Winter Tasks
A few nights of a soft frost, each succeeded by cold, bright days, bring with them a memory of winters past. I feel conflicted as I have no wish for snow and ice, and could tolerate many more days of this kind of phoney winter. Yet what was less tolerable were the seemingly endless months of rain - so much rain that more than eighteen months of drought were finally slaked to the extent that the water table has reached ground level, and the Nailbourne is, at last, flowing again.
The gloom of heavy cloud having been swept away, I have felt able to rescue the chainsaw from its peaceful hibernation in the garden shed. Yesterday, as a kind of trial run, I cut up some branches, the now-stubby logs ready to be stacked in the wood store in order to dry for next winter. Today I trimmed lower limbs from overgrown Leylandia trees, thus allowing more light to reach the older of the two greenhouses. Several more days have to be spent on the same. A much more demanding task is to return the Leylandia trees that form a hedge at the front of the house to both a reasonable height and a slim-lined, manageable, under-storey. This task is going to require scaffolding, which will have to be bought or hired.
In the orchard, there are several dead hawthorn trees, formerly supported by their hedgerow neighbours, blown down by recent gales, to be cleared and sawn into logs. There is a length of an old poplar trunk that was too heavy to move waiting to be sawn into shorter, more manageable lengths. An old, nearly-dead plum tree requires de-limbing..
There are several large hazel stands that require coppicing. There are also healthy limbs of several trees that, with a heavy heart, I must remove either because they extend too far, too close to the ground, or because they obstruct me mowing with the tractor mower. I am in two minds about whether I prefer the neat, serried, tamed appearance, or the natural, untamed look.
I am at a loss about how I can reduce the height of the Jurassic jungle of shrubs at the back of the Annexe, and I have yet to work out how I am to tidy the area 'below' the shed that is thick with cut branches, brash and nettles.
Whilst I look forward, almost with desperation, to spring and summer, with their long days of intense activity in the vegetable garden, the winter respite from turning the soil gives me the opportunity to trim back and tidy what has become overgrown. There is a considerable quantity of firewood to be produced, which ought to reduce next winter's fuel bill, that is unless we have a winter as hard and cruel as 2012-2013. I can live with soft frosts and cold, bright days.
