Embracing Late Winter: Signs of Spring and Seasonal Reflections

The shift between seasons never happens overnight. Even as winter clings on with its chilly grip and stark, bare branches, there are hints—small, quiet whispers—that change is on the way. Late winter is a time for pausing, for noticing, for embracing the subtle stirrings of the world around us as it gently leans towards spring.

The First Signs of Spring

Winter still lingers, but nature is already beginning to stir. On my daily walks, I’ve started spotting the first brave snowdrops pushing their way through the frost-hardened earth. Their delicate white heads nod gently in the breeze—a sure sign that winter’s hold is beginning to wane. The hellebores, too, are starting to bloom in their dusky purples and soft creams, adding muted beauty to an otherwise stark landscape.

Birdsong, once quiet through the darker months, is slowly building. Blackbirds and robins seem to sing with more confidence, their melodies cutting through the crisp morning air. I’ve noticed them darting between hedgerows, gathering twigs and bits of moss—early preparations for the nesting season ahead.

There’s something different in the air, too—sharper, fresher, carrying the first hints of earthiness as the ground slowly begins to thaw. The trees, still bare, are showing signs of life, their buds swelling, waiting for the moment to unfurl into new green leaves.

A Time for Reflection and Preparation

This in-between time of late winter is one I treasure. It’s a chance to savour the last cosy evenings by the fire, warm drink in hand, with a favourite book or a knitting project keeping my hands busy. But it’s also a time of gentle preparation—both indoors and out.

There is much I want to do in the garden at this time, like clearing away winter’s debris and making space for the new season’s growth. I'm itching to start sowing seeds but I know that it is just a matter of weeks before we pack up our house for our move to the country. 

Indoors, there’s an urge to refresh the space, to throw open the windows when the weather allows, to declutter and welcome in the increasing light. Fortunatly this urge fits in well with packing boxes and purging excess!

My Nature Journal: Documenting the Season

In years gone by, one of my favourite ways to mark these seasonal shifts is through my nature journal. Taking time to record what I see, hear, and feel connects me more deeply to the world outside my door. 

However, I have to admit that the end of our homeschooling days caused a huge disruptive shift in my life. I know that in life, seasons change, things come to an end, new avenues are explored and new rythms established. But it is far to easy to lose the essence of who you are in the search for a new 'normal'. 

As I scrolled through my Instagram account, archiving all my yarn posts as I wrap up that chapter of my life, it struck me how much of what I loved, much of which I wrote about and shared on this blog over the years, had fallen by the wayside... like broken twigs and plant debris after a storm. 

Somehow I slipped out of the habit of noticing the 'little things' and recording them in the pages of my nature journal which was always a source of peace and joy over the years. I determined then and there to unwrap my new watercolour palette purchased 2 years ago (I know, shocking!) and to go back to weekly journal entries.

I was a little nervous actually, would I still be able to draw and paint? Would it feel awkward? 

Well, it felt a little clumsey but overall I was quite happy with the results and I have to say that I have loved getting back into a daily habit of getting outside and paying close attention to what is happening around me.

Below, I’m sharing a recent journal entry, capturing snippets of January. 

In making the decision to be more intentional in my daily living and in this case, my journaling, I was tempted to start a brand new journal. My last entry was in 2022 and I quite like new fresh starts when it comes to notebooks and journals but, it struck me that seeing the stark 3 year gap in my journal is a good reminder to hold on to those things that matter and not let the sands of time run through the hourglass unheeded.

If you keep a nature journal, this is the perfect time to start a fresh page—recording the small but significant shifts that signal the changing season. Have you spotted the first blossoms? Noticed an increase in birdsong? Felt the change in the air?

Welcoming the Light Ahead

As February begins to slip away and March approaches, the promise of spring feels more tangible. There’s excitement in the longer days, in the warmth that will soon return, in the slow but sure awakening of the natural world.

