White-cap

THERE’S A NEW Pheasant, a cock Pheasant distinctively marked with white flashes above the eyes, in the garden this afternoon and, at least when I happen to look out and see him, he’s not being challenged by our regular bird, who’s down amongst the snowdrops near the hedge with a female ambling along beside him. The newcomer has also brought a partner. The two of them stroll up to the bird feeders.

The Treecreeper that works it’s way up the north side of the Golden Hornet crab apple tree – the side covered with powdery green algae – is an infrequent visitor to the garden. It makes its way up to the top of one of the main branches then flies off towards the large oak in a back garden three doors up the road.

Saint Valentine’s is traditionally the day that birds pair up and there’s a definite buzz of spring about. I’ve been up in attic and shortly afterwards I’m aware of a hum next to me; a queen wasp that was probably hibernating in the attic has a emerged and is sitting at the bottom of the window whirring its wings. I let it out but I’m afraid that it’s still a little too early for her to start a new colony.

Raspberry Canes

WE CUT the autumn-fruiting raspberry canes down to about a foot a few weeks ago, although we should have done this a bit earlier when they became dormant in the autumn. Soon they will be springing into new growth, so it’s now time to cut them down to the ground. However hit-and-miss we are with pruning, we always get a decent crop from this variety, Joan Jay. The canes need tying back when they’re in leaf and producing fruit but at this time of year you can appreciate what small footprint they take up in the raised bed – about 3 feet by 1 foot.

We’ve still got jars of jam that we made with them in late summer and early autumn.

It’s a good idea to thin them out and stop them spreading too much so we dig out five plants to give to friends who want to start growing them.

This little Toad had a narrow escape; Paul the gardener and I were clearing the old fence panels behind the greenhouse and it was only when I was sweeping the path that I uncovered it, crouching in a hollow under a sheet of plastic – an old potting compost bag – that I’d put down some time ago to suppress weeds. I’d been working right next to it but luckily it had survived unscathed. I released it out of harm’s way behind the compost bins.

Crouched next to the Toad in his lair was a small round slug. Perhaps this slug was a commensal companion; destined to become lunch!

A Robin flits about us as we work. It’s evidently noticed that, as we cut back matted ivy and prickly cotoneaster to remove the tumbled and twisted old larch-lap fence panels, we are disturbing woodlice and spiders.

Bedraggled Corner

SO MUCH to do! But this corner behind the greenhouse, inevitably the most neglected corner of the garden, isn’t going to take too much sorting out if I divide it up into separate tasks such as cutting back, digging the veg beds, clearing the greenhouse and replacing three fence panels that blew down in the autumn.

I saw a total of six daisies on the grass verge on Quarry Hill this morning. How do they manage to flower after the snow and frost we’ve had recently? Being close to the road and sheltered by buildings might help and perhaps as the slope faces the setting sun they get what warmth is available at this time of year but I suspect the main reason is that cars parked on the verge overnight radiate enough heat from their engines to create a pocket of marginally warmer soil, giving this handful of a daisies a head start.

The Village Scene

AFTER LAST weekend when making it up as we went along meant one or two false starts in painting the castle backdrop, I had intended to prepare a colour sketch before we started work this morning. Typically, other things intervened throughout the week so here I am looking at the scene we’re painting over from last year’s production of Treasure Island wondering how I can convert the interior of the Admiral Benbow tavern into the opening village scene of this year’s pantomime.

The fireplace and chimney of the tavern become the well (drinking fountain in the shape of the head of a lion, this is Beauty and the Beast) and the chimney of the village bakery, while the view of the bay seen through the window of the tavern becomes the bakery’s window, piled high with baskets of baguettes and croissants.

But a boulangerie without a door doesn’t make sense and the only place to put it is in a little two-storey block replacing the chimney, dispensing with the drinking fountain.

I want to retain the view of a distant forest, glimpsed through a row of poplars at the edge of the village, because the next scene takes us to an enchanted forest (which doesn’t require a backdrop!).

Pigeons in the Wood

WOOD PIGEONS have been gathering in the treetops – about a hundred of them fly up over the wood on this cold and misty morning. Their regular foraging in the fields has been first snow-covered then frozen solid this week. We’ve got a book delivery to make today and we feel glad that we didn’t have to set out yesterday when we pass a car, which must have skidded on the ice, being towed out of a hedge. Casualty departments were 40 to 50% busier after the freezing rain.

After feeding on sunflower hearts around our bird feeders, the Pheasants often pause to nibble the leaves of broccoli in our cabbage patch as they walk down the garden path back towards the meadow and the wood.

A Heron, looking rather fed up, sits hunched on a perch for an hour or more on a branch of one of the Crack Willows by the stream. It appears to be undisturbed by any dog walkers who may be passing by below.

