Midwinter on the Danish summerhouse means chopping wooden and feeding birds. There could also be binoculars. There might be pastries, books and walks.
The wooden is that this yr’s reducing for the subsequent winters’ fires. The feeders give us pleasure, seeing our backyard birds collect: bramblings, siskins, tits and finches. There are yellowhammers, and nuthatches strolling the wrong way up. There are woodpeckers flashing astonishing scarlet, black and white.
The smallest birds typically feed on the bottom, policed by officious blackbirds, an occasional grasping pigeon. The wrens and robins come near the door.
I fill the feeders two or 3 times a day. It’s deep winter in spite of everything. However the days are just a bit longer now. The ocean sundown calls afterward our walks to the seaside.
A pair of tits are scoping one of many nesting packing containers. We spot their beaks peeking by means of. Deep December snow did for the too-early paperwhites however October’s bee-friendly seeds have taken and there may be the promise of extra early meadow this yr.
The good neighbour comes along with his good axe. We chop until I’m breathless and the chunkier, extra twisted logs are break up. The better pile will wait. In the meantime, we sit happy with a bottle of Christmas beer.
The crimson squirrels are extra common guests now, swinging like acrobats by means of the pine and larch. The marmalade cat feeds properly on bowls of Christmas goose fats, sheltered on the fringe of the plot.
Three deer spot me and amble unhurried away. Henri gathers our chopped logs and provides them to the partitions of wooden. They’ll wait right here for an additional winter or two.
It’s my late brother Christopher’s birthday on our final full day, and mine at present. I’ll take a second to thank the gardening gods and my extra fortunate stars.
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