It snowed again today - 7 hours without stopping. Scotland is at a standstill. No doubt, as I type this, some poor folks will still be sitting in the motorway jams they have been in since 11 am this morning.
We have had no post, no deliveries, no buses for over a week. Nothing is moving, all is quiet.
While I have enjoyed this short hiatus from the hurly burly, ten days of snow is beginning to impact on our lives a bit. We are not prepared for Winters like this, and it has made me stop and reflect on just what our real needs are, and what we can learn from this experience. Food, warmth and waterproof clothing are the main necessities. Thankfully, we have good outdoor Winter wear, although it is becoming a drag having to get all kitted up in the boots, trousers, anorak, hat, gloves and find a spade, even just to empty the bins! Recycling and composting are much more difficult when we have to dig our way to the bins. Ah well.
Apart from fresh milk, I have not needed to buy any food since before the storm. Our store cupboard and tiny freezer have provided us with warm and nutritious meals, and one of the hens is still laying. We make bread or scones, soups, stews and grain dishes. Who knows, I may even need to open that packet of organic amaranth that has lived on the dry goods shelf for a couple of years. Our fresh veg is running low. Plenty onions and roots, but the green stuff is buried under deep deep snow. Yesterday, craving some fresh kale, I ventured down to the veg plot. I waded through snow up to the top of my thighs, ducked below a telephone cable that had come down in the garden and headed for where I hoped was the kale patch. I forgot the spade !!! I dug down, down, down with my bare hands and found a frozen stalk of kale. Scrabbling around and pulling frantically, I collected enough for dinner, and headed back up to plunge my freezing hands under the hot tap.
How to address this in the future? next year we will be living and growing on the croft. it may - no, it will, take a year or so to really get established, but our plan is to be as self sufficient in fruit and veg as we possibly can. Our biggest problem has always been the storage of produce. We are pretty good at growing, but harvesting and storing has not been our forte.Now we have out buildings and a barn, which we will restore, but they are not close to the house, so not very' permaculture', as my husband says. I have always been taken with the idea of root cellars, so you can imagine my delight when we uncovered the remains of an old byre, in the garden, a few feet away from the croft house (see above) It is pretty tumble down and overgrown, but much of the structure is still there, not to mention the old flagstone floor. Our neighbour has an old stone building right next to our fence, and he has said we can use the stone from that to build up the walls. My vision is for a low, longish but narrow structure, full of fresh and preserved produce. Crocks of fermented, dried and pickled veg will line the shelves, and roots and greens will be stored at floor level. I see it very clearly.
We are running out of coal and wood. We are waiting on a delivery, but the transport chaos here means we could be waiting a long time. Sitting by the fireside on these dark cold nights provides much more than physical warmth - it nourishes the soul. When we have not been looking out of the window, marvelling at the dancing snowflakes, we have gazed deeply into the flickering caverns of the fire.
Fuel self-sufficiency is our first acheivable goal for next year. As crofters, we have been allocated our own peat bank. Peat was the crofters main source of fuel,but this practice died out years ago, as folk installed 'the oil' to heat their homes. Now, of course, there has been a bit of a revival with the high oil prices. We will be heading out to the peats next spring, so no doubt there will be plenty of blog posts about that. This impressive stack is sadly not ours, but one in the next village. It is what we are aiming for.
And so, back to the here and now. Meal planning is becoming more of a challenge, we wait until dusk to light the fire, and we have a leak in the conservatory. It is not bad, but it is persistent, and we cannot see where it is coming from. It is where the conservatory roof joins on to the house wall, so we suspect it could be a loose piece of flashing, but the snow is deep on the roof and we can't trace it. At least it is only the seasonal table that is out of action, so I am thankful for that.
It has, however, meant that Mother Mary has been flooded out and has had to move to temporary accommodation. Some things never change. Still, she resolutely moves along that star path towards the light, as always, full of Grace.
Warm wishes to you all. xx
