OP I live somewhere very remote and spectacurlarly beautiful in the west, so I don't know much about the east. But over the past 60 years I have seen an enormous change in Scottish rural life. So many of the more convenient/photogenic communities have been taken over by rich incomers, from England but also from Scandinavia, Netherlands, Germany. They have the money - and money talks. Not nastily - many of the incomers are really nice people - but they tend to assume that everyone can afford a big 4x4 (eg when steep and treacherous local roads not gritted, because of council cuts, these are really needed in bad winter weather) and that skews local service provision.
Richer incomers have time and money to drive longish distances to access services/shops - our nearest supermarket/hospital /dentist is getting on for 50 miles away - there are no taxis because everyone has big cars etc etc etc. There is one excellent bus to our village, but just once per day, and at rather odd times, because it doubles as the school bus. And, as others have mentioned, communications can be a real issue. We have OK broadband (Scotnet) but our mobile (Vodaphone) signal can be out of action for MONTHS at a time, and is temprmental at best.
I'm saying all the following because in many/most really rural communities you will find the following. And you'll need to be able to relate to them ALL:
a) the really poor/very old/ retired basic wage earners/unfit to work/ or out of work labourers etc Cared for by friends, families, local GPs and associated sometimes voluntary welfare/ mental health schemes but pretty poor and powerless - even if they had done important/influential things in the past. It's their community as well as yours.
b) the rich incomers. They have cars and money and can do things to old/derelict houses and land that most locals can only dream of. Bear this in mind.
d) the local crofting families - or whatever is the equivalent in the east. These people have a very justifiable pride in belonging. They will know far more than you ever will about the land and its particularities. They may be very keen to be pally with the local landowner or (for past/present local politics reasons) quite the reverse. Many of them will be land rich but cash poor - unless they are the utterly indespensible chaps with the local big diggers. They will be there at the local pub: just don't let them - as happened locally - overhear you as incomers calling the locals 'hicks'.
e) yer hippies. Sweet and well meaning but (to some at least) infuriating. They tend to run expensive workshops about tree-hugging - am not kidding - and to have blogs telling people who have grown kale etc for centuries how (metaphorically) to suck eggs.
f) church various communities are important - though in my experience, locally, they tend to pull very much together over social and voluntary good works initiatives. That's totally admirable. However, the doctrinal differences do remain, and should be handled sensitively, as I am sure you would.
When it comes to gardening, the warnings about kale, kale, kale and potatoes really do ring true. The good side to this is that both crops LOVE it locally and it's hard to stop them flourishing. Ditto posh purple sprouting broccoli. In my experience, chard, rhubarb, raspberries and blackcurrants (especially the latter) also do very well, as do strawberries in containers. We have wild strawberries everywhere - fruiting just a few, once a year, but such a magical taste - growing like weeds. Up here, you CAN grow apples but late frosts can decimate crops. Ditto pears. For salads, I find sheltered raised beds - a polytunnel even bettter - mean good crops in summer but the low light levels in winter (and autumn and spring) really do have an effect. For example, I've never been able to grow child-like-simple radishes out of doors. Chervil and parsely OK; but tomatoes much the best indoors, pressing up against the french windows.
Re chickens, we gave up after one-by-one they were killed by foxes and pine martens. If you want to keep chickens as total prisoners in runs/cages, to be surrounded every night by predators trying to get in - and they do - then OK but I would not inflict that on them again.
Re Newtonmore. Go there and spend DAYS at the fabulous Highland Folk Museum. Study everything there really hard to learn about the past culture that you'll be moving into - and about how tough/simple/downright CLEVER it was. As others have said, I'm a bit worried that you don't know about this already.