Tools and tarps discarded at the top of the field

 

A certain restlessness yesterday that seemed to be caused by the news of a friend's sudden death made me go and prise Toad out of his office for the purpose of walking round the field with me.

It was still blowing fiercely so I had to tie my hat on with a scarf to keep it close to my ears. We headed up the field first to check out the blue tarpaulins above the field boundary. Last year some people seemed to be building a den up there but it looked as if, what with the gales, the tarps were beginning to part from their moorings. 

They were. And they were being torn to shreds. We decided to clear them up and remove all the washing line rope from the trees they were tied to. The knots were not "proper knots" so it's a good thing I carry a penknife in my pocket. Without freezing hands we might have managed to undo them but we only had freezing hands. We brought the tarps back home. One might be useful in the woodshed but the other is now binned.

We also tried to pile up the shed load of tools and chairs and other paraphernalia that had been left to rust and rot. I counted four spades, a rake, heavy loppers, shears, a bow saw, and several pairs of gloves among all the other stuff. Some people obviously have too much stuff because it means nothing, apparently, to just leave it to litter and rust and freeze into the countryside.

The dross

We also brought home a crowbar and a useful stretchy cord. We'll go back and clear the rest of the stuff bit by bit. Just before we left the site I went round picking up chucked away Irn Bru cans and throwing them onto the pile for later collection too. 

The site just before we left it and carried away the blue tarps

Plastic rope and shreds of tarp

Summer hols

Toad spent much of our summer leave drawing and painting, learning new tunes on his keyboard, and mending the shed. I spent much of the first week of mine recovering – hobbledehee, hobbledeho – from a wrench to my back that happened on the first day. During the second week, eldest daughter Rye came up with her boys, Moo and Oink. When Rye arrives it seems she often ends up cooking dinner. I'm happy with this. This time it seems my estimates of how much pasta was necessary to feed however many of us there were, how much cheese sauce to make, and so on, were inadequate. We rummaged through some of Toadlet's student digs bags and found some more pasta which Rye tipped into the pot. She then made the sauce while I did useful things like finding an ovenproof dish to put the giant macaroni cheese in and sending boys in search of more chairs. All the macaroni cheese was eaten. I keep thinking, if Moo and Oink eat so much now, aged nine and six, what will they be like in their teens!?

Here they are making a rope out of goosegrass:

We spent a fair bit of time down on the beach puddling about and searching for treasure. Rye collects crockery handles, for example.

We were intrigued by this beastie that looks similar at first glance to a woodlouse. The stone it was on appeared to be the back of an old tile.

One day we went for a walk around Ardmore Point in the Clyde. It's a lovely little wild nature reserve full of wild flowers. If the tide's out you can walk much of the way on the beach, which we did, but we also had a look in the woods.

Finding harebells

There were some white ones too:

white harebells

Towards the end of our walk we spotted a mouse on the path. We froze and got some photos of it. It seemed utterly unconcerned by us though and even allowed Moo and Oink to stroke it before it toddled back in the the undergrowth. Oink wanted to bring it home and keep it as a pet but he already has a cat so we argued against that idea. Given the mouse's carelessly dreamy attitude I rather thought it would be owl food that night anyway.

The light drizzle that went on most of the day didn't bother us at all. On the way home we shopped for grub for a crowd. Dinner the next day was going to be baked spuds with this and that and something else followed by a colourful fruit salad, Moo's request, and ice-cream, including soy ice-cream for the partner of J-of-the-wolves who has to avoid dairy products.

So that day all three of my daughters were here with their partners, whom I'm calling Pointy, Hilly, and Hezza unless objections are raised. Rye and Pointy hadn't met Hilly yet and no-one except the BoggyBraers had met Hezza, so it was a grand mixing together.

It was lovely having the visitors, thoroughly enjoyable, but I had apparently got quite tired: when I got home from work on Monday my nap lasted four hours!

Balmaha with Toad

Toad and I went to Balmaha today and walked through what is usually marshy ground to get to the eastern shore of Loch Lomond – a wee walk on flat ground that did my back (that I yanked painfully yesterday) good. Next time we'll take a picnic, although coming back to St Mocha Cafe and getting blueberry yogurt ice-cream and tea in lieu of lunch worked pretty well.

We loved seeing and really hearing (I was going to say just hearing but it really was really hearing) skylarks. Most of the plants we saw also grow on the boggy brae but it was lovely to see flowering rush. The first pic below shows how unusually unmuddy the muddy paths were. The hill beyond is Conic Hill, the name based on a Gaelic word meaning mossy. This was actually a hot day by Scottish standards. It was a good thing I'd woken my Tilley hat out of its long winter hibernation.

New Year Larch Walk

I went for a walk in the woods up the hill. This is the view from just before I climbed over the fence with the help of my trusty sheepskin sit-and-kneel-upon-ery.

I follow deer trods because the undergrowth and general forest floor clutter can be difficult to negotiate.                                    →
I decided to head towards a group of larches that were in sunlight.

sunlit larches

                                                             And here we are.

From the larches it was possible to see the Sentinel from a different angle.

Sentinel from the larches
and looking to the head of the loch

On the way up I enjoyed some mosses and fungi.

In the mossy ground by the larches bilberry plants were growing. They seem to have been well-browsed by deer.










A few minutes after 11:30GMT, I took the photo below as I was setting off downhill again. See how low the sun is to the horizon even so close to noon.

Bye bye larches and sun

Level with Sentinel on my way down. I don't think the tree in the pic below is the same as Sentinel but I'm calling it Sentinel's friend or relation (as in Rabbit's friends and relations in Winnie-the-Pooh stories) until I find out what species it is.

Sentinel's friend or relation

I came across a small reddish pond behind the root ball of a fallen tree. There was the sound of a trickle into it but nothing obvious to tell me why it was so red. Something in the rock and the soil, I guess.

wee red pond

Further down there was another wee puddle-pond with something growing in it that I first took for young watercress. It does look refreshingly edible, doesn't it? I hope I can get an ID for it.

little plant in water

I found some Erica tetralix actually in flower! Woohoo! Finding flowers here in January is a Big Deal!

Down by the burn that runs along the 'back' of the forest fence, that is, on the forest side of the fence rather than the field side, I found a tiny beach to stand on while I listened to trickling water and watched bubbles forming under a tiny waterfall.

Then over the fence at a low bit among gorse bushes that I scrambled into to get a closer view of a lovely bright fungus on one of the branches. Thick old gorse branches are fine to grasp but the small prickles don't half snag your hat!

gorsey hat

By this time my hand-warmers had cooled down completely so I made my way across the field to the Boggy Brae's south corner. You can probably make out the numerous sheep trods heading in the same direction as I was.

animal trods leading to behind my garden

The south garden 'gate'. Just swing your leg over.
On my way down the garden I checked out one of my baby beech trees and some sedum shoots.

baby beech in the west corner

 Shoots of the sedum I protected from deer last year.

At this point a slight smirr started so I was home with perfect timing.