainsaw.
