Mayan Mayhem

A few days ago, most of the modern world felt fit to scorn at the ancient Mayan civilisation's prediction that the world would end imminently.
I'm writing this, you're reading it, and tonight a bloke with a long white beard will be visiting every house in the world to deliver presents down the chimney, with the aid of his flying reindeer.
So clearly those ancients got it all wrong, whereas we know much better.

But I'm not so sure we should be so smug. Bear with me and you'll see where I'm going with this one.



Sunday 23rd December 2012
Two sleeps till Christmas

The keen-eyed among you may have noticed that for three of the last five mornings I've not even bothered to take a photo of the sunrise, despite the fact that, like the Mayans, I've been conducting my own form of sun worship this year by watching every single sunrise.

But here's the thing. That infamous Mayan calendar which came to an end last Friday was based on the eternal (?) cycle of the sun rising every morning and setting every evening (at least in the Mayan part of the world).
Well, since Friday 21st December 2012 I have not seen the sun! Not just as it was scheduled to break the horizon, but not at all. Instead we have had incessant rain more akin to The Great Flood in another ancient story.
So maybe that Mayan end of the world was never going to happen in quite such a sudden manner as we envisaged. Just maybe it is a slower process. Has anyone actually seen the sun since last Friday?

Even the dry dyke has water in,
for the first time since we moved here.

The water just has nowhere to go.

Asparagus trenches or individual bathing pools for the geese?

And here's another thing. I just found this on the internet. Of course, if you're reading the repeat you are free to scorn for a second time!

24 December 2012

Christmas Eve To Mark The End Of The World?

Mayan Apocalypse Now Scheduled For December 24

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/12/24/christmas-eve-end-world-mayan-apocalypse-december-24_n_2357962.html#s1872872&title=1806_

  

 

35 sun rises to go.

My temporary lull in blogging has not meant that I've forgotten about seeing every sunrise in 2012. The last week has only seen one actual visible sunrise, but the weather has been dramatic and morning skies have been varied.

I now have to wait till 7:45 am for the sun to peek over the horizon, which means I often take the photo on the way back from feeding the animals. More scarily, it's only just over 8 hours later that it disappears again in the western sky. This severely limits the amount of outdoor work I can get done, though the weather is not very conducive to achieving anything at the moment.

Roll on the shortest day. From there it's downhill all the way.

So I give you the last week's sunrises, in all their glory.

Wednesday 21st November 2012
Remarkably similar to yesterday's picture.

Thursday 22nd November 2012
Today I had my second Ofsted inspection in two weeks.
So forgive me being too preoccupied
to properly appreciate this gorgeous sunrise..

Friday 23rd November 2012
An amazing low bank of cloud on the horizon

Saturday 24th November 2012
An unusual combo of fog and frost.

Sunday 25th November 2012
Ominous clouds loom.
The lying water tells its own story of last night's storm
which unleashed itself on already saturated fields.

Monday 26th November 2012
More moisture in the air.
Let's hope it stays there.

Farewell British Summertime

Sunday 28th October 2012
The sun has moved a long way along the horizon
since last time I saw it rise.
This was the last we saw of it today!

Well, British Summertime is over!
For everybody else that means an extra hour in bed.
But not for me, since nobody remembered to tell the sun to get up an hour later! So, at 6:45 the alarm went off. I was tired, as in the middle of the  night Gerry had woken us up by pulling the curtain off its rail doing some night-time abseiling!

I was in a good mood though, for most unexpectedly I got a LIFER yesterday. At 3:25 in the afternoon I heard about a Hornemann's Arctic Redpoll in the dunes at Holkham, where I had been a couple of days ago. Time was tight so I jumped straight in the car and had a somewhat hair-raising journey into North Norfolk, through hail storms and heavy rain. I pulled up in the car park an hour later, paid the extortionate parking fees and ran / fast walked the mile or so through the pines and dunes to where the bird was hopping around not 6 foot away from a small and appreciative audience. It had probably never seen a human in its life. Less than ten minutres later it hopped over the dune, never to be seen again. Phew! That was a bit tight. Depending on which official list you follow, this was my 514th species in the British Isles.

But that was still (allegedly) British Summertime.
Today it is Greenwich Mean Time - otherwise known as Wintertime. At least I got to see a proper sunrise this morning and I couldn't believe how far our nearest star had crept along the horizon since it was last sighted. I can just about understand and imagine why the sun appears to move along the horizon as the year goes by. But what I can't get my head around is that it reaches a certain point and then heads back the other way.

But before I had any time to further contemplate this I was struck (not literally) by the flocks of Fieldfares and Redwings coming in over the fields, many briefly alighting in the roadside hedge. The redwings tend to dive straight into the berry laden hawthorns, whereas the fieldfares head for the tops of the tall trees to survey their surroundings before descending to feed.
If anything there were even more thrushes than yesterday, flocks up to 200 strong coming in every couple of minutes. The light was much duller as the sun had already finished its brief appearance for the day, but I still spent a damp couple of hours again desperately trying to pick out a ring ouzel.

