A Long Walk in a Short Wood

During the pandemic, we got into the habit of a daily local walk (or two), and although these are mostly routine treks along familiar roads, for the past couple of months, we’ve had a very desultory project to map the paths in the woods behind our house. For a long time these were closed off with some serious looking deer fences but for the last year the gates have been left open and we’ve been taking the opportunity to explore. The paths – really just access tracks for forestry activities – divide and rejoin in branching patterns that mean even a small patch of woodland can be almost endlessly explored, with the magic of GPS always there to guide us back home if we need it.

Today, being sparkly and sunny, if cold, was perfect for it.

Emboldened by the weather (a hard frost means boggy ground is less of an obstacle) and a downed fence, we struck out into the next woodland.

And found a world apparently made of moss, wonderfully soft and springy underfoot.

After much wandering, we found ourselves looking out over the moor to nearest village; a view that was surprising to me but not the other half who has both a functioning sense of direction and the mapping app on his phone.

When we were kids, the local woods seemed endless and these have the same quality to me. A kingdom to explore, and right on our doorstep, at least for as long as the gates remain open. Who could ask for more?

I Bet you Wish your Town had Otters Like Mine

Top tip if you ever find yourself in Bigtown and see a bunch of people looking down at the river – it’s usually a sign that the otters are about and putting on a show;

Nothing to see here, just the local otter doing a spot of fishing in the middle of Dumfries pic.twitter.com/ujJmyVYHI3

— Sally Hinchcliffe (@sallyhinch) October 23, 2023

This one seemed completely oblivious to both the audience and the heron that was fixing it with a beady eye, hoping to nab a crafty fish supper. Just doing its otter thing right in the town centre.

Look, the world is going to crap, everything is terrible, what little progress we felt we’d made is being undone by the worst people in the world, it’s all grim. But it’s sights like this that remind me that there’s still something worth saving out there, like otters.

Unless you happen to be a fish, perhaps …

Welcome Home

After a tiring three days we are back from a brief trip down to London, where we were attending the funeral of an old friend. It was a good sendoff and we were glad we went, but it was a lot of travelling and we were very happy when our train rolled into Bigtown Station – and even happier to arrive home to find a very small welcoming committee of one:

(We were slightly less excited about the strong smell of slurry, but at least the spreading happened in our absence and not 30 minutes after we’d risked hanging some washing out, which counts as a win around here).

We can only hope that this leveret proves as confiding and relaxed as our last one, which became almost ridiculously chilled in our presence – if nothing else, it will give me a cast iron reason to stop weeding the gravel drive.

If so, stand by for more hare content as this story develops.

Many Flies on Me

This year has seen us once more drinking beer in the interest of science – or more to the point, putting out a beer trap for the Big Wasp Survey. We’ve done this three times now, although the third time we were on holiday at the crucial juncture and had to get a friend to empty the traps and send the contents away, a task that let’s just say, she wasn’t keen to have to ever repeat again.

Now to drink the rest of the beer

— Sally Hinchcliffe (@sallyhinch) August 12, 2023

We took a break after that but the organisers are keen to get repeat data from the same locations so this year we’ve rejoined the effort. In fact, if all goes well, we will be able to get results twice this summer as they’re doing one sampling session now and one at the usual time at the end of August. To add to the fun, they’re now getting you to identify the resulting captives in your traps, which may at least improve my wasp identification skills (currently at the level of ‘wasp’ and ‘probably not a wasp’ – fortunately they provide some comprehensive guidance), at least for wasps after they’ve been macerated in beer for a week …

There’s a lot of anxiety – and rightly so – about declining insect populations at the moment. I should say that, living as we are surrounded by cattle farms, there’s not been that much of a noticeable drop, at least in the number of flies around – yesterday’s walk down to the road end to put the recycling out was accompanied by a plague of the things, despite the fact that the latest crop of young swallows were all out practising their flying (less mucking about doing tricks and more hoovering up flies, please). So hopefully by taking part over multiple years we can at least get a sense of how bad things are locally as well as overall.

A sneaky glimpse at the trap yesterday – after it had only been out since Saturday afternoon – revealed that it had already caught a fair number of wasps and even more probably-not-wasps. We might be having quite an identification task on our hands next weekend, which, given how dramatically insect numbers are declining elsewhere, counts as a nice problem to have.