How are you experiencing this seasonal shift? I’d love to hear about the signs of spring you’ve noticed—do share in the comments or in your own nature journal!

A Creative Week

I'm losing all sense of time! I honestly thought it was Wednesday today and now that I've discovered it's actually Thursday I feel like I've lost a day. I try to keep some sense of order by setting certain tasks to accomplish each day. Wednesday was to get this blog post up and obviously, that did not happen!

To add to my slightly confused state of mind blogger has had an update and the section where I compose my posts looks different so I'm having to navigate my way around the changes. I don't particularly care for change!

This week I've been enjoying sitting outside under the gazebo knitting and painting. We've had some lovely warm weather and the trees have come into leaf in a big way this week. The tree in the picture below is actually two separate trees planted way to close together. As a result, the branches weave together to look like one single tree, only they are different trees, one has bright green leaves, and the other a coppery red leaf. 

The coppery red tree has fine casings, like tissue paper, covering each leaf bud. As the leaves are opening the delicate coverings are drifting to the ground. Each time the wind rustles through the branches a shower of fairy-like casings come tumbling down filling the air like snowflakes in winter. It's too delightful!

The cats love that we are outside with them. The moment we sit down they come scampering from their hiding places in the leafy garden beds. I think they like to hide away and watch the birds and squirrels that come to visit.

We have so many creatures visiting our garden! The birds are everywhere, squirrels chase one another up and down the tree branches, butterflies abound and we have seen hedgehogs numerous times in the 6 weeks we have been here. 

I have come to realize how sterile a working farm can be because in the 18 months we lived there not once did I see a squirrel or a hedgehog. Birds yes but other wildlife no. I absolutely adore my new garden and all that it offers.

Sunday I decided to get my nature journal out after more than a year! yes!! More than a year can you believe that? So many things that I take great delight in have fallen by the wayside. I am really enjoying having the time to do these things again.

I painted this little illustration of our garage which is looking very sweet with it's trailing Virginia Creeper over the roof.

I also found a Meadow Buttercup in the garden so painted that too. I really enjoyed this quiet time spent painting and need to make the time for my hobbies once things get up and running again.

My eldest handed in her final uni assignment this week bringing her first year to a close. She now has lots of free time so I have commissioned her to make a few more sets of stitch markers for my Etsy shop. She made this sweet little knitted winter hat set which I have listed already.

She also made this lovely little Christmas themed variety set, each marker is different. I'm not sure which ones I would use as I would want to use them all at once! They are also up in the shop. I'll be sure to share any updates here on my blog to new additions.

Finally,  I have made good progress on a pair of socks that have been on my needles since last autumn. In fact, they are just about done! I had wanted to finish them on Sunday but I managed to strain my wrist so that was the end of that plan. I have about 3 more pattern repeats to go before I start the toe and finish it off.

I've printed off a few sock patterns from Ravelry so I have yet to decide which pattern and yarn I'll be using next. I think my knitting mojo has returned after a long absence! I love the therapeutic motion of knitting, it's so relaxing.

Plans for this afternoon...work on that sock! It's super warm here today so I'm going to grab a nice iced drink and sit in the shade of the gazebo and knit. I think I may bake a loaf of banana bread before that though as I fancy something yummy to enjoy. Tomorrow I plan on filming a podcast video, it's been so long I wonder if I remember how! I guess we shall find out.

Well, that's about it from me today, What are your plans for today?

This Week :: Nature Journal

I seem to find less and less time to spend here these days. I have the best of intentions but since starting my degree a lot of my time is taken up with that. This week I have assignments due, so a lot of time has been taken up with that. 

Although my days are busy with academics of all types, my daughters and my own, I do try to find time to do the things that I love such as rambling in the countryside and of course, working in my nature journal. 

Above is my Big Garden Birdwatch page. Each year I create a page to mark this event, it's become a bit of a journal tradition. I hadn't done the bird count at this point in time but I have since added to the page on the right. I had a really good count this year.