Much as I am determined to find one, I was quite glad when it was time to head off to the auction to see if there were any bargains to be had. We have a shed coming on Monday and a couple of dog kennels which will be converted for the ducks and geese. We also met a gorgeous Jack Russell pup - one step closer to getting a dog methinks!

From there it was off to Wisbech for the FGSC (Smallholders Club) harvest lunch. Soup, bread and puddings, of course all home made and most delicious. We enjoyed some good company and I managed to narrowly avoid being nominated as Treasurer! Though we do intend to get more involved and to give something back to the club.

Then it was quickly back home in time to feed the pigs and poultry before it got dark, which is now, of course, one hour earlier.

That was July

Tuesday 31st July 2012
A group of gulls heads out to The Wash at first light

Monday 30th July 2012

Weatherwise, July was a month of two halves. The first, continuing on from the previous three months, was wet ... very wet. Then came a hot spell, dominated for me by the epic saga of the polytunnel.
Early on, the month saw despair triumph over hope on the veg front, crops starved of heat and sunshine, devastated by slugs, unable to outgrow the damage. The rain seemed to benefit only the peas and potatoes.
But inevitably in such conditions, blight hit at the end of the month, putting the whole potato crop at risk. At least the spell of warm weather meant that the sweetcorn, runners and cucurbits began to look more healthy. We got our first modest crops of soft fruits too.

Chicken numbers went up by three with the hatching of three punky Polands, but the young cockerels are approaching time to go as they've started challenging Cocky, as well as fighting amongst themselves and trying it on with the ladies. Egg production is back up to about 5 a day.

While all this has happened, Lady Guinea has gone AWOL, though she occasionally reappears for food.

On the pig front, Gerald and Daisy have been getting jiggy jiggy, while the piglets have been chasing each other around. They are nearly five months old now and the two boys are booked to go off on 2nd September (they are in a state of ignorant bliss about this). Two of the girls will be following in mid October. One of them is sold already.

The bees swarmed again. Their behaviour is totally mystifying at the moment. However, after an eventful start, we are roughly back to where we started with them.
The farm's wild birds have been busy raising young and some are onto their second brood now. The summer visitors briefly started singing again mid-month. Presumably their young had fledged if they bred successfully. For now they are quiet again. They may even have moved on. The first migrants have started passing through with a couple of Marsh Harriers, Chiffcaffs and Willow Warblers putting in brief appearances.  

Finally, we've had some decent sunrises, though totally cloudless skies don't give the most dramatic effects. Best for me though, sunrise has come forward to past 5.

Here's a look back at July's sunrises.

7th

1st

2nd

8th

12th

14th

15th

16th

17th

20th

21st

22nd

23rd

24th

25th



28th



29th

Six months of sunrises and British weather



Saturday 30th June 2012

Well, here we are, the last day of June, half way through the year. I have been enjoying my extra 2 minutes sleep for the last few mornings and I guess it won't be long now before I start to notice the sunrise moving back along the horizon. It's got about 5 months to get back to the Millennium Copse.

I've seen my fair share of grey, overcast mornings. It's hard to find the beauty and inspiration in too many of those. But in between I've seen some awe-inspiring sunrises, a selection of which appear down the sides of this post.
Scrolling through my picture files selecting these has made me doubly determined to carry on my sunrise worship till the end of the year. And I'm sure I'll be making a lot more effort to witness the occasional sunrise for years to come, though I'll keep an eye on the weather and avoid the grey ones.

It's been a strange old year so far. Worrying times in late winter, as Lincolnshire's drought continued in ernest. Deep cracks in the ground in February where standing water would be more usual. Then, of course, that frost. Minus 16. The coldest place in the whole country. Amazing to see the crystalline world of the hoar frost, but so damaging to my poor plants.

Then the April showers, the May downpours and the June torrents. The drought well and truly ended!
And, in the middle of that, a surprise hard frost on 7th May which caught the plants by surprise.
Fifteen months of drought followed by the wettest April to June period on record. It's not surprising at all. That's the way it goes.

We've been lucky here the last couple of weeks, as other parts of the country have endured crazy weather with extreme storms and flooding.

But all I want now is some normal weather! 
I don't mean the same every day, I don't mean bathing in sunshine, I don't mean no weather 'events' to behold and to surprise. I just mean a normal mix of British weather, nothing too extreme.
I don't mind rain, I don't even mind the wind and I definitely like a bit of sunshine. I'm not a great fan of grey, nondescript, overcast days, but they have their place too.

But what we all need now, and especially the plants, is a nice British summer.
Most importantly a bit of warmth. The veg blogging world is full of tales of woe, vegetables weeks behind, a bad year for cucurbits, strawberries rotting on the ground, plagues of slugs, straggly beans struggling to climb up wigwams, carrots failing to germinate (it's not just me).
Now I'm relatively new to the world of veg growing and I'm just beginning to understand that there will be some sort of crop disaster every year, that my idyllic plan will never quite come to fruition (well, at least not all in the same year). But surely it can't be this testing every year??

It's been a good year for peas. And potatoes, if you can get them out of the ground. (We won't mention the threat of blight). My onions and shallots seem to be doing very well too.
So come on British weather! It's not too late to redeem yourself. A nice, warm, sunny summer, showers overnight and a late flourish in September. That'd be perfect!