2020 - A Vision Gone Wrong

2020.

Well, what can I say?

It's not quite gone to plan.

Here’s my review, a whistlestop tour. It was hard picking out the moments and the images.

The year got off to its usual start in the garden, 100 garlic cloves being dibbed into the soil on New Year's Day. We started the year with some very wet paddocks too.

But it wasn’t long before news of a distant virus raised its head from afar. At the time it was a very distant threat. Little did we know. Apart from the weather, the B word had till now been unavoidable. Who would have thought it could so quickly be upstaged by the C word.

Before too long this new type of coronavirus was impacting my year, with hastily rearranged flights for my annual birding trip abroad. The day after Valentine’s day saw me heading off for Thailand and what was to be a brilliant holiday. The birds were great, I had good friends for company and Thailand is a wonderful country.

By my return in early March, this distant virus was making the headlines in Europe with a serious outbreak in Italy and cases starting to appear all over Europe. I picked up a cough in Thailand and was forced into a strict self-isolation in one room of the house. Even my rubbish had to be bagged separately. 

I was one of the first people to go for a test. It was all very strange and clandestine. Pull up outside the hospital, make a phone call and wait for a doctor in full hazmat to emerge from a side door and lead me away. In our safe and protected modern lives, suddenly finding our lives threatened by pandemic seemed somewhat surreal. But it wasn’t long before everything was far too real.

Roll into March and a rapidly developing situation had the country locked down in fear of an invisible killer. 

There was hardship, loneliness and sadness for those worst affected. Toilet rolls became the new currency, ridiculous as it sounds. But humankind grinding to a halt also afforded a glimpse into an alternative civilisation. Wildlife invaded towns and cities, the air was cleaner, it was quieter. People started to appreciate nature, the simpler things in life, life itself and the key workers who devote their lives to public service. If only it were possible to freeze this image.

Of course, I choose to spend my life immersed in nature and the countryside. It was great not to feel quite so odd for a while. I continued to notice the amazing world which surrounds us.

Here on the smallholding little changed. In fact there was more time to keep up with the endless list of jobs and the lack of traffic and aeroplanes brought a strange peacefulness and serenity to the place.

As we passed Easter, the geese failed to hatch a single egg as they swapped and changed nests in the stable. 

Birdwatching took on a new form. Noc mig. Nocturnal migration, birdwatching in the dark. I sat out till the early hours wrapped in a sleeping bag and soaking up the night atmosphere. Amazingly there are birds which regularly fly right over the smallholding that I've never seen during the day. And Tawny Owls have most definitely moved into the area.

With the end of night-time frosts within sight, potatoes were planted, beans sown, onion sets set, seeds sown and seedlings nurtured.

School changed a lot and I felt sorry for Sue as headteachers were left to make life and death decisions with little guidance or information and revised instructions raining down at the shortest of notice from on high.

As spring progressed it was looking like a good year for growing. Sowing, hoeing and growing continued apace. From tiny acorns sprung mighty oaks – well, tomato seeds and climbing vines at least.

Into early summer and lockdown was starting to succeed. Some children came back to school and we all learned how to conduct our business on ZOOM. Masks had become standard indoor wear and hugs were out. There was a new normal.

On the smallholding the two female turkeys eventually found somewhere to safely lay their eggs without the crows finding them every day. We ended up with four young birds from one nest followed by five later in the summer from the second.

The year rolled on irrespective. The sheep were sheared as the weather  warmed up. Flooded paddocks became a distant memory as cracks appeared in the clay ground. A promising harvest was beginning to suffer, though we had raspberries coming out of our ears.

Comet Neowise made a brief appearance in the night skies and reminded us all of just how small we are.

Summer saw the pandemic situation much improved. We were encouraged to Eat Out To Help Out and on the smallholding we even managed to host a volunteer from France for a week. He was a delight to host. We were on top of all the smallholding jobs and even managed to get a few sheep shelters built using materials we had lying around.

new shelters for the sheep

new projects

The garlic was harvested. How things had changed since the cloves were set in the ground on the first day of the year.

Normally deserted beaches were packed as staycations took us back in time.

The polytunnel went mad. We’ve never had a better year for tomatoes, peppers and chillis. I seem (fingers crossed) to have sorted out the long term problem we had with red spider mite.

