KW-02 Could it actually be Spring already?

Ist bis Dreikönig kein Winter, folgt auch keine mehr dahinter

It looks like the temperatures are going to drop a bit again this week, but only a bit. It might just dip under freezing at night, we might even get a few more flakes of snow, although I think rain is far more likely.

every day this week, the pigs have lined up in a row to eat their supper. They looked, and sounded, great. Obviously, the day when I remember to take my camera down with me, they are a study in chaotic motion. Still, I love it when their ears go wild, so here, have an action shot of the three porkers.

It doesn’t feel like a break in the winter - which is really common and not at all unusual - it feels like spring. Just something about the quality of the unseasonal warmth. I have been predicting a short and mild winter, but if this really is it, it’s very strange.

As soon as I say something like that, though, is the cue for a good month-long Siberian snap. And that would be fine because I really do need to prune the fruit trees, so I would rather like them to be asleep for that, but there is definitely a substantial part of me which would not be pissed to just more or less skip winter this year.

Talking of which. Did anyone see the article in the Washington Post this week? They, along with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Postdam ran a meta-analysis of 1200 different climate-change scenarios. I think they probably set off to try to find out which possibilities for the near (100 year) future could be thought of as “hopeful”. Maybe they wanted to make recommendations for best ways forward. Anyway, long story short, it turns out that there is no “reasonable” way to avoid 1.5. Or at least, none in the 1200 scenarios they looked at.

I spent most of last week trying to write a blog post on the climate change whistling past the 1.5 station without slowing down thing, or rather, what I think we should do about it. I’m nearly there, and finishing that is one of my three priorities for the week.

The other two are - finish the damn panels in the study (I have no idea why this is dragging so long. Just get on with it, ffs!) and - finish emptying the compost. I do know why this is dragging - it’s because the compost is squelchy and muddy and my shoes have holes in them!

I also have a plan for organising the woodshop a bit. I’d like to get around to that, but I’m not going to make myself any promises.

The other news for the week is that the pigs escaped (they’re back), my gooseberry jam is absolutely delicious and I completely cleared up a rather huge mess of planks and bark and rotting things. This is what it looks like now. Which I guess only means something if you knew what it looked like before!

And I guess that’s what we do when spring happens in the middle of winter. We get on with cleaning things. Spring can be hectic. There is a lot to do as the ground awakens from its winter sleep, and the urge to get on with sowing seeds can be overwhelming and premature. It’s great to be able to do a load of that stuff now - it bodes well for a productive year in the garden - but the weirdest is I am actually seriously considering sowing some seeds now.

It’s always a gamble, you want to get them germinating as soon as possible, but too soon, and you lose them. Which isn’t just annoying, it can actually set you back a long way. Obviously, I’m not going to start burying seeds in pots just yet, but by gum I am sure tempted.

If I do, I’ll let you know about it next week!

And so until then, much piratey love,

your

Pirate Ben

xoxo