Chapter 13: Hello Spring! 🌼
Spring seemed to arrive suddenly this week! We wandered around outside slightly bewildered by the launch of the new season. T-shirts on and the feeling of the sun on our skin again, we were delighted to watch everything dry out underfoot after what has been a very wet winter.
Life certainly takes on a new ease now for those of us with outdoor lifestyles. The last few days it has been so lovely to wake to the sun streaming through the curtains and the morning birdsong. The energetic rhythm of spring is rising too. Everyone I met talked of long lists of garden jobs suddenly upon them and just how busy they were bustling around in the new freedom of the dry weather. For sure, adventures are able to stretch earlier and later in the day as we reach the equinox. And is it my imagination or is the excitement of this week’s springtime reflected in the bird song too? Woodpeckers are certainly going for it here in the big trees, their percussion reverberating merrily with the tune of the stream which after being a wild torrent hurtling down the hill this winter, has now taken on a gentle form, babbling little cheerful spring time tunes as it skips down into the cwm
A year ago we were planting our young fruit trees here at Rhuddin and at the end of the bare root season this week we’ve been planting fruits again in between some of the apple trees: blackcurrants, pinkcurrants, whitecurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, raspberries, jostaberry and seabuckthorn in between one of the tree rows. Our intention is to create a food forest in part of the orchard, choosing a diversity of plants to create a resilient system. We are also introducing companion plants that will benefit the orchards, such as deterring pests and attracting pollinators. A number of flowering perennials are waiting in the wings to be planted, as are some nitrogen fixing nursing plants, including the autumn olive and comfrey. But more about the food forest another time.
Celandines are out like bright stars across the fields and in the banks under the woods, their yellow happy faces turned up to the big sky and the warming sun. One particular tree on the old hedge between the orchards is alive with the hum of bumblebees. The hum was so loud I mistook it for someone’s engine or power tool in the distance until I walked closer and looked up to see a tremendous number of bees excited about the pollen laden branches of the goat willow.
I was delighted when I walked through the ancient strip of woodland along the stream and saw the tender little leaves of wild garlic and blue bells peeping out. Wrapped up in the bitter cold, I remember burrowing into the woodland floor this midwinter, planting the tiny bulbs with cold hands, anticipating the magic that would follow. Since it has been a woodland strip for a long time, all the fallen leaves and soil are perfect for them to become established here. Here’s hoping they will cover this area one day….
Today we have had an unusually late wassailing of the trees marking a year after their planting. The winter time one was postponed due to crazy amounts of rain here! A lovely gathering of folk came to see what we were up to and we roamed around Rhuddin and sang songs and blessings over the trees in Cymraeg and English! We drank mulled cider and juice and ate apple cake, cheese and nuts in honour of the trees. And after this week of sunshine and the arrival of these longer days, they have just begun to wake up with little buds bursting open.
