The thinker and the thought; the feeler and the feeling; the experience and the experienced

As I sit here at my desk, looking through the kitchen window at the fresh vegetation in my garden, the trunks of the silver birches illuminated by the westering sun, listening to the birdsong outside the open kitchen door, enjoying the warmth of the spring evening, I am conscious of it all in the moment.

But what is this consciousness? Is it an experience, an awareness? Or is it the apparatus which experiences, the thing that is aware? Another way of putting it: is consciousness a radio receiver? Or is consciousness the radio signal?

Of course it's both. I am both the experiencer and that which is being experienced. But the question sits at the heart of what it is to be you, what it is to be me; it leads to greater questions – to what extent is the you-ness of you, the me-ness of me connected to the greater whole, the totality of being. And the question of consciousness is also central to the question of life after death.

For I believe that life after death – the survival of consciousness beyond biological death – is to be experienced through the memory of experience. 

Let's take a close look at memory of experience. Bringing back into being, for example, qualia from childhood; precise memories of experience (as opposed to memories of events). Here's one I came across in a local-history page on Facebook earlier today – the memory of painting at primary school, 63 years ago. Powder paints... for some reason, I remember the blue most vividly, it's exact shade. The powder was spooned from large tins into dimpled white plastic trays, along with black, yellow, white and red powders. The wooden-handled brush, dipped into a jar of water, mixing it with the powder to make a blue paste; then stirring the brush back into the glass jar and watching a swirl of blue in the clear water. Applying the rich, liquid paint onto a large sheet of greyish sugar-paper with deliberate strokes, the concentration of focus, painting a house, trees, the sky... the smell of the blue paint, the smell... vivid recollections of qualia. Can you summon that memory too? The school room, high-roofed, wooden desks, gloss-painted brick walls, tall windows, polished wooden floor, posters on the wall?

[Below: the above text used to prompt ChatGPT, and below that, Google Gemini.]

The child that experienced those qualia is now old; not a single molecule, not a single atom that once formed that child's brain is present in your brain as you recollect that experience. And yet, it was your experience, experienced by you. 

Yes, millions of children growing up in the UK in the 1950s and 1960s would have memories that can be summoned by the words 'school powder-paints'. The pure qualia memories would return in the form of a sharp moment of recognition tinged bitter-sweet, a knowing that there's no return to that moment, yet comforting nevertheless. A memory to savour, experience it, roll it around your brain before it evaporates back into the thin air from which it seemingly came.

The memory is yours. The memory is you. It defines you. The memory is ego-free, pure. It is what you experienced, not necessarily what you did, nor what was going on around you.

Now the question of life after death – does your consciousness (the receiver) return to the Eternal Whole, or remain separate, destined to experience, to receive, in another biological individual? 

This is the essential difference between the Buddhist and Hindu understanding of reincarnation.

I for one tend to believe in the individual hypothesis, based upon my own experience. I frequently have these anomalous qualia-memory events, which are to me just as real as the primary-school powder-paint qualia memory, but are not of this life. 

In recent weeks, as spring took hold in Chynów, I would experience these while gardening, while clearing the ground under my apple trees. It feels like America, from a different childhood, in the 1930s. 

These memory flashbacks, anomalous, familiar, comforting and pleasant, yet with a bittersweet tinge, a vague pang, a wistful longing for what's gone forever – I've experienced these since childhood, alongside the occasional dream – an entirely different experience, yet congruent in terms of atmosphere, time, and place. This is personal; it's not a dipping in and out of an eternal, continuous unity; rather it feels like an upward journey, a spiritual evolution of one consciousness, advancing, enhancing, from one lifetime to the next, towards that oneness – but it's not destined to come after but a single 80-or-so year lifespan. From the beast, to the human, to the angel, to God. The Purpose, the flow.

