KW12 Frost for breakfast, sunshine for tea

With snow

There are as many different sorts of cold as there are winter mornings. Wednesday, Thursday, the heavens had sunk to ground, smothering life from all being, and grimly louering; descended in snow and malintent. By Friday dawn’s recreation of the day gone by, I was thoroughly fed up. And then yesterday, the long slender fingertips of the nascent sun, cautiously feeling their way through the low, diffuse clouds, audibly shattering the glassy frosted grass and carrying the first hints of a none-too distant spring brought simple cheer to the slowly reanimating human senses.

It’s hard to stay mad at the weather for long.

Overwintered garlic. I went to raid the supermarket bins yesterday, and they had thrown out about 20 bulbs of the stuff which had started sprouting, so it looks like I’ll be planting those as well. There will be a lot of garlic this year. I did not get to planting out the onions sets, because the weather was so grumpy.

There are also many ways to enjoy being warm. My favourite is the one where you need to rip off all your clothes, tear down a steep hill and end, limbs winnowing wildly, face first in a significant body of freshwater.

My other favourite, I discovered at some point this week. I have almost run out of firewood, so instead of running both stoves, I cook on alternate days, and warm my toes of an evening on the others. The evening in question was a chillydactyl day. “Nope” I said to myself.

“There is a hot water bottle in here somewhere, and I’ll be darned if don’t find it and use it for the purpose the good lord intended”

Ahhh, but dear reader, you are expecting this story to end with my finding the hot water bottle, filling it and retiring to bed snug and warm. (At this point it should be mentioned, that I actually really enjoy getting in to a cold bed). But no! I found TWO hot water bottles, and I’ll be blowed if I didn’t just go on right ahead and fill them both up. I tell ya. That was an experience. I’m not sure it will be repeated, but it was fun for once.

I think I might tidy up the compost heaps this week

But what of diligence in the outside, and progress on The Things?

I made the rest of the major frame pieces for the up-to-the-roof part of the tomato house. These it has been possible to do in the comfort of the Fab. The connecting pieces are going to be a little more individual. The rest of the plan is to slot together the 2m partition sections, and then hand finish the unique connection sections one at a time. There will be 8 of these, I have prepped 3. And then, the issue of the corner braces. I’ve not really started on those at all. The roof, that’s going to be a pirate special.

Do you know the expression Don’t make things hard on yourself? Of course you do.

It is a concept I do not find helpful. I am trying to learn a new set of skills, and I am making a thing which should be around for a long time. I hope to be able to look at it in years ahead and smile at all the crazy that went into it. The hours and hours spent with hand tools when it could have been been done better, faster and more conventionally attractively with modern inventions and modern power. I am making a a tomato house of faults and ambition, written in the language of joyous ignorance that created this messy wonder.

I’ve also decided to put quite a large brick-built component in it. I hate bricklaying!

I also

• sowed tomatoes, leeks, melons, watermelons, pumpkins and carrots. I’ve never sown carrots in trays before. Exciting.

• spoke to the forester, got a permission slip for fetching wood from the forest. Essentially, I can have anything I can carry.

• carried quite a lot of wood out of the forest. In maybe 6 hours, I collected enough for less than a week of winter. This is not sustainable.

• fed pigs. I am almost out of pig food, which is a concern, but the adorable little scamps have actually been fun to be around for a second week. Though there was one day, I was sure they were plotting to escape. The perfidious porcine pinocchios swore blind to me that they wouldn’t even dream of such a thing, even as their noses started to swell. The fence is good¹.

• Cleaned the bike, oiled and tightened things. It rides now without feeling like it is going to collapse, clown style, into an explosion of springs and gears. But I can now feel that the rear axle is certainly broken. That’s no ideal. Did same to the lawnmower, and filled it with stale old petrol and now it won’t start. I will flush that out this week and try again. The joys of cleaning Mr Choppy Chop can either be done closer to when it is needed (when the ground unfreezes), or I might wait for my old mate Keith to come and do it. He’d like that!

• I pretty much finished the slides for my Vegan Self Sufficiency presentation. I will try to get you all invitations to it if it every actually happens.

slides

This week, tomato house, onions, probably some more sowing, but it doesn’t need to be rushed. And more firewood. Standard.

I shall let you know what happened in a week. Until then, be well, and take a long distance pirate hug, and know that this was written with love for you all

Your loving

Pirate Ben

xoxo

1. The fence has held up extremely well this winter, with zero jail breaks. Many people have helped, and continue to help with this Barracks journey, and although I do not mention it nearly as often as I should, I do know where things came from. For example, every time the pigs look like they are plotting an curricular excursion, I thank the fact that the electric fence posts are now the super study and more expensive metal ones, and that they were donated by a friend and former colleague, and I offer up a little silent gratitude to her every time I do not have to stress about a piggie escape.