Blight stayed away from the potatoes long enough to get a decent crop. Pink Fir Apples are a treat in a good year.

chillis and peppers had a good year
as did Pink Fir Apple potatoes

The sun shone brightly and all was rosy.

It was a good year for the bees. Sue collected 200 lb of honey and still managed to leave 20lb on each hive for the bees. We had 8 swarms, not all from our hives. It was a good year for wasps too. I found 4 nests, three by being stung before I found them!!

Bees marching into their new home

Into the autumn. Schools back and inevitably that virus started to rear its ugly head again. Four of our ewes had unplanned lambs! (Clearly they did not know they shouldn’t get pregnant back in April when we put the rams back in after the winter. 

Sadly we lost the first lamb, which was born to a new mum and was very premature. Even more sadly we lost one of the ewes after a successful birth. We were left with Little Orphan Annie who lived in the house for quite a while until she was big enough to look after herself and survive the cold and wet. She still goes for the occasional walk with Sue and the dogs.

The rest of our pet family continue to make themselves well and truly at home!

Autumn crept upon us.

It was a ridiculously good one for rare birds turning up. I managed to just about stay within Covid rules to spend time on Shetland, Orkney, Tiree and The Scillies. I didn’t spend quite enough time on the smallholding though! This happens most autumns, but this one was exceptional.

As we headed into November we headed into another lockdown, though schools stayed open and it really didn’t feel much different to normal life. We don’t exactly spend much time going out or shopping anyway. Frosty mornings returned and in early December we had the first snow of the year too.

Sadly it was too much for Rambo, our breeding ram. He had lost weight steadily for a couple of years and we didn’t think he would get through last winter. I shall miss him greatly as we enjoyed our cuddles. He had a very good life though.

  

But with December came another type of lockdown. Not this time for us but for the poultry as cases of highly pathogenic influenza popped up all over the country as wildfowl migrated here for the winter. As far as I’m concerned this is another problem completely exacerbated by industrial ‘farming’ of livestock, but small scale keepers are always hit hardest by these restrictions. On the positive side, for almost a month we enjoyed the presence of up to a couple of hundred wild swans in the field right next to the farm.

And so we find ourselves past the 2020 winter solstice. Vaccinations mean there is light at the end of the tunnel and as the days again lengthen there is hope for the future. 

If the omens seemed good with the Great Conglomeration
of Saturn and Jupiter, there was sobering news of a new
more transmissible virus variant.

But 2020 really knew how to kick us in the teeth.  Along came a new virus variant, Christmas all but cancelled and the return of fear and uncertainty.

And I’ve got this far without mentioning the B word. We have a Brexit deal. The jingoistic blind patriotism makes me despair. But another side of me is uncomfortable with ever-increasing globalisation. If it means we produce and purchase locally and only what we need rather than greed then there may be a positive side to all this. Enough about this divisive issue.

I’ve not mentioned the T word either. But Trump is gone too. The madness is hopefully over.

So what with Coronavirus, Brexit and Trump it has been quite a memorable year.  Ever the optimist though, just maybe these times of upheaval might result in some sort of seismic shift in the way humans conduct their lives and what we all value.

Ruff Hide - wellies recommended!
Flooded fields have attracted impressive flocks of birds.
So I built a new sheep shelter, temporarily to be used as a bird hide.
The third bird I saw from it was a Ruff, a new bird for the farm, species 116.

On the smallholding we end the year with paddocks under water again. The year has come round. Another week and I plant 100 garlic cloves. 2021 begins.

It's been a thought-provoking year to say the least. But it's helped Sue and I realise just how lucky we are to have chosen the slightly unconventional path in life that we have.

The joy of being mostly self-sufficient has never felt more important, the value of what we have created here never greater.

My hopes are that somehow all this mess results in less consumerism, that we come out of this divisive year somehow more united and more caring of each other, that the selfless service of health workers, care workers, teachers becomes properly valued and recognised as more important than the blind pursuit of monetary wealth and thoughtless consumerism . 

Most of all though I hope that people continue to notice nature and appreciate all the special things around us which don’t come in plastic packaging.

My optimism is not blind though!

Roll on 2021.