Winter

Who rattled Winter’s cage? Who poked a stick between the bars and woke her from her slumbers? Who whispered in her ear, ‘ok enough of this rain and wind. How about some real winter weather’?

As she awoke and we slept, temperatures plunged. Up early, she tiptoed down the lane and brushed the leaves, which had been scooped by the wind into piles at the edge of the road, with frozen fingers. Her skirts swirled across the fields and left behind a rind of white frost. Water turned grey and frozen. The air stood still, holding its breath in the silence left by the cold. The sun rose above the rim of the hills into a spotless sky. The light fired the bare branches of the silver birch and the world shook itself and woke to a winter’s morning.

-7⁰C. I checked the thermometer on the wall outside the porch as I pulled on my coat and struggled into gloves. This was it. My first real winter as a small holder. The dog and I walked into work. A short walk, with the warmth of the sun as it lifted through the trees, with ears stinging with the cold, breath hanging on the air, fingers throbbing, with contrails in a clear blue sky, hips sparkling with frost, with a sudden loud green woodpecker bobbing across a stubble field, with eyes watering, a robin, and with a good to be alive feeling deep in the warmth inside.

Then we were there, standing outside a glistening polytunnel looking out across the field to the chicken and duck arcs pitched in a field painted white by the frost.

When I opened up, the chickens spilled out across the frozen run, fanning out across the grass as usual. When it became apparent to them that the ground they were pecking at was frozen solid they seemed to accept the situation with a large dollop of stoicism and made a headlong assault on the feeder of mash I carried into their run.

The ducks were confused. Their flurry out of the shed normally ends in the pond, in the water in the pond that is. Today this was not to be. They stood on it, tested it, walked across it and one of them tried to take off from it but nobody got to swim.

Water was the first problem. The weather forecast had warned it would be cold but I hadn’t expected all the outside water to be frozen. The pipes were lagged but there are limits and -7⁰ was obviously it. Even water inside the field shed was frozen and the kettle in the veg shed was solid ice. And it was not about to thaw. I was obviously not well organised. There was no choice but to scourge buckets of water from one of the workshops that lies alongside the small holding so the birds could drink and I could make coffee.

Then it was up to the sheep. The field at the top where they are grazing slopes gently east to west and the sun was warming the air and the ground. I carried apples as a treat and hand fed some of the more trusting sheep, lingering in the warmth of the sun and enjoying the view across the river valley to the hills in the distance. The bottom field, where the birds and the allotment are, was still lying in shadow and still very cold.

Then came the polytunnel and greenhouse. As I lifted the bubble wrap from the plants things did not look good. Even with the extra protection, the leaf salad and lettuce, carrots, parsley, and spring greens lay limp and sad. The coriander was definitely not going to be a survivor. There is nothing I can do except hope some of the plants come round as temperatures rise.

Now was the time to get organised better. More water carrying, ready for late afternoon when the ducks and chickens would be fed again and put safely away for the night. Then there were extra buckets of water for the morning wrapped in old paper sacks inside the field shed. I wasn’t going to get caught out again. Extra straw to keep everyone warm. Everything is a learning curve.

Winter is enjoying herself. With another cold night of -7⁰, it dropped again to -8⁰ last night. But I now have a routine. A different routine. Life has shifted a little, like walking into a tunnel where you know you just have to keep going because you can see light at the end which you will eventually reach.

It IS cold working outside but it is also very alive and quite amazing at times.

As I shut the chickens and ducks up it has grown dark except for a smear of light lying along the ridge of the Downs. The rooks lift from the trees on the side of the hill, their noise fills the air, and then as one they settle back into their night roost. Silence fills the sky. The trees stand dark, limbs outstretched against the fading light. Cold drifts up from the frozen ground. And then from out of the trees the moon rises above the line of the hills. So close you could touch it, against a clear velvet black sky, a perfect crescent hanging in the night sky.

Winter is enjoying herself and so am I.