Sunrise Sunday 12 Jan

Cold wind so came down for a coat and caught the reflection in the kitchen window

Back up the garden again. Fading fast 

A January day waking up around the boggy brae

Time now to get sorted for Toadlet's riding lesson and then archery practice for Toad and me.

Oh, before I go... Saw three roe deer charging around the field earlier. At first I thought they were fleeing something but then, as they didn't leave the field, it seemed they were just having fun. There was a buck and two does, one of the does smaller than the other (last year's faun, perhaps). the smallest deer was charging around like a kid in apparently random directions. The larger two looked on for the most part from either side of the field, occasionally joining in with a mad dash or two. It was fun to watch.

Hanging out of windows in my dressing gown

And tramping about the garden in PJs, dressing-gown, sheepskin gilet, Muck boots and hat. We have had a longish spell of greyness and wetness so it was exciting to see some blue sky as the sun rose, to hear my boots crunching on frosted grass, and later, as I got my breakfast ready, to have actual sunshine shedding a golden light horizontally into the kitchen. I can fully understand the excitement even more northern people must feel when the sun begins to return to them each winter. Divingdaughter said that when she lived in Sweden people would go and stand with their backs to outdoor walls and their faces to the sun when this happened there. You can see why the sun was thought of as a god in past times.

So... this morning I tramped about the garden light catching and leant out of windows enjoying sunshine in temperatures just above freezing. Hardly noticed the cold. Click pics to enlarge them.

From up the garden

From up the garden

From the landing window, looking at the frosty roof window of the lean-to 'den'

Landing window

Looking north from my bedroom window through silver birch

North-west

East

While in the garden I enjoyed the juxtaposition of old leaves and new buds, dewdrops on fences, and the glow of Ribes sanguineum against a blue sky.

Planning to do a little log-splitting and stacking today.

We are good at fallen trees

While we were at archery practice a friend came and sliced up our fallen eucalyptus for us. Thank you, BJ! I foresee some log-splitting days ahead.

We decided to leave some of the trunk as a bench. we shoved an old log underneath to support it but with the weight of the tree taken off it was raised rather than falling lower. It would seem that some of the roots are still effective guy ropes.

Garden bench work in progress

Tree roots as guy ropes for a trunk bench and a place for my next compost heap.

This is an apple tree. We don't know when it fell over because it has been like this since we moved here eight years ago. It's still alive and still producing small, wormy apples which the local jays eat up.

There is a little garden seat  here too :)

January buds on the apple tree

The fallen bird cherry below. I shall watch what happens with this during the spring. There are other plants growing on it: holly, honeysuckle, cowberry, ivy, foxgloves. Bit by bit I'll cut off the small branches for firewood. I wonder if the beautiful sulphur polypore fungus will show itself this year?

We brought one slice of trunk inside and will count the rings.

Shredding eucalyptus

I like the patterns on the trunk

A pile to be shredded.

A pile shredded

Feeding the monster

A bit of the boggy brae

I'll shred this pile tomorrow

A little bit of blue sky (the first of 2014) as we decided to go in for coffee

December News 2013

December started well. I met up with a bunch of Gransnet friends, old and new, at the Royal Overseas League on Princes Street, Edinburgh. The organiser had got speakers from Genealogy Scotland, Scottish Beavers at Knapdale, the Children's Hospice Association of Scotland, and a supporter of the SNP's Scottish independence campaign. All the talks were interesting and informative. The last one in that list, which was actually first in the programme, generated the most discussion, as might be expected. I shall be voting No on 18 September 2014.
           The organiser of the meet up persuaded her brother and sister-in-law to come and lead a Scottish sing-song in the later part of the afternoon. Funny how all the non-Scots knew all the songs ;-) – Scottish culture and uniqueness is alive and well in the United Kingdom (not to mention the rest of the world). 

Some of us

Me laughing; can't remember at what.
There was lots of laughing.

A Rotary colleague and I have been getting a Rotakids club up and running at Luss Primary School on the banks of Loch Lomond. The certificate of its formation arrived on 2nd December so now it's official.

I took advantage of Toad working at home (and therefore the availability of the car) on the 9th to head Oban-wards to visit another gransnet friend, KintyreAnnie, who'd been transferred there with a very stubborn bout of pnuemonia. The pictures I took on the way there and back are here. Annie was in hospital for another week after my visit and had worked her way through an astonishing variety of anti-biotics. Thankfully something kicked in eventually and she recovered well. She expressed her appreciation of the care she received at the Lorn & Islands District General Hospital in a letter to the Oban Times.

I passed a number of vintage cars on my drive. I wonder if they were heading for Oban Airport for the "Le Jog" classic car rally?

At Taynuilt I noticed stone field walls that I'd like to have a closer look at some time; at Fearnoch it was oak trees; and in Oban itself evidence, in the form of piles of seaweed, on the landward side of the waterfront road of the storm that hit on 4-5th December (the storm that brought down our eucalyptus and old cherry trees).

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I've identified a few more of our garden mosses, and a lichen or two, this month. The moss count is up to nineteen. One of the fun things about looking at mosses through a microscope is seeing a variety of wee beasties that make the mosses their home. So far they've come in white and pink, with white legs and greens backs, and in segmented grey. Most are too tiny for me to see without magnification. Food for troglodytes and Paridae, I presume.

The old Salmonberry bush at the top of the garden has died. I broke up the branches and shoved it in the old goose house along with other small twigs and branches. More firewood.


Christmas came quietly to the boggy brae. The commercial razmataz holds no appeal. For me it's about celebrating the passing of the shortest day, celebrating without excess. It was not an untroubled day because Toadlet succumbed to a migraine. She had allowed herself to become dehydrated the day before. Beats me how a thirteen year old manages to do this so I'm beginning to wonder if she just doesn't feel thirst in the usual way. So now the question is: do we go back to the doctor and say the preventer medication didn't work, or do we first attempt some dehydration prevention? Maybe both. The phrase "learning the hard way" keeps popping into my mind. Once the up-chucking and bucket emptying was over we settled down to a pleasant Christmas meal with DivingDaughter (who had come over for a few days) of roast lamb and roast vegetables. Toadlet ate a boiled egg.


On the 29th Toad and I took part in the Archery Interchange UK (AIUK) Ironman Frostbite Challenge with Giffnock Archers on a draughty rugby field down Newton Mearns way. Toad had injured his lower back slightly the previous weekend and this came back at him towards the end of the tournament when he found he couldn't pull his full draw length because of pain and lack of strength. This affected his scores for the last few ends. Given how little outdoor practice at appropriate distances I'd had this winter, I was pleased with my shooting and my score, which happened to be the highest in my category, "Lady Recurve Barebow". My ability to shoot eighty-four arrows with my new Border limbs (that's archer talk for the bendy bits of the bow), which are a heavier draw than my old Samick limbs, also pleased me. I guess it means I've got used to them and can now concentrate on the finer points of shooting accurately.

Ready for the cold

A bit of the cherry tree

Late December sunrise

The back terrace

You can give your boots a wee rinse in the 'moat' before you step inside.
If water does run over the doorstep it doesn't matter as there's a drain in the concrete floor of this outhouse.