The old weather rhyme goes
“If the oak before the ash, then we’ll only have a splash, if the ash before the oak, then we’ll surely have a soak“?
Well here is the Ash tree which shades my deck in summer
And here is the Oak in my woodland
They look to me to be neck and neck. So I predict we are in for average rainfall! But given the way the weather is changing I suspect it will come as downpours interspersed with long dry spells!
For a couple of years I have been watching 2 large Ash trees in my garden develope signs of Ash Dieback disease. They were mature when we moved in 30 years ago and about 25 years back we had the crowns thinned to reduce the weight. They gave welcome shade to the workshop in summer. But this winter I decided they had to go before they got any more dangerous.
Both were too big for Laura and me to handle and they were on steep slopes which made the job even harder. Luckily one of Laura’s friends is married to a tree surgeon so I asked hm to take on the job. The tree on the left could be dropped across the stream but the one on the right would have to be climbed. So James would have to get the help of his friend, also called James, for safety and James 2 would have to bring his winch so they could pull stuff across and out of the stream.
By lunchtime the first tree was down and winched into the field. I asked them to cut it into manageable pieces but then leave it for us to clear up. They did but were a bit bemused at what I thought we could manage! If I have been over-confident Jmes 1 will come back with his chainsaws and do some more cutting up.
Then in the afternoon they got onto the second tree which James 1 climbed. It was amazing watching him!
This photo is taken from the terrace above the previous ones – there is another 3 – 4 metres of trunk below what you can see. We agreed that they would cut it down to the main fork but leave the trunk. It may regrow as a pollard in which case it will be a long time before the branches are any danger to the workshop. Or it may die but that is another habitat for wildlife.
As James cut away at the branches some of the pieces fell in the stream. They were big and heavy. At that point the water is about a foot deep and the bank about 5 feet above that so the winch was used again to drag them up to ground level.
By the end of the day we were left with this on my side of the river as well as all the wood in the field
We have made a good start on clearing it all – stuff that is too small or rotten to bother with goes into piles to be chipped, long lengths of thinnish stuff are snedded with the billhook and stacked up ready to cut to length in the woodshed and bigger lumps cut with the 2 person saw into roundels for splitting. I had to re-learn how to split with the maul! Because I knew that I would miss sometimes I chose to do the splitting in the lower garden where the soil is fairly deep. Missing the log and hitting a stone does a lot of damage to an axe.
All this wood will be seasoned for 2 years before it is burned so 2024/5 we should have plenty of fuel and the Ashes will return to the garden as ashes.
Some of you will know that the UK has been having what is being described as a ‘cold snap’. Most unusually for this early in the winter the temperature here has barely got above freezing since the end of last week and is expected to stay the same until next Friday. So not a very snappy snap! Some places have had snow and we had a couple of light dustings. The water supply to the utility room is frozen and my next door neighbour came over to ask for water this morning as his supply is frozen too, but mine in the house is still running.
My driveway and the road just beyond it have been sheet ice for days. I thought that the road higher up was clear but this morning Laura tried to drive to work and had to turn back – higher up the hill there was thick ice from verge to verge probably because of water running off the farm yards. She slid back down to the farm lane above my garden and abandoned her car there. She warned me that it would not be possible to get out even on foot. So I have no choice but to hunker down here. I have plenty of supplies of wood and food. There is nothing I absolutely have to get to so it is no great hardship.
My new woodstove is keeping me toasty warm in the sitting room and is much appreciated by the dogs. My coffee this morning was made with water boiled in the kettle on it and my luchtime stew will be heated through on there too.
For the last 3 days Laura and I have been working on the trees which were once a hedge on the opposite bank of the stream. It was lovely to be outdoors in the sunshine and keeping warm by being active but today I am glad to rest indoors. We have cut a quite impressive amount of wood and the dogs thoroughly enjoyed playing together, snuffling around following fox and rabbit trails, exploring the nooks and crannies under the low branches and, of course, supervising us! This wood will be for 2024/25 and if this week is a foretaste of winters to come we will need a lot!
This feeling of being cut off, isolated, but perfectly safe is actually one that I enjoy. Time out from ordinary life. No doubt if it went on much beyond the weekend I would start to get cabin fever but for now I will make the most of it.
Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will know that a few years ago I started planning to prepare for my old age. Yes, I am in my 70’s but I don’t feel old yet (well not most days!). I am planning for my 90’s and later and anticipating maybe less robust good health. But I have no wish to move to somewhere ‘sensible’, a bungalow in a village with a bus service. I like it here, I have brilliant neighbours but to stay here for the duration means planning for problems.
