28 January: unexpected nice-ish day

Thursday, 29 January 2021

At home

I was not best pleased to wake to sunshine instead of reading weather. This meant I simply had to go out to the willows grove to gather up some more holly and ivy clippings to be stuffed into the wheelie bin, which had been emptied this morning.

The yellow rain gauge:

Rain had filled the Bogsy Wood swales again.

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I did pull some ivy from the east side of the willow grove, where a deer path comes over a hillock from the gear shed next door.

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Only this much ivy remains in the first pile after filling the wheelie bin for the next pick up.

I admired a hellebore and a small specimen of Garrya ‘James Roof’, planted last year and already showing a winter tassel. And the new foliage of Rudbeckia maxima is pretty in pinks.

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I sifted some compost, ending up with very little fine stuff but a lot of rough stuff to put in one of the hugelkultur fish totes.

That’s all the compost I managed to sort out. The temperature got so cold that my hands hurt and I went inside.

A delight had come in the mail which Allan picked up last night at midnight, from our friend MaryAnn.

Makes me long even more for some proper winter reading weather. We’ve had awful lot of gardening weather in the past month.

The arrival of a Universal Yums box from the Netherlands was another treat. I had thought maybe one more box had been on the way when we decided to frugally cancel our monthly box.

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stroopwafels with a nice cup of Yorkshire Gold

The box was appreciated.

I had picked a mess o greens to go with some bean soup.

The bean soup kit had been put together by the Ilwaco Timberland Library librarians and had been given out last week to patrons returning or picking up books (which is still done outside the building).

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What a kind thing to do. It was delicious.

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Reading Rosemary again

From the library, I had received an interlibrary loan of A Countrywoman’s Notes by Rosemary Verey. As I had thought it might, it was the same as A Countrywoman’s Year, just with a different title. Even though I had read it so very recently, I had liked it so much that I read it again! And found some more favourite takeaways.

I don’t get up early even on hot summer days but I do love gardening without interruptions.

On not cutting the roadside verges:

On meeting a good dog at a dog show; this country, these dogs are called Great Pyrenees and I have had several good friends of that breed:

The book, from the Redwood Library, has this lovely book plate glued in.

The next day, I tried to sift compost again but it was so cold I only got a quarter wheelbarrow and then gave it up. Now for some reading days, I hope.