Tall Cat takes refuge

from the snow.

It must be at least 3mm deep.

Spring battles on regardless

although it is snowing heavily here.

These scenes, taken from earlier in the week when

it seemed to have got its act sorted.

Giving the appearance of

spring.
Although today snow is falling again
and the sun has shown its face only once,
like this.

Here's hoping for normal service to be resumed

as soon as possible.

4th April 2012

Blues

I'm looking forward to having 

some colour back again.

 Seems I've got freezing fog on the brain.

Need to get the blood flowing in my veins.

Snow trio

We came across this quite impressive

group of snow men and women

on a short foray out into the blue white evening.
They stood sentinel in a triangle
in an otherwise deserted field.

Tax avoidance scheme 3

I'm knitting a cowl.

110 stitches in a honeycomb pattern

in the round.

It should look like this,

but I'm using the wrong sort of wool

because I don't have a very extensive stash

(one ball actually).

I also don't have stitch markers 

so the pattern already looks a bit skew

 and it's giving me a stiff neck.

But very cold weather is forecast 

and I need to be ready.

50 things

The National Trust has compiled a list of

50 outdoor activities children should try

before they reach 11¾ years.

I asked my son to check the list honestly

and he found 42.

He probably didn't achieved this score 

in the allotted timespan but I was happy with that.

Then I wondered how much of the list I could tick off

and found 38.

Swimming under the Pont du Gard at night

into a cloud of white moths rising from the surface,

is one of my more surprising memories.

Swimming in a Welsh tarn 
was certainly the iciest.

Sugaring time

At about this time of year

I am seized with an acute but futile longing

to start sugarin'.

See here and here.

I have known exactly what to do

since 1966 when I first read Pa's instructions

in Little House in the Big Woods.*

You need wooden buckets and little troughs
 made from cedar and white ash

'for those woods won't give a bad taste to the maple syrup.'

To make the troughs, split out little sticks as long as your hand

 and as big as your two fingers.

Near the end cut the stick half through, 

and split one half off.

Then you'll have a flat stick, with a square piece at one end. 

Drill a hole with a bit lengthwise through the square part, 

then whittle the wood until it is only a thin shell round the hole.

Hollow out the flat part until it is a little trough.

You make dozens of these, and ten new buckets,

then you'll have them all ready 

for when the first warm weather comes 

and the sap begins to move in the trees.

Go into the maple woods and bore a hole in each tree,

hammer the the round end of the little trough into the hole,

and set a cedar bucket on the ground under the flat end.

Every day you empty the sap from the buckets into the barrel.

Empty the sap into the iron kettle.

Light a big bonfire underneath it and boil the sap.

Skim the sap with a big long-handled wooden ladle

made of basswood. 

Lift and cool the sap in the ladle if it gets too hot.

The instant the sap is graining, rake the fire 

out from beneath the kettle

and as fast as you can ladle the thick syrup

into the milk pans where it will turn to cakes

of hard brown maple sugar.

The best bit comes in the next chapter, 

when you go to the dance at Grandpa's and you 

pour hot syrup onto plates of snow and eat it

as it cools into soft candy.

'They could eat all they wanted,

for maple sugar never hurt anybody.'

* by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Snow country

Curlews.

 Buried wall.

Such stark beautiful scenery.
Like a Breugel painting.

We had to dig our car out this morning

but by the time we got back to the city

the snow was just dirty kerbside smudges.

The writing in the snow

A crunchy early morning walk round the park,

before our end of term fry-up in the café.

And for my friend's son,

the morning brought news of

a big 'Y' for yes from Oxford.

Well done D.

Red sky in morning,

shepherd's warning. 

We heeded the warning,

but heard of many others whose plans

were hindered or prevented once again

by a very modest covering of snow.