KW-14 Maple, leaves and rag

And some thoughts on mowing as a function of time.

At the very end of last year, with the ground thick in snow, the maples down at the furthest extent of the main lawn, on the bend in the road before it turns to meet the pigs, decided to drop a carpet of helicopter seeds onto the crispy white ground.

I was looking through photos of the first few days of the barracks, and it seems that I didn’t take a single landscape-format photo in about the first 6 months of living here. Except this one which is very funny if you speak Denglish.

I tried to take a photo of it a few times, because I’d never seen anything like it. The samaras, to give them their sciency name, but are also known as wingnuts or whirlybirds, polynoses and whirligigs, depending on local dialect, are in actually fact fruits. For the people who like to be particular about this sort of thing. But no, you still wouldn’t put them in a fruit salad.

The photo didn’t really work out. It just looked like dirty snow. Now I think about it, it would have probably made for some cool bokeh-filled macro shots, but I guess I wasn’t thinking about that at the time.

Since the snows melted, and the temperatures have risen just the slightest couple of degrees, every single one of them has sprouted and the grass is now mostly Acer sprouts. I’m desperate to lawnmower them away, but we are very much in “keep off the grass” mode around here. It’s hardly stopped raining, sleeting, hailing for at least a week and everything is properly waterlogged.

On the left of this picture is the goji that got transplanted last week. The rest of the photo show a chap digging turfs. This is the start of two projects at the same time! Three if you count them generously!

But that is high on the job list for the coming week. Mow everything. In fact, I have been thinking about that a little too. How long would it take to actually mow everything? I’d quite like a volunteer to come and test it out, because I am not good at not getting distracted by other little things I see that should probably be done sooner rather than later, and would mostly be jumping on and off the lawnmower to sort them out. Which is not conducive to obtaining a definitive answer to the question.

I’m ok with just thinking about it as well.

April 2019. I was chatting with one of the foresters recently. He has one of the new Stihl battery-powered chainsaws. He says it’s amazing. But they are incredibly heavy, and cost an extraordinary amount of money. This little blue Hitachi that I thought I would be able to use instead of a petrol one, I still use for taking branches off trees and things like that, but for firewood, it’s really underpowered. Anyway, this photo is from my first month at the barracks, 4 years ago this week.

When I was a student, many decades ago, I spent rather a lot of my time doing interesting things. Possibly too much time. Next weekend, I have a very large number of students coming to the barracks to do an interesting thing. I’m a bit nervous about it, but I’m looking forward to telling you all about it in the next newsletter as well.

So until then. This week we shall (if it stops raining):

• Mow everything

• Sow some more seeds. I might start some peas off early. I don’t generally approve of starting peas early, but why not go wild?

• I’m definitely, 100% going to finish the pig fence for the summer pig field

• Kick off the exciting Infinite Energy Project

• Remember to take more photos.

Finally, the 1st April is the official start of my Barracks year. I moved in 4 years ago this week. The next year has begun. And, all years need a title. Please be supportive and encouraging as we get to grips with, and look forward to Year Five - Community.

Until next week, with much pirattey love

Your

Pirate Ben

xo xo

PS. Please like, comment and share! I know you know this, but when I ask, more of you do. Psychology, innit? :)

PPS: I also have a photos-only newsletter which comes out on Fridays. You might like that one as well