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Ladyofthestorm

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  1. Ladyofthestorm
    The weather on Skye from October right through to March has been pretty awful, not much snow has fallen, nor did we get the settled mid winter spell either. Instead it was rain and wind all he way. The locals had said to me it was the worse winter for 20 years maybe more and some of these locals have leved in Skye for 50 years and more!


    And now that we have moved?

    Last week was amazing, we are only a few miles from those record breaking areas, and even today ot was lovely just to wander around the country park that we have right on our doorstep and nature is firmly telling me that though winter is taking one final bite, Spring is just around the corner.

    Thank goodness, I need Spring more every year.
  2. Ladyofthestorm
    Its feeling like the end of summer here.It has been a mixed year, cold wet start, then warm and wet and warm and dry and now cool and wet. The garden has also had the same mixed results, have had to pull the tatties early because of blight, the carrots are wonky..lol.. but really tastey and I have garden peas coming out from every crevasse. The tomatoes Im now bringing indoors from the greenhouse to ripen,

    It is the first year for the garden, it was basically a mud hole after the diggers had been in two summers before. uneven and full of stones, heavy acidic clay, and weeds, I didnt have a clue what I was doing and felt like the accidental gardener. I didnt have a clue what would grow and what would be eaten.

    We have had a few casulties on the way, like my suicidal cucumbers, the strawberries and the currants... they got eaten by sawfly larve overnight. There was osme lovely bizzy lizzy but they were a favourite food of the slugs and snails. I lost some of the cabbage to clubroot but the two surviving ones are massive! We lost one of the plum trees.. not sure what happened, it will hopefully come back next year.

    The biggest surprises were the sweet peas, stock and marigolds which were glorious and seemed to last flowering for an eternity. The rhubarb finally took as well which has produced some lovely stems.

    And of course I made my mistakes like planting out too soo, growing on in the green house when I would have been better planting directly into the ground, not putting the tatties or starwberries into planters, the leeks should have been sown directly as seed into a long deep flower container

    Im already planning ahead for next year, and making amental note.. over the winter I am moving the berry bushes to another part of the garden to extend the vegetable patch and I am looking for a dwarf pretty tree for the middle of the lower lawn, something like a maple or dwarf flowing cherry.

    We have put a hedge round the garden to protect the worst of the Nly winds from biting at the garden in spring, beech grows really well and in our hedge we have found a hazel which is lovely....it has come in from the patch over on the other side of the Obbe, so settled in as a wild species. yummy nuts hopefully.

    But its getting close to harvesting the whole crop soon. yummy soups, stews and puddings.
  3. Ladyofthestorm
    It is funny, even with all the computer models in the world, satillites and other advanced technology that we have at our fingertips. I always seem to know instinctively when the weather is going to change. Maybe its the way the geese fly in a rather unsettled pattern as if disturbed by the colder weather. Perhaps it was the extreme of warm weather just one week ago, where temps soared to 23C with unbroken sunshine. Perhaps it was even the slight niggly ache I get in my wrists and ankle joints. But whatever it is I know it is coming.


    And this morning it arrived, no gentle introduction, no gradual transition from summer to autumn. No acclimatisation. 6C temp is dropping, windchill already in minus numbers, dew point the same. Wind nipping from the north and as I look out of our bedrom window to the north, the skye has changed mood. The gentle colours of summer have gone and now they are replaced with steely iron greys and pale blue where the clouds have dared to break apart. The sea now has white prominant crests resting on a dark turquoisey bed.

    The showers have turned wintry and while this brief Nly interlude is just what it is, a short visit. Part of me welcomes the prospect of winter and another part of me tells me it is going to be a long winter.

    And as I type these words another shower makes an paradoxal unwelcome entrance. The sleety ice that lands the neck, soaks through to the skin, and chills the core of your bones. We know winters are long and hard, dark and cold, wet and above all exciting. Indeed the promise of winter has arrived.
  4. Ladyofthestorm
    Im a highland lass, used to the challenges and rigours of highland life. Used to the fact that some summers are just rubbish and it looks like a rubbish spring has just given waty to an equally rubbish autumn. You cant see the green foliage on the trees because of low cloud and rain, so you have no clues that summer has arrived at all! However just a little less often like 1 in every 5 to 7 years we get something special, with very long hot and warm summers, 1995, 2003 and 2006 being the ones I can remember best, I think 1992 was another nice one and 1999 on a par with that too.

    But we are having one of those summers where its just been rain and cloud, temps struggling to get and stay in the low teens, which is unusal here as we live in the path of the gulfstream so it should keep things a little warmer than what its doing right now. Sea surface temps around here are barely above 10C they should be closer to 14C right now. Lack of sunshine has turned my tomatto plants from the king of the crop to something out of lilliput lane land and instead of fighting the birds and slugs for the lions share of the strawberry crop, Im left looking a the dozens of pretty flowers..... and thinking wouldnt they make a nice house plant! lol

    I shouldnt complain we have needed the rain somewhat desperately, even the midges have taken a battering, this is the first time this year I have been bitten...but not so much as a bump on my arm. Over the winter and into spring.. first six months of the year... we had 100mm of rain, that by normal situations should be closer to 2000mm. We didnt get the snow either like other areas, we were just cold so very very very cold. we had a -10C maxima and 10 consectutive days of below freezing daytime temps.... It was a long hard winter and what we needed was a long hot summer to compensate (with rainfall at night)...

    Right now the weather is miserable outside, it has a very autumninal feel to it, thisusually happens around this time of year though... today I cursed the weather as I battled to let the hens out, collect fire wood in and retrieve my wheelie bin from the other side of the road, Im thinking about being super eco friendlyy and putting the dirty washing on the line , rubbing some wash powder onto it and letting mother nature, wash, spin, wash spin and then rinse my washing for me... Im sure she could manage it.

    Howvver even in this disgusting weather we get the odd good day, like yesterday, it was amazing, and to put the icing on the cake an amazing sunset... suddenly Im no longer cursing the weather, I live in a beautiful if a little tempermental place, Im at peace and then I remember why I live here.II always feel that this place is like beauty and the beast...

    Tomato plant or strawberry flower anyone?
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