Misty, rainy beach walk

I had half an hour before the bus was due. Sometimes I sit on the crash barrier on the sea wall and read the paper on my phone or a book on my Kindle. When it rains though walking is more appealing. I've been meaning to get to know better the beach and coastline on the west side of Gare Loch for a while and, since today was the day I began wearing hiking boots again for my daily 'commute' (this will continue until next May now), I decided to walk along the beach as far as Dahlandhui if I could.

It's not far but it was slippery going on the rocks and seaweed. Someone in a wee rowing boat who took someone ashore near "First Wreck" called out to me as he began his row back over the loch: "Keep to the grassy bits." I had just decided that's what I should do and thanked him. I had to do a sort of stomp to test each footing. I wonder if my phone pedometer picked that up? When I walk with Toad he walks further than me according to our respective phones; either he's heavy-footed or I'm light-footed–probably a bit of both!

First Wreck

Second Wreck

Nature along the beach: sea plantain, acorns, devil's-bit scabious, bright yellow lichen

 

Historic boaty bits along the way fastened into the rocks 

(there was lots more, including old slip-ways)

 

Boats to my left in the mistiness of the day

 

I got as far as the point where the Dahlandhui Burn comes out onto the beach and decided I'd better get back up to the road if I was to catch the bus at all. Besides which, although I'd checked the tide times, there didn't seem to be much beach at Rockville Point for me to get round to "Fisher Place". Odd.

There was also no way I was going to get across the burn without getting wet feet so I found a way up to the road past an old boathouse and the gateway of Dene Hard. 

The bus passed me as I reached the road but I waved and the driver (he of the "Deer in the water!" comment during the summer) screeched to a splashy halt for me as soon as he could. Bus drivers are nice round here.

So I learnt some new local place names and that a 13:16 1.20m low tide at Garelochhead is not very low around Rockville at 11:15, especially when one forgets that tide times are given in Greenwich Mean Time. Ho hum and all that 😆.

Welly wanders are good for aches

Went for a welly wander in the drippy, midgy weather. It, along with some painkillers, was to ease hangover fibromyalgic aches from yesterday's gardening stints. Very effective when you find such delightful fungal forms and colours.

I'm also finding the limits of my iPhone5 camera. Its pocketability is its redeeming virtue.

Hedge

Last week I took a break from fuchsia-bashing to trim the only bit of hedge I've actually got under control. The bit in the picture is between 17 and 18 metres long and about 1.5m in height. Ten years ago it was four times its current volume.

I swept up leaves and branches from the drive but those on the nearer side I've left to rot where they are. I like watching blackbirds riffling through them for tasty morsels.

The autumn leaves of ornamental cherry from our neighbour's tree that overhangs the wall between our gardens are a joy.

Still cutting back wild and rampant fuchsia

Behind the last few days' political momentousness, life of the Boggy Brae has chugged on, with me stoking my inner fire with smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels and hot tea for the continuing onslaught on monster fuchsias near the pond. Down there is close to where our neighbours at H.Cott. (as they label their wheelie bins) park their cars so I got chatting to Mr when he came down one morning, explaining what I was doing (he asked). He then said: "Haven't you got some kind of weird pond in there?" Weird, eh? Hmm :) The local heron seems to like it.

No, I'm not going to burn my rucksack. The ground's wet so plonking it there keeps it dry. Using it to carry tools reduces the number of times I have to tramp up and down the hill to the tool shed and carrying them up again in it is easier than pushing up a loaded wheelbarrow. The poles on which my outer gloves (I was wearing three pairs: silk, wool, rubber for warmth and damp-proofing) are resting are two of the young, unwanted ash trees I cut down. So far, the ash dieback disease Hymenoscyphus fraxineus does not seem to be affecting their very successful reproduction rate on the Boggy Brae. I've left a couple to grow in "Scrawny's" corner.

So I sit munching on the wall watching boats go by on the loch and looking at ivy stems on nearby trees.

Big ivy on a big ash

Little ivy on one of the fuchsia trunks

and young ivy on an old stump

On Saturday (Bonfire Night in the UK: "Remember, remember, the fifth of November of gunpowder, treason and plot") the sky was blue and even the unwanted fuchsia growth looked pretty against it.

