Thursday, 31 December 2015

Very Different Days

Tuesday was a lovely December day with sunshine more or less from dawn to dusk. Again it was very mild for late December and in the sunshine it felt almost spring like as there was only the gentlest of breezes. Wednesday on the other hand was wet and windy. It wasn’t cold but with rain on and off for most of the day it was very different from Tuesday.

I noticed that last year on 30 December 2014 we went for a winter walk around the RSPB reserve at Fairburn Ings. It must have been a cold sunny day as some of our photos show bits of snow and frost on the paths as we walked around the reserve. In part the duck were able to walk on the ice on the lake.

RSPB Fairburn Ings 30 December 2014
RSPB Fairburn Ings 30 December 2014
Posted by Martyn at 13:25 2 comments

Tuesday, 29 December 2015

I Don’t Believe It!

Monday wasn't such a bad day. It was a cloudy day but thankfully the rain held off and it wasn't too cold considering it’s almost the end of December.

It’s only just over a week ago that I posted about the warmest December day I've recorded. I made the point that we hadn't any spring flowers anywhere near out as other bloggers, facebookers and twitterers were posting. Well now that’s not the case.
This little gem is on flower in the front garden. What’s even stranger is that Katherine Hodgkin should be the first iris out on flower in this bed. But after looking carefully I couldn't see any signs of her.
It does look like the flowers have been nibbled by slugs which I don’t expect to happen in December. It’s just a sign of how mild this winter has been so far.

Posted by Martyn at 10:20 2 comments

Sunday, 27 December 2015

Flooding Update - Difficult to Believe

Up to lunchtime on Sunday it’s been sunny but much cooler than yesterday. Thankfully so far we've had no more rain. With serious flooding in towns and villages along the rivers Wharfe, Aire, Calder, and Ouse its hard to believe that I recorded only 9.0mm (0.35”) of rainfall on Saturday. To put that into perspective the record daily amount I've recorded was 39.2mm (1.54”) on 06 July 2012 so for us the amount of rainfall on Boxing Day was nothing out of the ordinary. It takes a while for all the rainfall that fell in the Pennines to arrive in the lower reaches of the rivers but it’s now doing that in record volumes.

We’re 3 miles from Wakefield, 12 miles from Leeds and 30 miles away from York and very glad we don’t live by a river.

Posted by Martyn at 13:12 2 comments

Saturday, 26 December 2015

Record River Levels

Boxing Day has been another wet day but although we haven’t had any great amount, higher up in the Pennines there’s been a lot more rain, a lot more! The two main rivers near to us are the River Aire which passes through Leeds and the Calder passing through Wakefield. Both rivers are at highest recorded levels. These two river drain water from the Pennines through these two cities out into the Humber Estuary and finally out into the North Sea.
The link to this Environment Agency site is http://floodalerts.com/?id=94600

This shows the flood warnings on the river Aire at the top and Calder lower down the map.
From the link to Visit Gaugemap, in the top right hand corner of the flood alerts map, the water levels at individual gauges can be viewed in almost real time. 
4.03m represents the previous highest level recorded.
2.45m represents the previous highest level recorded.
3.87m represents the previous highest level recorded.
At least we live on higher ground an aren't likely to be affected by rivers flooding.


Posted by Martyn at 19:04 4 comments

White Christmas

As forecast it rained for most of the day on Christmas Day. We didn’t have anything exceptional just steady rainfall for most of the day amounting to 5.8mm or 0.23”. Late into the evening despite the rain it turned ridiculously mild again for late December reaching 13.6°C or 56.5°F. 
The forecast for next week (surprise, surprise) is once again wet and windy with severe gales forecast for the middle of the week.

Despite the Christmas Day gloom, our rose White Cloud managed to brighten up the fence with a Christmas Day flower.
Now that’s a true Christmas rose.

Posted by Martyn at 11:09 4 comments

Thursday, 24 December 2015

Alone this Christmas

Wednesday finished up rather a nice sunny day although we had some rain early in the morning before it got light and it got windy after dark.

I noticed that we still have a lone apple remaining high up in one of our trees in the garden. 
It's one I missed or more likely couldn't quite reach at harvesting time. Well this apple has survived storms Abigail, Barney, Clodagh, and Desmond and now waits to see what Eva has to throw at it. The trees have lost all their leaves and there's no more apples left either so it's going to be a lonely Christmas for this solitary apple. 
Hope you are having, or had a wonderful Christmas Day.
Wentworth Castle Deer Park - 28 December 2014

Posted by Martyn at 18:59 4 comments

Wednesday, 23 December 2015

Winter Solstice

Tuesday was the winter solstice. It’s the day proper winter starts not meteorological winter which started at the beginning of December. So today we had the shortest length of daylight hours of the year. The sunrise and sunset times as shown below. Just for interest I've added some sunrise and sunset times for Wednesday too so you can see how much the times change each day.  

Sunrise and Sunset times for Ossett, West Yorkshire.
I've seen posts regarding how little difference there is in temperatures between summer and winter solstice this year. It got me thinking so I've produced a little table showing the figures for the last six years. It’s definitely true as there was only 1°C difference in the high temperature for the June solstice compared with this December’s. But looking at the tables it’s a combination of a cold June and very mild December. Thinking back to June nothing would grow properly would it? Young plants were struggling to grow on the plot and we were in need of some warmer weather to get them growing.
Certainly December has been very mild but I'm not sure how much of advantage that is to gardeners. I'm sure we’ll have a cold snap before we get through to spring. That’s when any tender plants will be damaged by frost but of course the good news is any pesky bugs still living on our plants over winter might well be killed off.

Posted by Martyn at 09:47 2 comments

Tuesday, 22 December 2015

A Visit to the Plot at Last

We had our first visit to the plot in about six weeks on Sunday. The weather was pretty good, very mild for December and sunny too at times. We managed to harvest a few vegetables which Sue covered in her blog post here. I'll just add my harvesting table below with a few additional comments.
Although the birds don't seem to have returned in anything like their usual numbers so far this winter I've now got a regular female blackbird who magically knows when I open the door to go out and replenish the food on the bird table. She keeps her distance but as soon as I move away from the bird table she hops on whilst all the other birds think I'm too close and stay away. It means she gets some time to herself and a chance to pick the best bits before any body else dares to land. Perhaps she'll get tamer as winter progresses.
These are my best pictures so far. Even though I've had my camera over 12 months I'm still learning about new settings. I've always struggled to get my camera to focus on the centre of the screen. It focuses on something off centre and not at all where I want. It can be very frustrating when it won’t focus on the subject in the centre of the viewfinder. I've now found out how to correct this but I still need to make adjustments to get a greater depth of field especially in dull weather. You will have to watch this space to see if I manage to solve this problem.

Posted by Martyn at 10:32 1 comments
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