On Monday we went for a walk across fields, down country lanes and alongside hedgerow paths. It was so cold but look at that sky and that cloud formation! So beautiful.

We found some hazel catkins on our walk so we brought them home to draw into our nature journals. I adore how they all blow about in the wind. Another name for them is 'lambs tails' which is quite sweet. They do indeed look like lambs tails all hung up to dry blowing about in the cold January breeze. Nothing like a good country walk to clear away the cobwebs and refresh the mind! 

Big Garden Birdwatch :: A Citizen Science Project

The Big Garden Birdwatch is happening this weekend and we are all set! We've been participating since 2014 and it is something we look forward to doing in our homeschool. 

It is a great citizen science project after we have spent an hour counting the birds that visit our feeder we log into the RSPB website and submit our results. This helps them keep an eye on the various species of birds, monitoring the health of their numbers.

This year is a little different because we are now on a farm. We get lots of starlings picking about in the horse's field in the morning and for the first time since we moved to the UK, I've spotted numerous red wings picking about the field with them.

I'm contemplating my nature journal entry for this years bird count. My most favourite entry was the one from 2014. Every time I look at it I am taken right back to that day for some reason. I think it has something to do with sketching not only the birds but the setting as well. I think I'm going to do something similar in my journal this year.

If you are in the U.S then why not participate in a similar project called the Great Backyard Bird Count? This year it is running from the 15th to 19th of February, so lots of time to get organised and plan it into your nature studies. In the past, we have made some tasty bird nibbles for the occasion. Pinterest holds a goldmine of ideas.

Right, I'm off to prep my journal page...wishing you all a blessed weekend.

Keeping a Nature Journal

One of my goals for this year was to be more purposeful in making entries in my nature journal. So far it's been a fairly good month...

I started off by finishing the phenology wheel I kept the whole of last year. I was disappointed at the beginning of the month as I paged through my journal and realised that I had only made one or two entries for the whole year but at least I kept my phenology wheel. I'm wondering if I should do it again this year. I haven't decided yet.

Our first nature walk was focused on squirrels. We are taking our nature walk study opportunities to explore the different parks and woodlands near us. This particular park had loads of squirrels, all grey as the red squirrel in this country has largely been driven far north by this little bully.

Bully or not, we enjoyed watching their antics and find them rather sweet. In the winter months, they are far more brazen as they run up to you hoping that you have a tasty morsel or two for them. In summer they mostly keep to the branches above.

While I contemplate on keeping another phenology wheel of the seasons this year, I thought that to create one to track the growing daylight hours in the month of January would be a good exercise. It is very interesting to see how our daylight grows every day. It starts off slow and slight and by this time we are gaining almost two minutes of daylight each day. By the time we reach the end of January we should be seeing the sunrise before 8am!

My latest entry is of Decembers Full moon and the blood moon that I observed on the 22nd and 24th of December. 

The reason why I used the photographs I took of the moon over those two days as opposed to the Super Blood Moon that appeared over the UK in the early hours of  Monday morning, is because we had too much cloud cover to observe the super blood moon this month. But I had captured some fab pictures in December of the partial lunar eclipse and of course that beautiful full Cold moon.

Full 'Cold' Moon 22 December 2018

I'm thinking that I may keep a photo record of all the Full moons (at least those that I can see) for this year. If you want to take moon photographs all you need is a good bridge camera. If you have a DSLR all the better but I took these photographs with my little bridge camera.

Partial Lunar Eclipse 24 December 2018 gives us a Blood Moon

Did you know that the moons all have names? The Native American names differ from the names as set out in the old English Almanacs. According to the Old Farmers Almanac, the Native Americans' full moon names were created to help the different tribes track the seasons.

I find folklore and the old ways so fascinating. It was all very in tune with the seasons, weather and farming life which I love. 

Well, that wraps up today's post. It's the Big Garden Bird Watch this weekend so I'll be back before then with a post. Until then, have a lovely day.