This time last year:
Mayday reverie

This time two years ago:
Prague, Central Europe

This time three years ago:
Under azure, Jakubowizna

This time four years ago: 
Łady roadworks

This time five years:
S7 extension works

This time six years ago:

Back to the działka after eight weeks locked down

This time seven years ago:

Vol 2. of Bevis's Betjeman biography

This time eight years ago:
New roads and rails

This time nine years ago:
The Gold Train shoot – lessons learned

This time ten years ago:
The Network vs The Hierarchy in politics

This time 11 years ago:
45 years under one roof

This time 12 years ago:
Digbeth, Birmingham 5

This time 13 years ago:
Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79 

This time 15 years ago: 
Looking at progress along the S79  

This time 16 years ago:
Two Polands

This time 17 years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time 18 years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

This time 19 years ago:
Flag day

Odolany – Warsaw's railway reserve

I have posted a few times about the tangle of tracks to the north-east of Warsaw West (W-wa Zachodnia) station; much of this area has been cleaned up. [See here from 2013, and  here from 2014]

But north-west of W-wa Zachodnia, in the neighbourhood of Odolany, part of the district of Wola, there's an enormous network of railway sidings, of which over 30 hectares are entirely disused. This area is not closed off; footpaths criss-cross the area, which lies nearer to the centre of Warsaw than neighbourhoods like Stegny or Sadyba – one would think prime development land for residential estates.

The klimat reminds me of that which permeates Andrei Tarkovsky's magnificently atmospheric 1979 film Stalker; post-industrial abandonment, secrets, decay. Below: a typical scene within the Zone; a multiplicity of abandoned tracks, on rotting wooden sleepers, often with trees growing between them. 

Left: trees and bushes growing ever denser through and around the abandoned track. One has to ask why PKP PLK S.A., the railway infrastructure operator, hasn't lifted the rails for recycling and turned the area over into parkland, or to rewild it as a nature sanctuary. Below: an abandoned signal box or points-keeper's hut. In the distance, further rows of disused track.

Left: three or more pairs of parallel rows of abandoned tracks, trees growing between the rails. In the distance, some blue buildings are just about visible between the branches and leaves... 

Below: pushing through the undergrowth, I emerge onto what are live tracks; rails polished silver through use, with overhead gantries providing power to electric engines that use this line. This turns out to be the maintenance depot for freight locomotives.

I turn around and head back into the undergrowth, this time moving northwestward, across several disused tracks. Emerging from the bushes on the other side, I catch the following astonishing sight. It looks like some sort of grain elevator... 

I get up closer. This (I later learn) is the former coaling station for steam engines. The 42m-high coal tower itself is one of four such surviving structures in Poland (the UK has only one left).

Below: in its shadow to its east stands a building that I cannot figure out; why the canopy? Why the low and short platform? Why here? Looks like a waiting room at a passenger station from the 1960s. Odd.

The coaling tower itself was built between 1948 and 1951 – and here's a surprise – from precast concrete elements donated to Poland by the US government, delivered by sea as part of the technical assistance post-WW2. This, at the height of Stalinism.

Left: the coaling tower seen from the west. The conveyors that raised coal to the top of the tower were removed when it was decommissioned in the early 1990s. It stood abandoned, until a group of preservationists persuaded the voivodship heritage administrator of its historical significance, earning it listed-building status in February 2024.

On either side of the lines on which the coaling tower stands are aggregate storage facilities (Budokrusz to the north, Warbud to the south). Both are served by trains, delivering construction materials to the busy sites. Walking along the line towards to the coaling tower, I could hear the non-stop sound of diggers loading and unloading aggregate.

As I proceeded in a westerly direction, the disused tracks started to converge with live tracks leading from the aggregate sites and the freight-loco maintenance sheds. Below: the rails are no longer covered with rust; signals show that the track is indeed live (there was a Freightliner PL Class 66 locomotive manoeuvring slowly off to my left). Time to return to the urban hubbub of rush-hour Warsaw. 

Below: a series of bridges carry the freight lines over ulica Dżwigowa (lit. 'Crane Street' – crane as in machine to move materials). To my right are the busy sidings of Warszawa Główna Towarowa, Warsaw's main freight station. At this stage, I leave the rails and return to the street for a short walk to W-wa Włochy station and my train to Ożarów Mazowiecki, for an evening business event.

I must point out that nowhere along my journey did I pass any 'entry prohibited' sign, or cross any fence. Around Warsaw West station, the sidings are properly enclosed behind wire fences; not so further east.

If you want to watch Stalker, for free, with English subtitles, it's here. Set aside three hours. If you've not seen it, do. It's worth it.

This time last year:

The Thought Inside: get it out!

