KW-1 Reset the clock, keep planting trees
Winter is supposed to be the time of the year to get fat. The sun rises today at 08:14 and sets again 16:17. Days are short, nights are long and the thick snow and circling Siberian winds join together to make work outside impossible. So we sit by the fire, catch up on our reading, and slowly and steadily transfer the contents of the stores into our bellies.
Except, not this year. Whilst in North America people are dying in their cars, trapped in scenes from The Day After Tomorrow, the majority of Europe is experiencing temperature anomalies so great, they are having to make up new colours for their maps.
So, instead of slowly getting winter-fatty, I’ve been outside, doing stuff.
Yesterday, I walked the perimeter of the barracks. I don’t do this nearly often enough. I don’t live on an Australian cattle ranch where you can drive for days and not leave your property. I have a relatively modest 5.5 hectares (13.6 acres / 7.6 football pitches / 23 billion postage stamps), and I guess it’s probably a little over a kilometre all the way around. I should do it more often.
I spent some time in the swamp, where it is really exceptionally beautiful. In the summer, it’s buzzing, croaking, chirruping and humming with insectivores, and the ancient grasses and horsetails grow lush green and chest-high. Wintertime sees it considerably more muted. It has a unique, pleasant smell of life on hold, ready to emerge in a thousand different forms. And I get to see how the trees I have planted there are doing. I don’t exactly want to #draintheswamp, that would upset the balance of nature, but I would like to dry some spots out a bit. And hide the boundary fence a little. So, two (or three? I don’t remember now) years ago, I planted willows and alders and poplars. All fast growing trees that don’t mind getting their feet wet. There is no sign of the willows, strangely, but the alders are doing amazingly well. The tallest are now around three meters, and growing strong and thick.
Talking of trees, I obtained a selection of bare-rooted plants this week, which I put into pots. These are the trees for new subscribers! You may recall that before Christmas, I started a special subscription offer where you pay the whole year’s worth monthly 5-bucks, but all in one nicely packaged yearly thingummy package, and I said if you did, I would plant 3 trees at the barracks for you! Well, so far, Luisa, Sarah and Philip have taken up the offer, and those are your trees at the top of the newsletter. We have wild cherry, sweet chestnut, sessile oak, holly (not pictured), hornbeam and caucasian fir. I think I am going to keep them in pots to let them grow nice strong rootballs, and plant them out in the autumn. I promise you, they will all be well taken care of until then!
And here’s the link to support the barracks, and get three trees planted at the same time. Of course, I will be continuing to plant the greatest selection of trees I can get my hands on, this isn’t financing a tuppenny spruce plantation. We’re trying to do good here! https://thebarracks.substack.com/annual_with_trees
I’m not sure what to think of 2023. Or rather, I am, but I think I might save that for later. Be good to each other, and see you next week. I’m going to carry on with the renovation of the loft, and I might just start with the potager greenhouse as well.
Your
Pirate Ben
xoxo