Lush

I’ve had a few days free to get out into the garden (between showers) and not before time – a hot dry few weeks in June, followed by a few more weeks of warm and wet weather has meant an explosion of growth, both wanted and unwanted. It’s terrifying how quickly the new plants which I had put in at the beginning of May into what looked like a fairly well-cleared patch of ground have been overwhelmed by the dense jungle of hedgerow plants that our garden keeps trying to revert to whenever my back is turned. I can only apologise to the poor little alpines and other delicate plant souls who have been left to fend for themselves among the school bullies of Crocosmia, foxgloves, Welsh poppies and periwinkle that dominate (not to mention the willow herb, brambles, nettles, sticky willie, buttercups and dandelions that snake in from the untended edges).

My main goal this week was ‘find the back of the fruitcage’ (and ideally, get out alive). I’m not going to lie, I was somewhat putting off this task as the raspberry canes in there grew larger and larger, encroaching into most of the space and threatening to go on the rampage elsewhere (top tip to newbie gardeners: do not put commercial raspberries in a patch of ground where wild raspberries had long been established as you will never work out which are weeds and which are not and besides they may well just gang up on you and your wimpish blueberry bushes and take over the entire top end of the garden).

Also there was plenty of other weeding to be done, and I suspect always will be, so it took me a little while to get to the fruit cage itself, but when I did, I was at least rewarded by some actual raspberries, as well as just the start of an epic crop of redcurrants from a bush that doesn’t seem to mind being all but overwhelmed by the thugs around it, unlike the blueberries which did not like the dry spell At All and have gone into a bit of a sulk about it.

The rest of the garden is similarly swings and roundabouts. Some bits work, from some angles, at some points of the year, and some are just, well, wildlife habitats, and I think we can agree that’s a good thing. But I’m realising that gardening, at least the way I do it, is a bit like knitting and amateur choirs – the value of any end result is far outweighed by the enjoyment of the doer in the process of getting there. As long as I choose the angle of view carefully and squint a bit I can enjoy whichever bits are currently looking garden-like, and for the rest of the time I can enjoy the fact that there will always be gardening to do should I ever find myself at a loose end.

Don’t Rain on My Parade

It’s long been a cliche of garden (and house) design articles that you should treat your garden ‘like an outdoor room’ – and I’ve always enjoyed reading such things with a certain abstract interest, as I might a piece about advanced body building techniques, or mediaevel history, because what use is an outdoor room in our climate, except perhaps as a shower room for a masochistic exhibitionist?

All that has changed in the past few weeks when, in a fit of madness brought on by possible sunstroke, and also the fact that we’d rashly invited some people around for a barbecue this coming Sunday, we bought some garden furniture

Just broken down and bought some garden furniture – apologies to anyone enjoying the current fine weather

— Sally Hinchcliffe (@sallyhinch) June 10, 2023

Naturally, we’d barely got the chairs out and hadn’t even assembled the table before the rain started but this turned out to be the Weather God’s little joke as, despite our reckless purchase, the sunny weather then resumed and we’ve basically been living outdoors ever since, work and sleeping apart (and even then …)

It’s even predicted to stay fine until tomorrow, when Bigtown hosts Guid Nychburris, its annual celebration of made up traditions and cod Scots spelling* which since time immemorial** is always held on what turns out to be the wettest Saturday of the year. Oddly enough the last time it was sunny was the last time we got involved with our bikes, which may be why the organisers have decided to add a cycling category this year (or it may be the coming UCI Paracycling World Championships, who knows). We’ll be there, flying the flag for cycling as fun rather than sport, and hopefully not watching our banners disintegrate in the rain.

The rain does look as if it will return on Sunday, so we might end up eating indoors after all. Or it might end up being the last use we get out of our new purchase before summer returns to its usual ‘green winter’ setting. But it’s been a wonderful week all the same – and all for less than we’d have paid to go on holiday somewhere warm and sunny where we could sit, eat, and relax outside. I think we can call that a win.

* I don’t know if it’s related, but if you visit the Guid Nychburris page on Facebook, it switches you to Turkish.