This time three years ago:
Spring magic 

This time seven years ago:
Building work almost done on the działka

This time eight year:
Karczunkowska's closed again

This time nine years ago:
Little suitcase in the attic
[It's still at Schindler's Factory in Kraków for the year-long Children of War exhibition there]

This time ten years ago:
What I read each week.

This time 12 years ago:
Defending Poland, contributing to NATO

This time 14 years ago:
Balloon over Warsaw 

This time 16 years ago:
Happiness, Polish-style

This time 19 years ago:
London (to which I'm not planning to return)

Nearing peak blossom

Every day brings it on, but the next three days are forecast to be cloudier; blossom needs a pure blue sky against which to look its finest. This is the time to catch the orchards as the blossom transitions from pink buds to white petals tinged with pink.

Below: one of my apple trees. A beautiful sight in the early-morning sun.

Pink bud is turning into full bloom. After a few days, the petals begin to fall. Each orchard goes through this at a slightly different time; many trees are not yet in full bloom, but are more colourful as a result.

Despite the long weeks of snow cover, the optimal form of irrigation, it has been a dry spring so far, and the strong northerly winds have accelerated evaporation of moisture from the topsoil.

Below: on the edge of the forest between Jakubowizna and Machcin II.

And on a day of such natural beauty, time to celebrate the feline beauty of Céleste. This morning she accompanied me on my early walk, a short stroll around the forest next door.

Out in the open, at the end of the drive, Céleste is looking east into the sun. Her pupils have narrowed to vertical slits.

 At this time of year, my walks are filled with wonder and joy, especially in the sun.

This time two years ago:
Visiting my maternal grandmother's grave in Bystrzyca Kłodzka

This time four years ago:
Got a bit of a cold (Pt 1)

This time five years ago:
Moon and bloom

This time seven years ago:

The working week in town, in pics

This time ten years ago:
Brexit: head vs heart, migration vs economy

This time 11 years ago:
Golf course update

This time 14 years ago:
The Shard changes London's skyline

This time 15 years ago:
In praise of Warsaw's trams

This time 16 years ago:
Plans for the railway line to Radom

The joys of an early start

Once upon a time, I'd have bluntly refused the proposition of an 7:50am appointment for a blood test. "Offer me a slot at some civilised time," I would have said. The clinic is 40km (25 miles) away in Wola, a district to the north-west of central Warsaw. 

But having shifted my sleep routine ahead the spring time-change, I thanked the clinic's receptionist for the chance of an early visit, knowing that getting up before sunrise no longer poses a challenge.

And so indeed it proved to turn out. 

I went to bed at nine pm, woke up at 05:07, had a shower, made a thermos of coffee and a packed lunch (or more accurately packed breakfast, as the blood and urine samples had to be on an empty stomach). I fed the cats, and was ready to leave home at six. I caught the train from Chynów to town at 06:18 (below), reaching W-wa Wola station just after seven. Then I took an eastbound tram four stops and walked a bit to the clinic, arriving there at 07:25. 

No one around except the receptionist and the nurse. I got everything done within a few minutes, beating the queues. Beating the queues? Thrashing the queues. Soon I was back on the tram to W-wa Wola and the train back to Chynów. Home before ten (below), with nine thousand paces on the clock.

The sun was shining brightly throughout. A brisk northerly wind put a light chill into the air as I set off to the station, but the sense of aliveness was all-powerful. Sleeping in is no longer an option for the summer months. Grab that dawn!

Think about the terms 'midday' and 'midnight'. The original meanings have slipped, distorted by modern life. 'Midday' is the time when the sun is at its zenith, its highest position in the sky on a given day. Midday is midway between sunrise and sunset. And 'midnight' is halfway between sunset and sunrise. Yet for nowadays, 'midnight' is a time shortly after most folk go to bed. 

Modern humans have been around for 300,000 years give or take, but it's only in the past 100 or so of those years that we've had universal access to electrical lighting. Radio and television have been entertaining our species for slightly shorter, clocks and wristwatches have been informing us of the time for slightly longer. This is the tiniest slither of time in terms of mammalian evolution. 

Our circadian rhythms – our body clocks – have suddenly been thrown out of kilter. The  result is all manner of psychiatric disorders which our rationalist, materialist paradigm says need pharmacological treatment.

But how about changing your sleep patterns instead? Make midnight the middle of your night?

