KW-06 Half of this, three quarters of that

And a jar of pickled onions

Good morning, dear readers, and welcome to the first newsletter of the second, and in many ways more pleasant, three months of winter at the barracks.

look mum! It’s a visual metaphor for half of winter! We’ve talked about the obviousness of my imagery before. I apologised then, and I will apologise now and in the future. I can’t stop myself!

The first three months are the grim ones. The second three months are the infinite ones. From November until the end of January, the chroma leaks out of the visible spectrum, and the cold winds blow. It’s grey and it’s miserable. And it is behind us.

The second half of winter, February until … is oftentimes pleasant. Sometimes warm even. But it tricks you. It’s not done until, usually May, but the last frost around here can surprise us in June.¹

And for some reason, it sent me down a rabbit hole entitled -

Almost all power is solar power.

Solar power usually means photovoltaic cells directly converting photons to electricity. Wind is what happens when some air is cold and dense in one place and hot and thin in another place and nature tries to even it all out. It is the warmth of the sun that made it hot and thin. Capture some of the energy of the moving air, and you have wind energy. Fossil fuels are the result of things which were once alive and photosynthesising getting unalived and then squashed into very small spaces.

Tidal energy is mostly the moon, but all the rest of hydroelectric is solar. The sun turns the ocean into clouds, which turn into rain and reservoirs, and the fall through turbines at the foot of the damn is the release of the sun-evaporating-the-ocean energy. Nuclear is solar power from other sols²

I found extensive evidence of wild piggies on the barracks this week. Do you think this is where they got in? I fixed the fence, but I have no way really of knowing if I fixed it with them inside or outside. I don’t think they were hiding anywhere, and I did look, but I can’t be sure!

Anyway, the point of this unnecessary detour into didacticism is that I was walking the barracks roads, early in the morning, and the temperature difference between the sunshiney portion and the section in the shade was so intense that the microscopically thin top layer of ice melted ever so slightly beneath my feet in the warm sections and refroze as soon as I landed a size 12 in the greyed-out area of shade. The sensation of one step walking freely, and the next one, being stuck to the ground is most peculiar. I spent a good half hour just walking between the two phase layers of reality. Stomp stomp stomp, stick stick stick.

The tomato house

I am getting frighteningly close to being finished with the preparation of the main vertical and horizontal frame elements of the tomato house. That is, the debarking and shaping. I still have to cut all of the mortices and tenons. And all of the triangular bracing pieces. And figure out the roof. So there is still a long way to go, but I should complete the first phase this week.

This week in the garden

I am going to risk it. I am going to sow some stuff. Probably tomatoes and bell peppers. It is crazy early for them, but if I am going to have a tomato house, then I am going to need a lot of tomatoes to fill it with. I won’t be going too crazy, just a few of each type that I have.

If you live somewhere that quits with frosts at a sensible time of year, say the middle of April, then you can definitely start sowing a few things now. Only if it feels right. Remember, we are not in competition with the professionals. For those who are going to sell their vegetables, there is a huge profit premium for them to get their wares out early. We are not about sacrificing flavour for competition. There is plenty of time!

And finally.

Two nods to two people.

I do go on about the cold, but apparently the ability to find some sort of pleasure in it is a familial trait. This is my cousin, Emily (@emily.smailes13 on Instagram. Don’t be weird) who just recently competed for Team GB at the World Ice Swimming championships in Italy. I am seriously impressed! Well done, cuz.

Emily holding a big block of ice like competitive swimming in the stuff is perfectly normal. It is not!

And finally, it would have been Rory’s birthday today. I was planning on telling you another tale from the weird and wonderful world of madness that was the privilege of of spending time with him, but meh. I’ll save them for the campfires. Bottom line - the fat fuck is still dead. Happy Birthday, best dead dude.

And for the rest of us, let us embrace the lengthening of the days, the warming of the feet and why not throw a seed in a pot! I suddenly feel inspired!

All the piratey love

Your Pirate Ben

xoxo

I tried so hard to get a photo that shows the light. Once again, my shitty camera, and my shitty skills confounded the effort. Except this candid pic of pigs seems to almost get it. And a porcine picture is always a W anyway. And we take our wins where we find them around here.

1. There is a passage about waiting in a children’s book I read when I was really quite small. I think it might be The Magician's Nephew - by far the best of the Chronicles of Narnia. A boy (possibly Diggory) is waiting for a girl (presumably Polly), and time for him (waiting by the window) being considerably more stretched than for her (off running errands). Allusions to Einstein’s time dilation, in an allegory of Christianity in a children’s book. Not bad.

If anyone can confirm the book, I would be most grateful.

2. This is tortured and convoluted enough already. I’m not going to explain where Uranium comes from in this supposed-to be flippant and incidental weekly glimpse into the barely functioning mind of a simple pirate-gardener-philosopher.