** 1932

Be Cool for Yule

Waking this morning to another hard frost, I wasn’t at all sure I was going to enjoy our planned morning activity. Signing up for a half day pulling up pine seedlings from my favourite wetland had seemed like an excellent idea back in October when the weather was mild. But last time we’d gone out there, in February, we’d been wading about in welly-deep bog (and sometimes – as I found out to my cost – welly-deeper). The thought of spending a couple of hours with wet feet and sodden gloves did not particularly appeal. The forecast was not that promising – cloud and zero temperatures. This was definitely going to be an experience to suffer through for the greater good…*

With spare socks, a change of dry clothes, and extra gloves packed, we set off with the car insisting it was -8C (it does tend to exaggerate cold temperatures, to be fair). As we stood around waiting for the others to arrive it was already very chilly – toes and fingers already starting to go numb. Setting off into the middle of the moss, I was mainly concentrating on keeping my footing as we picked our way along the top of the bund that was helping to re-wet the bog – falling into the thinly iced water on either side was not an option. It felt like it was going to be a long couple of hours.

But then, but then. The sun came out, and the place itself began to work its magic. Every leaf and twig was picked out in the white of the frost, and the air was still apart from a few bird calls and a couple of whirring snipe. As we hunted pine saplings among the humps and hollows of the bogs, the going was much easier than it ordinarily would have been, the tussocks of moss and heather frozen hard enough to walk along – as long as you kept moving. We fanned out steadily, each on our own private mission, deep into the heart of this magical place. With dry hands and dry feet, and the sun on our faces, it felt almost warm. The kind of sparkly winter morning Christmas songs are made of. A morning to relish, after all, rather than endure.

We had a lunch date with the Pepperpots, so we couldn’t linger. But we did manage to pick up a souvenir (with permission) on the way out. We’re in our own home for Christmas for the first time in many years, which has raised the dilemma of what to do about a Christmas tree. I’m not a fan of plastic ones, nor of growing trees just to cut them down for a couple of weeks as a decoration. But a salvaged Scots pine from a regenerating peatbog – that seems about as sustainable as you can get. I’m only sorry that logistics meant I didn’t bring it home by bicycle …

* and honestly, it is for the good. Trees are marvellous things for the climate, and we’re all about rewilding and regeneration these days, but raised bogs like this one are a rare and precious habitat and removing pine trees are will help restore it to its former glory.

New Hare Just Dropped

Yesterday I was speaking at an event at Broughton House. My photos don’t really do it justice but it has a garden that is, for me, pretty much the platonic ideal – not huge, but a glorious haven with wonderful borders, a productive but decorative veg plot, benches thoughtfully placed in a variety of sheltered spots and an optimistically large number of sundials when you consider the climate we have around here. It even had a resident cat who graciously allowed herself to be stroked and then plodded around in front of us as if giving us the tour.

My own garden is … somewhat less manicured, although it is about a thousand percent more manicured than it was at the start of the month. In fact, my clearing efforts have overwhelmed the capacity of the compost daleks so I have had to resort to just piling up the resulting weeds, to the point where there’s already a dalek’s worth waiting to go in.

Part of the point of my latest frantic binge gardening efforts have been to get it into a state where two octogenarians can safely reach the greenhouse to water it, for we are going away next week to the US for almost three weeks, leaving the Pepperpots in charge of the tomatoes (and keeping up with the salad). As our garden is already one big trip hazard (whoever laid it out was very fond of shallow steps with treads made out of old wooden sleepers, aka the slipperiest substance known to man), I was keen not to add to the dangers. It’s not quite National Trust standard, but you can at least now see where the paths are supposed to be and watch your footing.

Anyway, as the title of this blog post suggests, our garden does still fulfil its primary function of being wee hare habitat; something that would be less likely if it was at the more manicured end of the spectrum (or, indeed, had a resident cat). The latest leveret is a lot less chilled than its predecessor – it hasn’t come close enough to be usefully photographed, for example. But it has got wonderfully striking extra-dark tips to its ears which swivel constantly as it nibbles the clover on the drive before bolting the minute we step outside. It’s also got a worrying habit of hiding under the car when it rains, something to bear in mind when we need to drive anywhere.

Every year I try and work out how to combine an intermittently busy life with a steady application of gardening effort, and every year I revert to a cycle of binge and neglect. I’ll never have a garden quite like the one at Broughton House, but one day I hope to have one that approaches its level of charm, while still providing a steady supply of young hares to enchant us. That’s surely not too much to ask, is it?