Granted, it can be hard when you're in the nine-to-five. Assuming your midday (sun overhead) is at 12:00, an eight-to-four working day makes more sense... and then there's the whole issue of time change. Clocks going back in the autumn exacerbate the psychiatric effects of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), while the clocks going forward in spring lead to a huge spike in heart attacks and strokes (a 24% jump in cardiac-ward admissions in the week after the time change). 

However, our legislators have shown unwillingness to tackle the issue of daylight-saving time changes. We seem stuck where we were; an overwhelming majority of people across the EU  want to see an end to the spring and autumn time changes, yet the legislators seem unable to act. The European Commission proposed abolishing clock changes in 2018. The European Parliament voted in 2019 to end them (originally by 2021). But the crucial body, the Council of the European Union, has never agreed a common position. And so an indefinite delay is entirely plausible under current conditions. Countries disagree on permanent summer time vs winter time. If countries choose differently, Europe risks a patchwork of time zones, which is politically and economically awkward. Covid, the war in Ukraine and now in Iran have all pushed the issue down the agenda. And so, the EU is not waiting on science or public opinion – it’s waiting on member states to agree with each other. Until that happens, the system persists by default.

So it's up to us as individuals to deal with this each in their own way. In a working world of flexitime and hybrid work, we should be able to get around this.  Of course, much depends how far from the equator and how close to the poles you are. Daylength is the same (just over 12 hours) all year round at the equator, while the two cities nearest the North Pole (Tromsø and Murmansk) have almost no daylight in midwinter and almost no night in midsummer. Warsaw, London and Berlin have (to the nearest hour) seven hours of daylight in midwinter and 17 hours of daylight in midsummer.

The way we sleep depends not only on the time of year, but how far north/south we live. Human sleep timing is governed by the circadian system, centred on the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and the hormone melatonin. Darkness lengthens the melatonin secretion window; light shortens it. Longer nights mean a longer biological 'night signal'. People living close to the equator will tend to sleep the same number of hours all year round, whereas by the time you get as far north as Warsaw, people should be sleeping half an hour more in winter (roughly eight and half hours) and get by with half an hour less in summer (roughly seven and half hours).

The key thing is to aim to keep midday at the middle of your day, and keep symmetrical the times between waking up and sunrise and sunset and going to bed. Ideally, this would mean (for Warsaw, 52° North, 21° East) in summer time (solar noon at 12:30) waking up at 4:45 am and going to bed at 8:45 pm, awake for 16 and half hours of the day, with seven and half hours of sleep, and in winter time (solar noon at 11:30) waking up at 3:45 am and going to bed at 7:15 pm for eight and half hours of sleep. 

This might sound extreme when considering one's social calendar (and the TV schedule for those who still watch), but the above times reflect how things were for the whole of human history until the recent past. Not practical today, to be sure, but a target to keep in mind. An ambition.

Overcome the owl, be more like the lark, for that is our biology. Ah yes. Teenagers and young adults are exempt – their body clocks have been biologically tweaked for a more nocturnal bias, at least until they have found a mate.   

Having said all that – would I readily accept a 7:50 appointment in Wola in midwinter? Not readily, no. It would mean waking up nearly two hours before sunrise. Still, by spreading my eight-and-half hours of winter sleep between quarter to eight in the evening and quarter past four in the morning, straddling the midnight hour equally, it could theoretically be doable...

This time nine years ago:
Changes in Nowa Iwiczna

This time ten years ago:
Tracks to Tarczyn

This time 11 years ago:
Translation and cultural differences

This time 13 years ago:
The demand for Park + Ride keeps growing

This time 14 years ago:
Cycle-friendly London

This time 15 years ago:
The end of the Azure Week

Full of the joys of spring

My answer to the question of finding repeatable moments of joy is clear: make the most of moments of beauty.

Knowing there will be a sunny morning ahead, last night I went to bed early (around 10pm), woke up early today (before 6am), caught the sun rising over the forest next door, fed cats, made coffee - and set off for a short walk. These sunny-morning, empty-stomach short walks are marvellous for the soul. I feel tip-top.

The orchards are starting to come into blossom. Cherries first, then the apples. And not all the apples at the same time. Below: the frosts of the weekend before last seem not to have harmed the blossom on this old-school orchard (no irrigation poles, no anti-hailstone netting), one of the first to come into flower.