Amongst those problems were the things over which I have no control like pandemics and climate change. And lately two things have shown up a hole in that resilience.
The first is that here in the UK elctricity prices have soared. They are predicted to rise again in April when the Government allows companies to charge more. That will mean the price has doubled in a very short time. The problem is that although there has been a huge increase in renewable generation the National Grid still needs to have gas powered stations on stand-by for the times when demand surges – the early evening when everyone gets in from work, breakfast time when showers, kettles and toasters all go on, even the ad break in a popular Soap Opera when lots of people make a cuppa. And Gas is sold on the global market with a current shortage of supply. Several electricity supply companies have gone bust recently because the price rises to them caught them out. Their customers had to be transferred to other providers which has given headaches to both the customers (they lost a good price deal and went onto a higher tarrif) and the companies that had to accept them. The upshot is that as I have an Air Surce Heat Pump to heat my home my bills have increased dramatically even though it is a pretty efficient system. I can pay them but it means cutting back elsewhere and losing some of the fun things. Petrol prices have risen less dramatically but filling my car takes more money than it did a few months ago. And transport costs going up means food and other things go up too. What is a girl to do?
In the long term everything will even out, gas prices will stabilise, but I cannot imagine that energy in any form will be much cheaper. Except wood which grows happily without any cost to me and which I can, and do, cut without recourse to fossil fuels.
I have a small woodstove as back up to the Heat Pump but it is not very powerful and certainly cannot heat the whole house. Time for a rethink.
The second sign of trouble has been that we have had two major storms this week and a third is forecast for tonight. The Met Office gives storms names only if they pose a threat and we have had Dudley and Eunice so far this week and Franklin has just been named and is expected tonight. Warnings are issued to help us prepare – yellow means a low risk but that damage cannot be ruled out, orange that damage is likely and red that it is pretty much inevitable. Eunice warranted a RED warning which is very rare. On Thursday I had an email from my home insurer reminding me how to make a claim, giving me my policy number to make it easier to identify myself, and telling me they had arranged for extra staff in their call center; and another from Western Power Distribution who manage the power lines telling me they had cancelled all routine work, had all their engineers on stand-by with helicopters to move them if flight was possible and they too had extra call center staff to deal with queries. They were clearly putting their contingency plans for a major incident into operation! In the event my house was perfectly safe and my garden suffered very little damage – one dying Ash tree fell but hit nothing important and one door blew off one greenhouse. This morning there were two fairly short power cuts and as I have been writing this I have had a message that there are problems with the water supply in my area. Other people fared much worse.
Whether you believe in climate change (I do) or not it is clear that extreme weather events are becoming more common. Which means power cuts will become more common. Understandably when there is widespread disruption to the electricity network the first jobs tackled are those which get most people reconnected. In this remote rural place we are at the end of the queue. I have a couple of advantages – Because I am old and disabled I am perceived as vulnerable (I can hear you laughing – I do too!) but they can deal with that by passing my details to Social Services or the Red Cross to check on me and provide help if I need it. My big scret weapon is cows. My neighbour at the dairy farm up the hill milks over 200 cows twice a day and no way can that be done by hand. So if the power goes off it is an emergency and, to be fair, Western Power always get them reconnected quickly even if it means bringing in a generator or other temporary equipment. And that usually means I get power too. But at present in a power cut I have no heating and no means of cooking.
So I have decided to invest in a bigger wood burner in my sitting room. Which means having the old liner in the chimney removed and a new one put in. Apparantly the old one will be coming to the end of its life and it is better to have all the disruption in one go. It has taken me weeks to decide on the best stove and firm and it will be May before it can be installed. I was dismayed that most of the firms I contacted just told me to choose a fire and then they would fit it for a fixed fee. Their advice on how big the new stove should be seemed to be plucked out of thin air. It was Mr Snail who pointed out that for most people these stoves are nice accessories for the sitting room, lit on Christmas Day and maybe other high days and holidays, nice to have in a power cut but very much an adjunct to the central heating. How it looks is then the crucial factor in the choice. Only one firm understood that I wanted to use one as my main heat source. And I wanted to be able to boil a kettle or simmer a stew on it on a regular basis. My Heat Pump will still be there and will be maintained. In very cold weather the fire may not provide enough heat to keep the chill off the bedroom or kitchen and I may want to supplement it with the radiators. Or if I am too ill to cut wood or keep the fire going I need another heat source. But for the most part I will heat my home on free wood and do some cooking with it too. That should reduce my elctricity bills to a more manageable level and restore my capacity to have money for fun.
