Clare has been saving a quotation from George Orwell for this month as Scots Pine saplings, and trees grown from acorns and conkers by Sally are ready to plant.
‘The planting of a tree, especially one of the long-living hardwood trees, is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.’ (From a 1946 essay in his ‘As I Please’ column in Tribune, and quoted by Rebecca Solnit in an article entitled ‘‘Every time you commit an antisocial act, push an acorn into the ground,’ The Guardian, 16.10.21.
1-11th November
John undertook preparations for planting, collecting stakes, cutting wire, strimming, removing turves.
Clare thinks readers need at least one hare a month. This one below is in the Scrub. The hare in the video clip is in the Pit Wood.
13th November
John and Clare planted ten Scots Pines on the Wetland, caging the five larger ones and tubing the others. Having heard on The Archers that ‘the thorn is mother to the oak,’ Clare protected the caged saplings from hares and rabbits with motherly gorse cushions.
Scots Pine with protective gorse
14th November
It appears that one of the regular foxes is a vixen
15th November
One hare is a treat, two hares doubly so.
16th November
Clare and John have been watching out for the return of the Woodcock and today John’s friend Mike saw two flying from the Scrub towards the Top Grazing.
19th November
Five trees planted today - two Oaks and two Horse Chestnuts that Sally had grown and donated, and a Crab Apple that Pat had ordered from Northumberland County Council and given to Liddells. NCC had offered a tree per household as part of their commitment to act in the face of climate change. There was such demand that all trees available were taken up this year, however they are repeating the scheme nest year.
The OED Word of the Day today is ‘Wildland’: Land in a natural or uncultivated state (also in plural in same sense). Also: a region or tract of such land. Clare and John hope that Liddells has some of this quality.
21st November
Clare spent a delightful afternoon on Liddells with Bridie Jackson, ‘a musical artist based in the North-East, well known within the region and beyond for her work as a composer, performer and creative practitioner’ (also currently leading Tynedale Community Choir while Kathyrn is on maternity leave). Bridie is working with Bethan Maddocks a visual artist who has been commissioned by Museums of Northumberland. Bethan is creating a hive to sit inside a building at Woodhorn Museum and Bridie is setting Kipling’s poem ‘The Bee-Boy’s Song’ to music, and creating a soundscape for the installation. Bridie interviewed Clare about bee-keeping, particularly about the tradition of telling the bees secrets, and visited the hives where she was able to record the bees. Clare could hear where the colony were clustering in the hive from the volume of the sound as Bridie moved the microphone across the entrance. Bridie sent a snippet of her first ‘play around’ and gave permission for it to be included in the blog. The bees in the background are in Hive1.
27th November
Readers will be aware of Storm Arwen, which hit the north-east with some ferocity last night. John went up to see how Liddells had been affected, expecting to see some trees down. Trees have indeed fallen, perhaps six to eight, and several limbs broken off. However he was in no way prepared for the sickening sight that greeted him. All four sheds and the Necessarium have gone. The tool shed and the Necessarium have been lifted up, overturned and are now on the far side of the fence between the Top Grazing and the Top Strip. The hay shed, log shed and former pony shelter have been reduced to planks and are scattered widely over the area behind where the sheds were. John and Clare are finding it hard to know where to start with clearing up. The shepherd’s hut, bird hide , bees and bee shed are all fine thank goodness. And no-one was hurt.
It has also been snowy and very cold on site, so not the most pleasant of conditions in which to work. Susie Dent offers some regional words for cold in Word Perfect on 17th November: ‘ ‘nithered’ is a favourite in northern England and Scotland, and ‘shrammed’ survives in the south and south-west); there is also the evocative ‘hunchy’ in Cambridgeshire. These words often derive from dialect verbs meaning ‘to shrivel’ or ‘to make numb’.’ Dent also refers to ‘some now long-lost words English dialect words that describe November’s comfortless elements. They include the word ‘gwenders’, defined in the English Dialect Dictionary as ‘a disagreeable tingling sensation in the extremities during cold weather’.
John and Clare have retrieved footage from both trail cameras. The scene in the Scrub, captured at 9.30 am, was after the storm had begun to die down. Three hours later all is calm in the Pit Wood.
While the storm’s destruction has been metaphorically ‘thwankin’ (‘from Scots, a thudding term applied to clouds that gather together in thick and gloomy succession’, Clare found metaphorical ‘Devil’s smiles’ (in Yorkshire, ‘gleams of sunshine among the darkest clouds’) in the catkins appearing on some of the young Hazels in the Top Strip.
Life goes on. As do the deer, although the wounded doe kid has not been seen since the beginning of the month. John says to notice in the second video the buds developing on the buck kid’s head which are signs of the antlers that will grow.
This Silver birch at the western top of the Crag shows some of the force of the storm.
30th November
John and Clare have been making inroads on the damage. It seems possible that, with help, the tool shed could be manoeuvered back into place although it will need a new base constructing before that can happen.
In checking through the Blog before publication, Clare was struck by the opening quotation and how poignant it seems at this end of the month. John has been given permission to include a photograph taken of the wood that lies just a few hundred yards from Liddells. The image shows just a fraction of the damage the wood sustained.
All the more reason to keep planting trees.