Below: accompanying me on my walk this morning was Czester; here is is up a tree. Note his anti-tick collar. I bought one for each of my six cats – they are totally effective. Ticks steer clear.

Below: forget-me-nots (Myosotis arvensis) are just starting to flower on the floor of my orchard.. The Polish word for them, niezapominajki, literally means the same, though without the '-me-'. They will come into maximum profusion over the coming fortnight. More to follow over the next few weeks.

Below: back at home, Czester follows me in and immediately wants more of the outdoors. Here he is at my (open) kitchen window.

Below: the view from the end of my garden across into the neighbouring orchard.

The end of the frosts means it's time to swap the winter tyres for summer ones. The latter lose adhesion below +6°C; the former are not particularly robust in the heat. So I walk the 500m down the lane to the car workshop where I've also had oil and filters changed and the cracked rear number-plate holder replaced. Below: on my way to the workshop (the Micra is just about visible to the left in the distance), my attention is caught by the grass verge bright with dandelions.

Below: quintessential Jakubowizna I. A glorious spring day, the sun approaching its zenith.

Below: quintessential Jakubowizna II. A hundred or so paces further on up the lane.

Country life suits me perfectly. Its pace is dictated by the changing seasons; there's no such thing as a generic spring, each one has a slightly different timing, each one transitions a little differently out of winter and then into summer. I have become attuned to those little differences, the subtleties. Change happens from day to day, with different plants flowering at different times. 

It strikes me that I could not move back to town! I'd rather live in the country and go into town whenever I want than to live in town and go to the country whenever I want. Neither city nor suburb; green acres is the place for me. Life on my own terms, with my cats anchoring me in our place.

Surrounded by birdlife and wild animals, I have an awareness of sharing a planet with wild creatures that don't depend on humans. I ponder that word 'creatures', and consider whether 'evoluents' wouldn't be more in keeping with our scientific paradigm.

This time last year:
From Sage to Mage

This time five years ago:
Greylag geese find a home in Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
Aviation over lockdown Jeziorki

This time seven years ago:
Easter in Ealing

This time ten years ago:
WiFi works on Polish train shock

This time 11 years ago:
My dream camera, just around the corner

This time 13 years ago:
Longer, lighter lens

This time 14 years ago:
New engine on the coal train 

This time 15 years ago
High time to leave the car at home

This time 16 years ago:
The answer to urban commuting

This time 19 years ago:
Far away across the fields

Cleaning up Chynów

The concept is straightforward; volunteers gather at a given time and place, get gloves and bin bags, and set off to pick up rubbish. Last year, I took part in three of these, organised by Stowarzyszenie Przyjaciół Gminy Chynów (the association of friends of the Chynów municipality).

This year, there were 13 people taking part; we split into two groups. I was in the group cleaning up the street I know best from my countless walks to the the local shops – ulica Współna (lit. 'Common Street'). Until this afternoon, the street was blighted by hundreds, if not thousands, of empty vodka bottles, beer cars and energy-drink tins, along with cigarette packets, sweet wrappers and lesser detritus. A real eyesore. 

From school children and their sweet wrappers and young adults and their vape accessories through to the outdoor-drinking community, thoughtless littering is a feature of modern life. Volunteer clean-ups are an answer (the real answer is that everybody gets it in their head that you take your litter home with you or put it in a bin!). Below: cleaning up ul. Wspólna, the mayor of Chynów municipality, Piotr Bernaciak. By the by, it's amazing that he was elected less than six months ago – he has got so much done in such a short space of time. Leadership by example.

The problem drinkers dump their empties by the road, in ditches, on the grass verges. Ideal fieldwork material for sociologists and market researchers. I notice the local geography of consumer preference; along ul. Wspólna, opposite the old Mirabelka supermarket, half-litre bottles of raspberry-flavour Soplica vodka predominate; further down Wspólna Cytrynówka Lubelska in 100ml małpki are the preferred tipple. Round the corner on ul. Kolejowa it's 200ml małpki of Żytniówka, while along ul. Wolska its the 100ml małpki of Żubrówka Biała that are found in greatest numbers. Beer in plastic bottles – an unusual material, associated with the cheapest brews like Kuflowe, is commonplace among the litter. When it comes to energy drinks, Black and Tiger are the brands with most thoughtlessly disposed-of containers

Below: the day's haul, from the two teams. An estimated tonne of rubbish, including 11 tyres, all properly disposed of at the PSZOK (Punkt Selektywnej Zbiórki Odpadów Komunalnych – Selective Municipal Waste Collection Point). Five kilometres walked (plus another five walking from home to the meet-up location and back).