A permaculture principle is ‘Every function should be supported by more than one element and every element should serve more than one function’. That is a definition of resilience. I am getting there.
I have been thinking for a while of doing another blog about my woodland adventures. Today I published the first post on ‘Going Batty in the Woods’. You might want to take a look! There will be some cross posting particularly for scrap happy but mostly this blog will stick to my musings and more ladylike pursuits! https://goingbattyinthewoods.wordpress.com/2021/08/25/getting-ready-1/
Only a few weeks ago Laura and I were finishing the main tree work for this year tackling the trickiest jobs which I had left until last so that we built up our skills on the easiest first. We cut some trees growing right on the edge of the high, vertical bank behind the greenhouses just before snow came.
The two which are still growing out of the bank are too far down to be reached from above and as I do not want them to regrow we will cut them from stepladders behind the greenhouses later.
Then we laid a hedge in an almost equally awkward place!
By the time we had done that we were joking that we were fully qualified as Mountain Goats!
But now spring has started to appear. The snowdrops and daffodils are out in several parts of the garden.
The wild garlic is reappearing on the path by the stream
The crown of early rhubarb is leafing.
I made a bird box over winter and hung it opposite the end of the deck so I can watch it from the house. I have seen blue tits investigating it – will they move in?
The black elder near it is breaking bud and living up to its name.
And in the greenhouses the 2 apricot trees and the peach are in full bloom.
It is too early for many insects to be flying so to ensure a good set of fruit one of us must tickle each of these flowers with a soft brush every day. So now we are no longer Mountain Goats but Busy Bees!
Last time I posted I was feeling rather glum as I had been limiting myself to essential trips and then Wales went into National Lockdown just as I would have been able to go out again! At least ours was only two and a half weeks whereas England has just started a four week one. I can go out on Tuesday! And I will – I have an appointment to have my hair cut and plan to do some other errands whilst in town.
After writing that last post I decided I needed to get things in perspective. I am not ill, frightened or hungry. I have plenty of friends and can email or message them. So I took myself off to one of my favourite spots for a good talking to! It is in the woods I rent from my neighbour. There is a small clearing next to the stream and on the hill above it a huge Oak tree which most have been part of a hedge once upon a time as there is a noticeable bank running down the hill to the stream – an old field boundary. The stream chatters away as it rushes to the sea and the tree stands majestic and solid. Both have seen it all before; pestilence, famines, wars (I am told that the Home Guard trained by shooting across the stream into the hillside opposite during World War 2) as well as good things like the farms thriving, children playing, lovers meeting. I tell them my worries and grumbles and I can almost hear them telling me to stop whingeing!
But (isn’t there always a but!) the path from my garden into the woods had become overgrown with brambles so I had to take a pair of secateurs with me and cut them back. As I did so I uncovered a tiny nest – I assume a wren’s. Two tiny birds did all that work to build a home and raise their chicks. They don’t care who wins the American election, who gets Covid 19, whether I am happy or sad. They just get on with their lives and do what their instincts tell them.
I realised that I needed to stop fretting about things I can’t change and focus on the little things that bring me joy. So as well as that nest…
I finished a jumper for the collection at Studio 3. This is plainer than I usually do and to the pattern they provide. That makes 5 I have done for them to different designs. I have enough yarn in my stash for at least one more which I will try to get done before the end of the year. A group of refugees have recently been moved to a disused army base not far from here causing quite a lot of controversy – some protesters unhappy with the decision especially as it all happened suddenly with very little consultation, and some people organising to try to help and support them. What must it be like to be dumped in the middle of nowhere with hardly any resources in the middle of lockdown? I know my jumpers will go to a different group but if knitting helps people worse off than me I will knit!
A couple of days ago I found this little fellow in the car port. I have seen newts in the garden before but it is nice to know they are still around. Once I had taken the photograph I moved him to a safer spot. I know there is a lot more wildlife here than I know about – they keep well hidden. What a priviledge to share my space with so many other creatures.
I was weeding the bank next to the deck and found these dahlias. They were facing away from the house and as I hadn’t staked them were hanging down below behind their pot. They have taken a battering in the wind and rain but add a splash of colour to the kitchen table. I have never succeeded with dahlias before but will definitely grow them next year to brighten up the Autumn (and next year I will stake them!)
