THE BONFIRE OF THE DILEMMAS

The more I clear away the dead and dying garden detritus, putting the woody stuff on the bonfire heap, the more I think of hedgehogs and blackbirds.
When do I light it?
Now I risk cooking a hedgehog or in the spring incinerating a young blackbird nest?
Perhaps come spring I will need to disentangle the existing heap and rebuild.

The last leaves are on the cherries and off most of the other trees - except the liquidambar, most its leaves are still green, not turned the deep red they should have by now.

It is Monday, 6 pm and I go out to disconnect the car from the charger. The sky is clear and the air crisp with a coming frost. The sky is full of daisies, a world within a flowering Crambe. 
And quiet.
Almost.
The faint drone of the main road a mile away and below provides a base note. 
But no birds sing.
I have left the teasels and the tall grasses, the brittle poppies and hydrangea heads for the frost to coat and sculpt. When the dawn sun rises, before the thaw the garden will be a place of magic.
A solitary tawny owl calls but gets no reply.
Time to go in.

By dawn we have had a hard frost. So many drab leaves are small pockets of wonder.

There is frost on the grass and ice on the pond - no sign of our moorhen nor mallard.

 The small birds are hungry and need food to keep them warm so the feeders are topped up every day.

R has got me the telephone number of a good gardener - he will have to be tolerant of my foibles, the mess in parts of the garden and being unable to get into my cluttered shed.

The list is growing - mowers to be serviced, manure to be moved and spread, raspberries to be dug up and consigned to the bonfire - and there are suspicious signs where I have planted tulips. I think the squirrels are hungry and digging.

A message has been left with the potential gardener - so I have been tidying the shed, cleaning and oiling tools - I mean I need to meet his approval.

So now the days pass with the clearing of the old year. Beetles chew in the leaf litter, fungi break down old wood. I make this tree 36 years at felling but then get 35 the next count, any better calculations welcome.