It was good to sit down by a bonfire and grill kiełbasa along with other volunteers and their families. A happy, friendly atmosphere. Good people. Cleaning up after thoughtless folk.

"What we gotta do as the people – we got to get together and clean that up, you understand" – James Brown, Talkin' Loud And Sayin' Nothing (Complete Version).

This time five years ago:
Between the rains

This time eight years ago:

Towards a circular economy

This time nine years ago:
Ralph Vaughan-Williams - two song cycles

This time 17 years ago:
Spring scenes in Jeziorki

This time 18 years ago:
Modernist wheels

This time 19 years ago:
Mammatus clouds over Jeziorki

A little local difficulty on the rails

I left home at half past three for my afternoon walk and was puzzled to see down the bottom of my lane a stationary freight train on the railway line. Six minutes later, it was still there, unmoved. This looked like a rake of empty Innofreight wagons, each carrying three containers used for conveying biomass to the power station at Siekierki. Thirty wagons, ninety containers.

Below: the freight train has clearly broken down and is blocking both the southbound ('down') passenger platform at Chynów station and the Jakubowizna level crossing. The Koleje Mazowieckie all-stations service to Radom Główny is approaching Platform 2 (on the 'up' line; note the red light on the front of the train indicating wrong-track working), the train having being switched onto the 'up' line further back up the line so as to go around the stranded freight train. The passenger train is running to time (15:42). A short queue of local vehicles is still waiting at the level crossing.

Below: The locomotive is a Czechoslovak Škoda 59E, 182 041-4, which is 62 years old (built in 1964), currently used by cargo operator Rail STM sp. z o.o. To its right, we see the Koleje Mazowieckie all-stations service to Warka approaching platform 2, having switched tracks further back up the line (again, red light showing wrong-track working). Amazingly, this service is also running to time (15:58). Once it passes through, the freight train manages to start, and clears the level crossing and the points just north of the station. Cars, trucks, vans and tractors, some of which had been waiting for up to half an hour by now, finally managed to move. Many drivers were wasting fuel and polluting the air by not turning off their engines! I noticed that the barriers on the level crossing to the south of Chynów station were also down with a long queue of traffic on either side.

But the broken-down freight train is starting to have a knock-on effect. Below: here's the Radom-bound Radomianka accelerated service swinging past the stationary freight train, now the points are clear, on its way to platform 2, Chynów station. As I lined up the shot at the long end of my 70-300mm zoom, I noticed a man, carrying several shopping bags, clambering over the ballast along the railway line, blithely unconcerned by the passing train. Must be not from here; if he were, he'd be walking along the asphalted road running parallel to the tracks. Walking on ballast is not comfortable nor easy, let alone if one is heavily burdened. Russian rail saboteur? Thought did cross my mind...

Below: the crippled freight train, still blocking the south-bound platform, is starting to cause increasing delays to passenger services. To the left we can see the Warsaw-bound Radomir 'accelerated' service, waiting for the Radom-bound Radomianka accelerated service (middle) to switch back to the 'down' line, having called at Chynów's platform 2. Both Koleje Mazowieckie double-decker trains are being pushed by their respective locomotives (these are push-pull sets that can be controlled from either end). Both services are running over 20 minutes late at this stage. 

Once the two double-deckers were clear of Chynów station, the old freight loco managed to get its power back, and slowly made its way south towards Warka and Radom. Within half an hour, passenger services are back to normal, including the express trains that hurtle through without stopping at Chynów. Below: here comes the San InterCity service from Warsaw to Przemyśl, running to time.

The moral of the story? Things go wrong. A private freight operator, an elderly locomotive, a breakdown – but there are procedures in place and delays are limited to a handful of passenger trains. In the old days, the knock-on effects of an incident like this would have lasted hours.

