Survival

The snow was still lying last Sunday, so all we could do was empty the kitchen waste into the compost bin and check the broccoli cage. As well as the usual fox, cat and dog tracks in the snow, we saw some rabbit tracks for the first time.

All was fine at the plot. Beautiful, even, with this delicate tracery of fennel stems against the snow.


But winter is about survival.


No traces of fur or feather to tell what had been done to death. No rabbit prints nearby, so perhaps urban rabbit escaped to nibble more unprotected cabbages and broccoli.

After the snow

Frost-bitten holly berries in my Dad's garden.

And windfall applies, emerged from their cold storage under the snow.


Next year's surprise crop, the grains that the birds turned up their beaks at from the gourmet bird seed mix: