Garelochhead Oasis production line

The blanket knitted almost entirely by 'GR', is now finished. Slightly fuzzy photo but you can see the colour arrangement. GR kept saying while she was knitting the strips that she wasn't sure the colours would 'go'. I kept saying: "It'll be fine". When she had finished and I had sewn the strips together and crocheted a border, she took the blanket home to show to her home helps and other people. The next time she saw me she told me everyone thought it was fabulous. It'll go into a sale of work at the Oasis in the spring.

Along with the hat knitted by 'GE':

mutlicoloured tassle hat

I have begun to sort through some of the strips knitted by 'M1'. I think there will be two or three small blankets for the sale out of her production line!




And then there's this lot:

DerbyshireDaughter has said she'll help me sew pieces together and crochet borders on my next visit in February.

Hibernating beetles

In a break from the torrential rain last night and this morning, I went out to drag an old wheelie bin to a handy place by the shed. I'm going to store ash in it for use on snow and ice; we've had a few slippery morning days this month and there may be some more yet.

A touch of sparkle from unfocussed raindrops on a window ------->>

The old wheelie bin has lost a wheel so it needed to be propped a bit. It took me a while to find the right stone because ones I picked up all had hibernating beetles under them.

I apologised and put their roofs back in place.

A green brick on a grey day

Let the grey sleety rain from the grey sleety sky do its winter thing. What care we who have green moss?

This green brick works for its keep. Its job is to hold down the lid of the glass recycling bin to prevent it filling with water. At least bottles and jars don't blow out and cause a litter problem!

The moss is Common Tamarisk-moss (Thuidium tamariscum) which, common though it is (and that's very common on the Boggy Brae), is one of my favourites. Sometimes it isn't green:

It grows on wood too

Bonfire Moss

Bonfire Moss

Bonfire Moss (Funaria hygrometrica) looking cheerful made up for the lack of wildflowers in flower that were findable on my #NewYearPlantHunt (see more under that hashtag on Twitter) for the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland (BSBI) on the first two days of the year.

spruce seedling where it's not wanted

In the middle of this bonfire site I discovered another baby spruce tree. Sorry, dude, but you have to go! Norway and Sitka Spruce fans, don't worry, there are gazillions just up the hill. That's why we keep getting seedlings in the Boggy Brae garden, even though The New Sylva claims that Norway Spruce "rarely produces viable seed in Britain". It seems to around here! Judging by the number of Norway Spruce cones I find, I think the seedlings are that species rather than Sitka.







Here is my 2016 New Year Plant Hunt list:
Bramble (just one)
Common Gorse
Common Cat's-ear (2 miserable-looking specimens)
Daisy (1)
Dandelion (1, not in the least bit chirpy like they are in the spring!)

Boggy Brae dandelion from last April

People in southern English counties are finding long lists of New Year flowering wild plants. Here we still have proper winters! It's not so much a temperature thing, though there is that as well of course, as a light thing up here, I reckon.

A New Year walk in search of wild flowers

Reflections in a puddle

Blogger has decided to put what was to have been my last picture in first place. It does this sometimes; no idea why. Since it is today's favourite, I'm leaving it where it is. The beginning of the blog post is below!

The new year began cold enough for a little frost, and hazy.

I decided to go for a wander in search of flowering plants for the New Year Plant Hunt of the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI). There is not much in flower here at the moment but what isn't flowering is important too in these recordings.

I found Common Gorse, one bunch of Bramble flowers, and two sorry-looking specimens of Common Cat's-ear.

Common Gorse

Bramble

Common Cat's-ear

In the wooded parts of where I walked, the leaves of Wood Sorrel were noticeable, but no flowers. I saw a few Lesser Celandine plants among the dead bracken; again, no flowers yet.

Leaves of Lesser Celandine
bright green against the bracken

A few haws remain of the hawthorns

Fallen larch twig with holly

Ivy

At the bottom of the field on my way home, I found some dead telegraph poles. A couple of years ago electricity cables were put underground. It has saved the electricity companies having to get teams out in ferocious winter weather to reconnect people's power supplies when the lines got blown down or when trees fell on them. This used to happen a lot. In the first years or so of living here we experienced more power cuts during bad weather than we'd collectively experienced in our entire lives before that.

Wandering back along the lane, I enjoyed reflections and worm casts in puddles. See above!