Something else my neighbour said is that we don't need to worry when we cut stuff down, it just regrows. He and Mrs are from the much drier south and are just getting used to what is in effect our temperate rainforest climate. The skies were good that evening.

Trooping mushrooms near the pond. Brought one in to get a spore print but it hasn't obliged so I haven't identified what they are yet.

On Sunday Toad came and helped by cutting back rhododendron as well. We had a bonfire but there's still a lot to do. 

Then the weather turned damp on Monday, snowy above about 100m by today. The evening light on Monday was lovely though.

Clearing monster fuchsia around a young hazel

In the north corner of the Boggy Brae garden there is a young hazel tree. It's surrounded by monster fuchsias that are hell bent on taking over the world. I decided the other day to give the hazel some space. If you click on the pic to enlarge it, you'll see a yellow leaf in the low centre and to the left of that a small patch of sunlight. That sunlight is on one of the hazel trunks; it has two.

Boggy Brae hazel may well have grown from a seed from this old hazel up the hill (see below) in the woods the trunks of which are horizontal.

photo from February 2015

There was a fair amount of dead wood that I could reach over the wall and the old fence wires before I needed to climb over the wall with my alligator saw, so I took the fire basket down with me.  When I did get round to climbing over the wall I grabbed one of the wire holder thingies to haul myself up. It came out in my hand! I think it was the only one whose anchorage was iffy.

Came out in my hand

So then I had a tangle of boingy fence wires to deal with whose ends I couldn't untangle. Out came the hacksaw. That pipe that the hacksaw is leaning on is our heating oil supply pipe which Toad has begun to repaint at the top end. Clearing vegetation from around the oil pipe so he can get at it was another reason to clear fuchsia from near the hazel.

After a couple of hours clearing monster fuchsia the young hazel had a bit more space to breathe and, with any luck, to produce filberts in due course. It has grown quite tall and there is more clearing to do down there but it was a good morning's work. The three and four metre long fuchsia branches I cut have been piled up by the lane to dry a bit. The lower ones will probably put down roots if I leave them too long.

Looking up under hazel

In front of the wall, along the lane, is a rough verge of Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage mixed with Wood Sorrel, Herb Bennet and a few other things. I found some of the saxifrage actually growing out of the wall, Wood Sorrel growing on top of it with ivy, and a tiny spruce tree also growing out of the wall. That got yanked out and chucked on the fire.

At the bottom of the wall was this small plant. I'm not sure what it is yet. Behind it, having grown through the wall is a fuchsia root. As has happened often when I'm regarding or dealing with rampant plant growth on the  Boggy Brae, I feel a sense of reassurance that Nature, given half a chance, is a good deal tougher than we think.

Lovely purple light this morning behind the Sentinel Tree

The 'Sentinel Tree' showed up well against a pale purple sky this morning. I'm enjoying the fact that the bare part of its trunk that was shielded from light until ten years ago when much of the hillside above us was 'cropped' of its plantation trees now seems to be putting out green shoots. It will be interesting to see how far it can clothe itself before the next crop catches up.

The dead wood in the foreground of the picture at the right is holly. Keep meaning to get a ladder up there and harvest it for firewood. Small bits fall off now and then.

Go, Sentinel!

Nearer the house, as the sun came further south, its light caught some of our neighbour's remaining cherry tree leaves.

I made it right up to the Sentinel Tree last November. It was tricky because there are so many fallen and felled trunks lying about and a thick growth of bracken, bramble and opportunistic young birch, not to mention a fast-flowing steep burn (stream) to cross. I was standing on one of the more or less horizontal trunks to take this pic that's looking down to the back of our house and the misty sea loch beyond.










The next two pics were taken last October when I was lower in the wood and wondering how tricky getting up to Sentinel would be! Anyway, I have touched it; actual hugging was difficult given my precarious footing!

undergrowth to fight through
to reach Sentinel

The pale green in the middle is our back garden,
as is the upright goat willow tree in the NW corner.