Caution! I Brake for Fledglings

I’ve been dipping in and out of Lev Parikian’s exploration of the microseasons, Light Rains Sometimes Fall – something of a consolation in these fretful times. It’s refreshing to find a writer who doesn’t need to go to the ends of the earth to find solace in nature and is happy to share the delight to be had in watching a pied wagtail outside a vape shop in South London or the weeds in the cracks in the pavements. There’s also something pleasing about the idea of subdividing the seasons into incremental changes – even if the South East’s microseasons are not the same as ours up here.

This week, for instance, is definitely the season of ‘learner birds flirt with danger’. As the first fledgelings have left their nests and are negotiating the unfamiliar hazards of an approaching bicycle, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had to brake hard while heading down our hill to avoid running over a bird that’s clearly only just shed its L-plates. The other day, one sparrow mistimed its launch from the hedgerow so badly that it only narrowly avoided being julienned by my spokes as it shot between my front and back wheels. It’s bad enough on our quiet road, when I can screech down to walking pace if need be, but out on the B road I’ve a little less room to manoeuvre and I can only hope the baby birds find their wings before we both find out the hard way what happens when pushbike and passerine collide.

It’s also got me wondering how best to sum up other times of the year as the seasons turn. The first week of July (when the schools let out and the rain usually restarts) would have to be ‘Come in, you’ll have had your summer’. Midway through August (when autumn starts up here, to the surprise of every English visitor we’ve ever had) would be ‘I told you to bring a coat’. The glorious golden week in September that catches you by surprise just as you’ve resigned yourself to October is ‘And here’s what you’ve been missing’. And November, which in my experience does relentless better than any other month, probably doesn’t have microseasons at all, unless you count multiple variations on ‘Rain falls sideways’, ‘Birds fly sideways’, and (my personal favourite) ‘Icy particles are blown sideways into your ear with some force’.

But that’s all yet to come, and for now we’ve got actual nice weather which means it’s no skin off my nose to wobble down the road at walking pace as a ball of feathers flaps frantically in front of me without quite working out how to get out of the way. Time to be like Lev and savour these moments as they happen, as we await the microseason that comprises the one fine week of the summer: ‘Aye but it’ll no last, mind.’

Flee, All is Discovered

As I mentioned on Twitter, there’s a downside to wildlife friendly gardening – the wildlife does tend to do its own thing being, you know, wild …

In one downside to all our wildlife friendly gardening efforts, every single one of my freshly planted sweet peas has been nibbled down to ground level 😭

— Sally Hinchcliffe (@sallyhinch) May 25, 2022

These were the sweet peas that I had been nurturing since March, even suspending them out of harm’s way of the mice (and then subsequently having to rescue them after the inevitable happened and the string broke on one set of modules).

I’ve been way too busy to get much done in the garden in recent weeks (or maybe months), largely using the fact that we still have to finish erecting our rabbit defences around the vegetable patch as an excuse not to plant out too much stuff. But in the few half hours I had here and there in the last couple of weeks, I did manage to build some nice wigwams for my sweet peas and plant out some of the plants that had amazingly survived plummeting to the greenhouse floor and spending 24 hours upside down before I actually went up to check. It’s possible they may still survive being nibbled to the ground by either the rabbit or the hare, so I’ve put bottle cloches over them for now, to see if they might resprout.

I’m not that hopeful, however, and having built the damn wigwams I feel I’ve too much invested now in growing sweet peas to leave it chance. Fortunately it was the village plant sale today and I persuaded my parents this would be a nice outing for them and that we should probably get there early to have the best choice of plants, by which I obviously meant sweet peas.

Despite turning up pretty much at the stated starting time (a basic rookie error: all the gardeners get there early to drop off their own plants and then snap up the best of what’s there) I was informed that the only sweet peas had already gone. And then, lurking at the back I spotted these.

I reckon there’s about a 50:50 chance that these are sweet peas and not garden peas, as the plant stall holder was a little vague on the specifics. Either way, I’ve built those wigwams and they’re going in, and if they turn out to be garden peas, well that’s not the worst gardening mistake I’ve ever made.

Meanwhile, we’ve seen neither hide nor hare, as it were, of the likely culprit since the loss was discovered.*

A guilty conscience? I’ll let you decide.

* Actually, if it was the hare, it’s already forgiven, as it’s a long established principle that the hares in this garden can eat whatever they like. Indeed, if the other half could find a hare-recognition system that would let hares into the veg patch and keep rabbits out once our fence is completed he’d be onto it right away.