KW-14 Animal Stories

Birds, worms, deer.

I am friends with a blackbird. He and I exchange whistles every day, and he hops around doing his thing, completely ok with me hopping around doing my thing. He has been around all winter, and we share the place with a real ease. It is likely that he has never seen another human - I don’t think he strays far from the barracks. And while I don’t think that domesticating wild animals is a good thing - they should, generally speaking, be afraid of humans - he and I are doing just fine.

Blackbird nest.

Blackbirds are generally monogamous for life and it is the female who builds the nest. He is the only male blackbird I have seen at the barracks, and I have never seen a female, so I was properly amazed to find him in the woodshed / tomato house fab, in a nest someone had built in the three days that I hadn’t go in there. Obviously, I startled him quite badly, even though the birdbrain has seen me working in there many times, he decided that it wasn’t a place to raise his kids and he, took off with panicked beating wings.

I didn’t see him for a few days after that. He certainly hasn’t returned to the nest (and no, there are no eggs in it), but just yesterday, he was pogoing around in front of the loft, and with a slightly smaller, brown speckled ladybird of his species. I like to think he was telling me I was forgiven! I hope they have built another nest as beautiful as this one somewhere where I never accidentally find it.

Making Marmalade.

I hope this works. I’ve never included a video before. It asked me to pick a thumbnail, which I did. Other than that, it does not appear to be working from this end. We shall trust the system…

I have decided that it is Spring. I know, I know, the official designation comes from the sun and the tilt of the earth and the meteorologists and calendariographers and astrologists who make their money making such pronouncements. But Pippi Longstockinging your way through life is a good strategy for dealing with the uncertainties of life¹. Anyway. In years previous, I have set my mind to it being winter until about three quarters of the way through May. It’s been a successful technique for not getting excited about the end of the snow an the ice. There will definitely be both in April, and frost all the way into June if we are as unlucky as last year.

This year, I have simply decided that it is ok to have snow in Spring.

Do Worms Hibernate?

According to the internet, yes they do. They form a slimey ball and bury themselves deep underground where the sun don’t shine ground doesn’t freeze. This may be true in the internet, but I took to the annual clearing of the soft fruit beds this week, successfully cutting new edges and weeding the first three of them - asparagus, rhubarb and currants. And almost every tangled ball of couch grass roots had a family of worms embedded in them. There were none in the open soil without the grasses, and very few in any other sort of subterranean weed growth, but if I were of a scientific bent, I might conclude that there was, subject to further examination, a viable hypothesis of worms finding winter solace in the roots of plants.

It is possible, I posit, that they had indeed been deep underground all winter, and were now coming up to the surface to start feasting on dead leaves and bits of wood, and they use the deepest roots to navigate their way to the surface. Does a worm know which way is “up”. Curiouser and curiouser.

This week, I will be planting a hedge here. That is, I will be moving a hedge from somewhere else to here. I expect there is a 40% chance of killing it on the way, but it needs to be dug up from where it is, so it is getting a 60% chance at life. If you don’t know where this fence is, I guess you’ve never been to the barracks. You should come! The collapse lab this year is going to be immense.

My final animal tale for this chapter is a brief one. Twice this week, I have spotted a deer grazing in the pig field. The pigs are not in the pig field, it’s the summer pig field. The pigs are in The Mansion House. I have discovered that if you stop dead, and stare directly at a deer from far enough away, you can actually watch it for quite a long time. Once it spots you, it will stare back for a good minute or more if you remain totally motionless. Eventually, it turns tail and leaps off into the distance, but they are truly graceful and beautiful creatures and well worth staring at.

I’ve never seen an adult buck. Not at the barracks, not anywhere else.

This week, all of my actions will b determined at the time, by the weather. I would like to be outside for the whole 168 hours, but this is unlikely. And it is still freezing every night. I woke up to positive temperatures at least twice this last week, but it appears that the coming week is returning to the wild fluctuations of early Spring. Minus 5 overnight, plus 10 during the day. Wild, I tell thee.

So, I guess we find out in next week’s chapter of the Book of the Barracks. Until then, be lovely and kind I shall see you then

Much love

Your Pirate Ben

xoxo

Errata:

I put a photo of some dirt in last week’s chapter without a caption. It was supposed to say something about having planted another 60 garlics, an about 400 onions. Something like that.

The collapse lab:

Tickets are on sale. August 24th - 30th. I hope to see many of you there, for the first time, or returning to the barracks, this is absolutely the best time to come.

1. This reference might only work in German. I have never seen Pippi Longstocking in English. Or Swedish for that matter. Sie biddi biddi biddi macht die Welt wie es biddi biddi biddi ihr gefällt. Top philosophy in my book.