Voles, Moles and Unwelcome Guests

There are vole holes in the lawn and mole-hills in the flower border near the bird table but the burrow that I’m not so keen to see is one that leads from under a paving slab straight under the plastic compost bin. I can see that the chopped end of an onion has been dragged down from the bin. I want to recycle all our vegetable peelings but we can’t control which creatures are attracted to nibble them. I think that the answer is to re-think the way we compost anything that is potentially edible and relocate our plastic compost bins, currently behind the shed, to the main wooden compost bins at the end of the garden beyond the greenhouse. We never put any cooked food on the compost heap but then, being brought up in the Yorkshire tradition of thrift, we contribute virtually nothing to the estimated 7.2 million tons of food thrown out each year by households in the United Kingdom. It has been estimated that the average family with children throws out about £680 of food each year.

Ivy Berries

This evening two Wood Pigeons fly down to eat berries on the mass of Ivy that grows over our neighbour’s fence. A male Blackbird also tucks into this seasonal supply.

Misty Dusk

I HAD INTENDED to make a start on the garden this afternoon but it was so cold – well not just cold it was so damp too with ‘freezing rain’ part of the forecast – so I got on with some office work instead. However by quarter to five, I thought that I was entitled to spend half an hour drawing. The bleary view out of the rain-spattered studio window meant that sharp focus drawing was out of the question so I dipped straight into the watercolour for these two sketches drawn during the last half-hour of daylight.

Our Crumbling Conveniencies

I drew this picturesquely crumbling wall this morning as I waited for my mum at the opticians, adding the drab colour later.

If I remember rightly, about 40 years ago this wall formed one end of a rather rudimentary public toilets. It was demolished and a cherry tree was planted on the spot. Such basic facilities wouldn’t meet today’s standards and the scrap value of copper has now risen so that within a few weeks the plumbing would probably get ripped out anyway, the result being that Horbury doesn’t have any public toilets these days.

Book Clamp

I’VE DRAWN this subject before; a batch of my walks booklets – the black and white ones that I print here in the studio – stapled and folded and left between clamps overnight so that they’re crisply folded. But this batch is a bit of a milestone because, except for a handful of odd copies hastily printed to fulfil orders, these are the first that I’ve produced in the my newly reorganised studio.

It felt good to at last stand collating and stapling them at my new birch ply worktop, a unit that incorporates a couple of Ikea A2 drawer units. The set up works really well.

The studio has been my major project since the launch of Wakefield Words in November but, three months after I first made my plans, using cardboard cut-outs, it’s at last being used for its intended purpose of writing, illustrating, designing and in a few cases printing and binding books and booklets.

The drawing is in dip pen with a century old (approx.) ‘John Heath’s Telephone Pen’ nib in Winsor & Newton black Indian ink (fourth drawer down, righthand drawer unit).

Meanwhile, long ago in a distant galaxy . . .

Daz 3D are now offering the latest version of Bryce (7.1) as a free download. It seems to work fine, although, having not used my previous version of it for several months, I’m a little disorientated when I use the controls. I’m sure that I’m going to find a good use for it one day.

Link: Daz 3D

Biscuit

IT’S RARE to see Biscuit down at our end of the meadow, as she’s fed by her shelter at the top end. She’s kept on her own without a companion but, from what I’ve heard, she’s a pony with attitude, so that’s probably just as well.

Just after I’ve drawn her, I catch sight of a commotion; something disappears down to the woodland side of the field while an agitated female Pheasant goes hurtling up, heading for cover at the woodland edge.

It’s a curly-tailed, stockily built, Jack Russell, which appears again running down the field shortly after, probably being told off by its owner on the woodland path.

Snow White Feathers

Basketwork box, drawn at my mum's this afternoon.

IT SEEMS that white feathers didn’t camouflage this bird against the snow. My guess is that it was a Fantail Pigeon, killed by a Sparrowhawk, but as the feathers are near the back door at my mum’s some incident involving the bird hitting the window isn’t impossible.

Whatever it was, it happened on Sunday around 11 a.m.. I was painting at the school but when Barbara called on my mum she commented on the small area of snow that my mum had cleared by the back door but when she left an hour or so later small white feathers – like a fresh sprinkling of oversized snowflakes – had appeared. It wasn’t until today, when most of the snow had melted that we saw just how many feathers there were and that there were larger feathers amongst them.

Time for some Crime Scene Investigation:

Under the microscope this feather, which I think is a right secondary or possibly a tail feather, shows the tell-tale marks of having been plucked by a Sparrowhawk. It has twisted its beak around the base of the quill as it pulled out the feather.

Part of the Scenery

BY THE TIME we finish the backdrop, eventually with even David, our resident joiner helping to fill in the blanks, it looks a ridiculously simple cartoon-style scene . . . something that a child could have drawn in about an hour perhaps – but it’s taken us (four of us, off and on) most of the weekend.

Just time for this snow scene before the light fades. It snowed last night but during the day most of it has melted.