OUR FIRST BENCH, 2014

December 2014:  Alan, Roger and Steve inserting the legs

Then the hand-tooled (!) oak planks were coach-bolted into position

The finished article

Quality control

It served its purpose .  .  .  

.  .  .  and lasted nearly two years, until the summer holidays 2016

FLOODS 2013

 Christmas Eve 2013

A wee drop of rain tested the wall supporting our new stream crossing.  Once we unblocked the culvert the water went through instead of over.

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TALES OF THE WHITE HOUSE

Our toolshed, aka The White House, was delivered by a crane-bearing lorry in December 2013 

The driver was afraid of getting stuck in the mud so we had help from Farmer Willy Grey to get it into it's final resting place.

I've got a couple of amusing videos of this operation.  Willy couldn't see round the container when he lifted it on the front-loading forks of his tractor, so Alan and I shouted directions.  But he said he was a bit deaf and couldn't hear us either.  So we had to wave our arms, which was about as helpful as anyone trying to help you park in a small space.  

Anyway he surprisingly made it through the gateway unscathed, and magically positioned it in exactly the right place. 

Look how clean it looks in the photo with the willows behind it.

 

OLD MAN'S BEARD

December 2013

The fluffy seedheads of Old Man's Beard as it clambers over trees and bushes.

 It's our native Wild Clematis

LEAVE IT AHT

December 1st 2013

 

GHOSTS IN THE GRASS

 Skeletons of flower stems, as beautiful as winter tree silhouettes.

JUST DANDY

Dandelions seen today, undaunted by winter.

 

SLOW TO GO

 Sloes, fruits of the blackthorn, linger on.  

Lucky the thrush that notices them on this small, isolated bush.

FORKS IN TREES

 As a follow up to my post about rubbing branches not welding together here is a bit about stronger branch divisions within a tree.  This first photo is of a log from a cherry tree.  It came from the point where the trunk divided in two.  You can see the tree rings where one branch went off to the left and the other to the right.  

When I split it with an axe I was able to see how the wood fibres between the branches had grown over the years.

It seems that the place where the branches diverged had for many years grown a supporting, strengthening ridge.

These layers of wood fibres between the two branches had grown up from each side and met in the middle, so they had no function as translocators of fluids within the tree.  This had been left to the wood on the outside of the branches.

I never realised that.  

You can learn a lot from splitting logs open, or sawing them.  Dissection with a chainsaw can reveal the inner structure of trees.

This supports what I had been taught years ago: that widely forking branches are stronger than narrow forks.

KISSING BRANCHES AND NARROW FORKS

Near ground level this tree divides into an open or wide fork.  It is able to form a strong ridge between the two branches.

Higher up on the left there are two touching stems so close that they have shaped each other into a loving kiss.  

When branches rub against each other like this it is liable to weaken them.  They widen laterally to compensate for the flattening on one side.  They may eventually weld together but more often they won't,  Then one of them may break and the other is left without the support of its partner and will also succumb to forces exerted by the wind.

A kiss of death.

Here is one I prepared earlier, showing how branches which grow close to each other, forming a narrow fork, retain a barrier of bark between them. This prevents them from joining and welding together.  In the space between, fungal organisms can initiate decay leading to breakage.

    

SULPHUR TUFT

Clustered and still growing on old dead wood is this group of Suphut Tuft fungus toadstools (Hypholoma fasciculare)  

They are an even brighter yellow than my camera shows.

These are just the fruiting bodies, the equivalent of flowers for a fungus.  Deep inside, the white mycelial threads are invisible from the outside of the log but are tidily recycling it and at the same time entertaining us with a bit of colour at this misty time of year.

BRANCHING

 

QUEEN WITHOUT A CROWN

A loud, steady, droning buzz in the living room tells you that you have a queen wasp looking for a hibernating place - probably in your curtains.

I like wasps so I am dead against killing them.  They feed their young on cabbage white butterly caterpillars, gooseberry sawfly larvae and other pesky bush meat.  I'm speaking here as a gardener.  

This is the third in our house this autumn.  I never see them come in; they just appear, zooming around trying to find a place to hide.  Eventually this lady landed on the window and was easy to capture with a glass and a piece of card.  After posing for me she was released out of doors.

I'm afraid this is my regular insect-catching glass and so none too clean, which accounts for some blurring in the photos.

Wasp queens are bigger than the workers. They sleep through till the warmer days of spring and then search out a place to start building a nest, made from wasp paper.  This 'paper' is made by scraping wood off old fences or garden furniture and mixing it with saliva.  Queenie only makes a small round nest to raise the first brood of workers.  They then take over the work of nest building and feeding the next brood of babies on caterpillars, while Her Majesty settles down to egg laying.

 

WINTER SONGSTERS

Most birds are fairly quiet during winter, but these two, the robin and the wren continue to defend their territories with their defiant songs.

The robin has a tuneful, delicate and rather plaintive song, whereas the wren's vigorous four-verse recital includes a cheery churring bit towards the end.

Listen to this recording by Jed Deadlock .  There are several others on youtube but I included this one because ends with the 'tik tik tik' alarm call, warning other birds that there is a cat or some other threat about.

And for a wren song here is a video by Paul Dinning .

Many thanks, Jed and Paul.