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What a strange winter! From a record-breaking November-December straight into nondescript. It's now the middle of March and although a few night frosts have occurred that's been about it on the cold front. Good news was that the ground finally dried out enough to sort out both veg-gardens ready for planting - after a wet start to February that saw more dramatic floods along the Dyfi Valley after inches of rain fell over the mountains in a prolonged period. On the morning of February 6th, the rain eased and the clouds lifted to a higher milky veil, allowing (for a change) the valley to be visible from the top of Y Wylfa - a good point from which to get an overview of Machynlleth and the valley. On arrival up there I was buffeted by a 60mph SW gale, so I shot the images lying on the ground, the camera well-braced. Below is the view looking back to Machynlleth - well-sited on slightly higher ground.... Here's the view across the valley: In an attempt to find an original slant, I zoomed-in to telephoto and picked out individual features. This was doubly difficult, as camera-shake is more noticeable at telephoto range and the wind howling up the valley was shaking the trees, so I went for a medium-wide aperture at f8 and cranked the ISO up to 1000. Shooting as I prefer to with the camera set to aperture-priority, in these overcast but not overly dull conditions, the settings gave a reasonably fast exposure with which to counter the motion-blur due to the wind.... Trees, bent against the prevailing SW wind - the clue is in the vertical telegraph-poles in the distance.... This shot almost looks like snow to me! The main channel of the Dyfi is picked out by the rows of Alders on either side..... From then on, the weather decided to go into sleep-mode - mild, cloudy and windy but with good sunny breaks as high pressure asserted itself from time to time, but nothing that could be classified as "spectacular" or "worth intercepting". Just as well, given the price of diesel! One day I managed to get myself over to Borth for a look at the big, multi-million pound sea defences project. The village has featured a few times in these pages, with shots of waves threatening the seaward houses at high tide. Now, with the twin threats of under-nourishment of the beach and sea-level rise fully appreciated, action is underway to address them. Here's a couple of overview shots from near Borth Head - looking down the beach: And to its north end. One gripe here is that the shingle being brought in is from NW Wales, which means that it will render the beach difficult to use in Earth Science teaching because it has introduced a lot of rock types exotic to this area. However, the same is the case on Aberystwyth's beaches, due to the countless tonnes of ship's ballast being dumped there over the centuries: there are all sorts of rock-types represented there. One skill the field geologist needs to develop is the ability to spot manmade "anomalies" like this. The bottom line though is that something has to be done to protect our coastal settlements, or we lose them in the coming decades, and that in my book is the bigger of the issues here. "Tonka-toys" always make interesting subjects for the lens! The construction site itself is obviously out-of-bounds for safety reasons, but there are plenty of vantage points surrounding it. Here, boulders are being brought in by road and transferred down to the groynes by big dumper-trucks... Several large tracked grabs at work laying out the groynes: A delivery comes in: One of the groynes being arranged.... Excellent light over Borth Head and the sea.... I guess this is what critics might call "moody"!! Calling at Ynyslas, in case there was much driftwood there, I remembered to get a shot of the dune-erosion. This has been done by water...... ....it's the same on the N side of the estuary, between Aberdyfi and Tywyn - this image was taken last October. Rising sea-levels and beach malnourishment i.e. insufficient sediment being deposited to keep the sands at a high enough level both contribute to this process. Dune-systems form important barriers, protecting the coastal lands where they are low-lying - at Borth the hinterland includes Cors Fochno, one of the largest lowland raised bogs anywhere and an internationally important wildlife area, as well as the dwellings at Borth and Ynyslas. I'll post on the Borth project as and when key steps are completed, such as the artificial reef that's going to be placed a few hundred metres offshore to break up the worst of the swells. After the evil frosts of December, the poor garden was in dire need of a makeover! Luckily, someone I know had a row of Leylandii they wanted taking out, and I volunteered my services in return for all the timber - 3-5m nice straight trunks and even some handy curved lengths. Even Leylandii has its uses! A week or two later and it's looking back to its normal self. These should last an awful lot longer than the sycamore I had been using, which was starting to rot.... Once the ground had dried out, garden #2 was back in business, slowly digging the soil, sorting out the myriad bindweed, bracken, bramble and couch grass roots..... Phew! This was a satisfying moment! The idea here is to leave a barrier, dug out to subsoil depth, around the beds. This should stop or at least hinder the pernicious weeds that abound all around. The cultivation will be done in ridges built over strips of manure: one is done and another's about to be started here.... Two done, one left! The idea is to grow spuds here this year, giving more room at the other garden for variety. This is a very good-sized plot that may be expanded in due course: I want to see how things do in this patch first. The soil is OK - a bit undernourished but the manure will help that and the abundant worms are massive - so there must be some goodness there! Planting will be next month to let the ground warm up a bit more - no harm in being a bit late - and Spring seems about to burst forth. It's been a long time coming, after such an early start to Winter!

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