This time three years ago (by complete coincidence!)
Rail travel update: from FUBAR to SNAFU

This time four years ago:
Horizons

This time seven years ago:
Helping others? Couldn't hurt

This time nine years ago:
Local ornithology

This time 13 years ago:
A hare in Wyczółki

This time 14 years ago:
Warsaw by night

This time 15 years ago:

Tales of the Riverbank

This time 16 years ago:
Okęcie before the funerals

This time 17 years ago:
At the General's house

Up early for the wonders

'Midday' should be the middle of your day, not a few hours after waking up. And 'midnight' should be the middle of the night, not an hour or less after going to bed. 

Those of us not shackled by the tyranny of having to be at a place of work for an allotted time should aim to live within natural rhythms set for us by nature, with sunrise and sunset the reference points, rather than the workplace clock and TV schedules.

With the change to summer time two weeks ago, I've continued in my habit of rising before sunrise. Because it's getting earlier and earlier, I'm going to bed earlier and earlier. Last night I was in bed at half past nine, and up this morning at half past five. Sunrise was at quarter to six. I fed the cats, made myself a coffee, and by half past six I was on the doorstep, dressed for sub-zero temperature (-3.1°C on the outside thermometer), ready for an hour's pre-breakfast walk. 

Opening the front door and stepping outside, I became aware of a low, continuous hum to the north. Intriguing. I shall find out what it could be... Once I'd passed the forest and entered the orchards, I discovered what was going on. Automated spraying of apple trees, to protect them against the frost. And I'd soon see that this was happening in all the big commercial orchards across the neighbourhood.

It seems counterintuitive to spray water on a plant when it’s freezing outside; the apple growers are using the latent heat of fusion to protect the delicate buds of their trees. When water changes state from liquid to ice, it releases a small amount of energy in the form of heat. As long as water is continuously being sprayed onto the tree and that water is turning into ice, it releases enough thermal energy to keep the temperature of the plant tissue underneath at exactly 0°C. This is just above the critical temperature that kills fruit buds. Depending on the stage of development (bud vs. full bloom), a fruit tree might not suffer damage until the internal temperature drops to -5°C. By encasing the branch in ice and water, the temperature is locked at 0°C, preventing it from falling to the much lower ambient air temperature, especially if its windy. The ice acts as a thermal buffer and as insulation. Once the bud's encased, it's protected from the evaporative cooling effect of the wind, which can strip heat away from plants much faster than still air. 

This method is a high-stakes balancing act for the farmers. The sprinklers must stay on until the ice starts to melt naturally. If they stop while the air is still below 0°C, the ice begins to evaporate. Evaporation brings on a rapid drop the temperature of the bud well below the air temperature, killing it instantly. And then bear in mind that ice is heavy. If the frost lasts too long or the water application is too intensive, the weight of the ice can snap branches and destroy the very trees the farmers are trying to save. 

At this time of year in Mazovia, the critical targets are the apple blossoms (kwiaty) and young fruitlets (zawiązki). These tissues are extremely vulnerable. Damage can begin around -2°C to -3°C. Without protection, an overnight frost can wipe out a large proportion of the crop. The ice looks destructive, with branches encased in ice, icicles hanging (below) – but the plant tissue itself is held at around 0°C, not the colder ambient air temperature. Crucially, ice forms outside the cells, not inside them. Cellular damage occurs mainly when internal water freezes, which this method prevents. Looks weird though, seeing all these icicles dangling off the apple buds.

The sprinklers require a massive amount of water. Apple growers have to ensure their reservoirs can store enough water for hours of constant spraying. Fortunately, this winter's long weeks of snow cover has helped.

It’s a beautiful but stressful sight; a race to keep the ice 'wet' until the morning sun takes over. [Update: by mid-afternoon, the thermometer was showing 16.3°C outside.]

Below: Grobice, orchard, transformer. Power and water needed to keep the trees safe from the potential ravages of frost.

Below: earlier, half an hour after sunrise, on my front doorstep, just as I was about to set off.

By quarter to eight, I'm back in my house; the outdoor thermometer now shows +3.2°C. The growers have made it through the night; the 14-day weather forecast suggest that this would have been the last frost for this crucial period (blossom time).

My morning walk today was filled with beauty and wonder, and I learned a lot. It really is worth foregoing late nights and making the most of the morning sunshine.

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