If you are feeling chilly in the coming month, just build yourself a metre cube framework somewhere convenient in your house
fill it with fresh horse manure
wait a week and you will have a 38 degree radiator
Body heat – just right for snuggling up to.
Unfortunately ours is in a polytunnel
so we will have to find another use for it.
Today we have been mainly watching the starlings
They chatter in the trees
and there is a moment of quiet, a collective intake of breath, before a communal launch
and away
Down in the wood
We are excavating
what used to be the floor of our abode, consigned to the wood when the animals moved out. Now on the way to be part of the lake.
The essentials of life continue
and the hotbed has reached 33 degrees
A chilling wind is blowing across the Atlantic right now.
Snow on the mountains
Frost on the hills
Drips close at hand
But the four day old hot (pineapple?) bed has reached 30 degrees
The Pheasant had heard that today is the Big Garden Bird Watch
and said “I am a big bird, watch me”.
The starlings said “We are the biggest flock, watch us”.
The Robin said “I have the biggest voice, watch me”.
“No you don’t”, said the Nuthatch
The Raven is above being watched
and the Treecreeper is oblivious to being watched
Two a penny:
I am watching the peanuts
Don’t watch me
Meanwhile the pineapple bed has reached 23 degrees
Today we had duck with broccoli
and January lit trees
Outside the temperature was a couple of degrees
The pineapple bed has reached fifteen
Today the cloud clears briefly to let through the mid-afternoon sun
The Hellebores are looking fine
and there is a hint of violet
We employ locals to aerate the lawn
and the robin keeps an eye on a new woodstack
A Bluetit holds tight to its share of the feeder
Dinah
and Bert
are ready for their dinner.
Outside today, one degree below freezing,
in the pineapple bed…
ten degrees.
After researching pineapple growing
we decide what we need is one of these
So off to collect some of this
transferring it via shuttle
until we have this
Heat will soon be generated to lift the polytunnel temperature a little and then we will make a horse powered propagator on top.
Meanwhile, the January sun continues to illuminate our plot
We awake to a feeling of being watched
or serenaded, off key (actually starling singing can be very interesting)
We work on embedding the new pond (easier to call it the lake, as it is bigger than the old pond), into the surrounding meadow,
Now there may be people who spend the month of January under artificial light, coming from many sources. But how is it that life outside, illuminated by one source, can produce so many highlights, backlights, shadows and moments of exquisiteness?
Recently the heron has been criss-crossing the plot
attracted by our aquatic excavations.
We know changes are afoot as we have a record egg day – Nine from the hens and the first duck eggs of the year
But winter still delights us with the visual inversion of a white sprinkling
Yesterday we awoke to mist and fog above, below, and in between. Everywhere was a little uncertain. We had need to descend to the valley below and the prospect became more obscure.
As we journeyed home, climbing back up, we rose above the gloom and everything was radiant.
Gribin Isaf 