A frozen tree, and progress

The soil was frozen this morning. It had been -3 overnight, and a little pail of water in my garden was frozen almost completely solid, with a handful of miniature bubbles the size of the head of a pin gurgling away under the surface when I touched it. Someone has been digging at my tulip bulbs - gah! I think it's the local squirrels. They're all very sweet and cute and Disney-ish when they're playfully scampering on my neighbour's pergola outside my kitchen window, but to see bulbs dug up, munched and cast aside has seriously irked me. I've sprinkled everything with chilli and used some ugly netting, pray for me. 

I'd gone outside to do some clearing; unwanted mushrooms had sprouted in my raised beds and then flopped and turned to a black sludge. I wanted to cut back things that needed it, swipe away dead leaves and wind detritus and make way for the shoots of things to come - the dahlias, the geums, the first little promises of alliums and tulips. 

It was freezing. I'd said to my wife we should break for coffee at 11 with flasks, but we quickly set to work so we could get back indoors again. I slid about on icy paving boards and struggled to open the lock on the shed door. Aside from the tulip bulb raid, thankfully only in one pot, things were looking ok. The sky was one of those ridiculously bright, diamond-like blue skies, that seems like a very welcome mistake in January. Not a single cloud was above us and the sun was warm and bright on our faces as it moved into the corner of the garden we were working in. 

It was around 10.30 and we settled into quiet, doing our jobs and me occasionally stopping to take photos of the frozen flowers of our Salvia 'Phyllis Fancy'. We both realised we could hear a strange noise, almost like a running of water, a cracking or breaking sound. The garden that backs onto ours houses an enormous, majestic eucalyptus (home of the blasted squirrels, or at least another of their playgrounds). In summer it sheds its bark, long curved rolls of it flutter into our garden which we use for a very handy and fragrant kindling for evening fire pits. 

I realised what the sound was: the eucalyptus bark and branches had frozen overnight. In that glorious mid morning sunshine, it was thawing. Water ran down the trunk and we could see it dripping off the ends of branches. How lovely to be in that moment, just listening to that curious sound, as we went about our work. 

We retreated inside with frozen hands and muddy boots. Coffee was brewed on the stove. Seeds were ordered online. I think back to the shoots I've seen outside and given space to breathe. Progress is being made.