I also came across what, at first sight, looked to be a HUGE toad but turned out to be my son’s drone. Over a year ago he was here and playing with it (He’s moved on from the radio controlled car he had as a child!) and it got caught in the big Ash tree next to the deck. We tried all sorts of things to get it down but to no avail. It must have eventually blown down and landed under some self-seeded raspberry canes where it hid. Finding it reminded me of spending time with him, his 3 small foster children and my daughter, who took the opportunity of lift to come with them. That brought a big grin to my face!
What is making you smile at the moment?
I have been quiet for a while – more about which in another post – but I have not been idle. An Afternoon in the workshop with some poles purloined from the pile of wood felled but not cut up and a throne emerged. Shame I have no crown or courtiers let alone peasants to do all the work but maybe it’s a start!
Scrap Happy is a group effort curated by Kate and Gun on the 15th of each month. We post about things we have made entirely from scrap. Not everyone posts every time but all the blogs are well worth a visit – follow the links below for inspiration on how to do a lot with a little.
Kate, Gun, Titty, Heléne, Eva, Sue, Lynn, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy, Tracy, Jill, Claire, Jan,
Moira, Sandra, Linda, Chris, Nancy, Alys, Kerry, Claire, Jean,
Joanne, Jon, Hayley, Dawn, Gwen, Connie, Bekki, Pauline,
Sunny and Kjerstin
I decided it was time to take a walk around my garden and enjoy it instead of just working in it!
Along the roadside the wild cow parsley is doing an excellent job of hiding the taty remains of the daffodils.
Outside the conservatory a pot of aquilegia is flowering
On the way up the hill to the veg patch I pass a rhododendron
At the top is a copper beech tree. As a child living on the edge of Manchester we would often go into Heaton Park where there was a huge copper beech which I loved. So we planted one here.
In the greenhouse most of the apricots I so lovingly fertilised with a brush fell off! But the peaches are hanging on so here’s hoping.
In another part of the greenhouse nasturtiums overwintered and are flowering again. I love them for their beauty but also eat the leaves and flowers in salads
In the veg beds I couldn’t bear to pull up these forget-me-nots and the peas don’t seeem to mind!
This apple tree is extra special because I grafted it myself. (The less said about the others which didn’t take the better!)
If I carry on into the woods the bluebells are flowering.
I am so lucky to have all this.
I enjoy working in my garden. I enjoy eating what I grow, the flowers that bloom, sitting on my deck with a cup of coffee but the most magical areas are the pieces of woodland. If I get fraught and frazzled I take a walk through the veg patch and past the soft fruit into the rough, self-seeded woodland area and then through a gap in an old hedgebank into the planted woodland which I rent from the neighbouring farm. Apart from cutting back any brambles which grow across the path those spaces require no work. They are always peaceful and quiet. Although the planted section was only put in just over 20 years ago there are some much older trees which must have been in hedges when even this very steep slope was grazed. There is something about the solidity and calmness of trees which I find settles me. I walk down to the stream where there is a small clearing and sit there watching the stream tumbling over stones and burbling its song and all the worries fall into perspective. In a few weeks time it will be carpeted with bluebells!
I like trees and woodland so much that I am planting more. The field on the opposite side of the stream from my garden is abandoned. The farmer who owns it has effectively retired but refuses to either sell up or to rent out his grazing. Ungrazed for about 12 years the grass is getting very coarse and brambles and blackthorn are creeping in from the edges. I keep pulling tiny seedling trees out of my veg beds and decided that instead of just putting them on the compost heap I would pot them up and then plant them out on the field. It wants to become a wood so I will help it! I also grew some apples from pips (you can read about that experiment here) – rather a lot of them! So they are going over there too. I have no idea whteher they will fruit, whether the fruit will be nice to eat or sour, but if they fruit at all and I don’t want the apples the birds will enjoy them.
I have also started to clear along my top, North boundary where John planted hundreds of willow cuttings. Most of them took and grew for a few years but they were left too long and most have fallen over and died. The soil is very thin so I am planting trees in pots with the bottoms cut out. That way they start in good compost but can send roots down into the stonier soil as they grow. That’s the plan anyway.
I will never see these new woods in their full glory – they are a blessing paid forward. I have so many blessins it only seems fair to ensure some for those who follow me.
Going Batty in Wales 