Farmhouse Journal January 2011

Today, a slimy-brown, relentlessly rainy day, is Twelfth Night, the traditional end of Christmas and the day when we should be wassailing the apple trees to sing in a good harvest and frighten away malicious spirits by banging trays and firing off the odd shot gun. Though we have done it in fun in other years, there seems small chance of it in this downpour, so perhaps we shall have to toast them from the comfort of our fireside instead. I did, however, go out and inspect them. New buds are still tightly clamped to their branches, but there is a different air already about all the trees in the reserve. Hazel catkins are almost in flower. The birches are alive with robins in full voice and at dawn, their warning cries mingle with those of the blackbirds and late-hunting owls, while the mistle thrush tries out his spring song. The green spears of the flag iris shoots are up like a fringe of little teeth along the margins of the ponds, and winter aconites, always the first flowers of spring, are breaking through the leaf mould, uncurling their yellow heads in defiance of the weather and creating their own sunshine.

Contrary to good orchard practice, we failed to pick up the fallen Bramleys and the snow has now covered them twice. But I notice that since their first frosting they seem to have become more palatable to the birds and they have helped sustain them through the last few weeks. Moreover, more birds foraging should mean fewer bugs left for the spring, I hope, and fewer maggots in the apples. It has seemed to work in other years.

There are only a few weeks left till the Reserve reopens to the public and Michael and his grandson Mike, with the help of the intrepid Harry, have been hard at work, painting, clearing and renewing fences. You can hear the reverberating thud across the fields as Mike and Harry drive home another post.

Meanwhile, back to the rain. My wellies have sprung another leak so feeding the chickens is rather like hopscotch, dodging the puddles! Traditionally, it is February that earns the epithet 'fill-dyke'. Well, all our ditches are full a month early and passing Canada geese stop off to investigate the new ponds that have appeared out in the meadows. Michael says he has never seen the fields so flooded and the drive to the Car Park is honeycombed with potholes. Compared with the vast floods happening elsewhere in the world, we have nothing to complain of, but you get a sense of the incredible power of water when even our gentle English rain washes out a road overnight. The news from Brazil, Australia, Indonesia gives a sobering glimpse of true global warming in action and makes our local perspective seem rather trivial. But it also brings home the awareness that we are all connected. Perhaps it is good to get your feet wet and remember that the weather is not just an amenity, or an inconvenience, but, like part of our skin, a medium for life and breath. We always want to insulate ourselves, but the old wassailers sensed, with a wisdom long pre-dating scientific knowledge, that one had to stay close to Nature if one wanted to keep it benign. The water birds here live immersed in their element and for them the thaw is a welcome relief. After all, it is exhausting work breaking ice with your chest when the ponds freeze over!