First Week of February: Bone-Aches and Moon-Moods
February’s name in an old Northern language was “sleep on one side, sleep on other side”, or the month of long sleep in folk sayings. And according to old traditions all work was strictly forbidden on Bone-ache day, the 9th of February. Mikk Sarv says that the proverb “work gets you a new frock, sleep a gown down to your feet” should be a consolation to all whose jobs have gone – there is always a way out and the new coming is better than the old departed. Useful lessons can be had even from watching the bird feeder actions; look how the tits fight at the lard ball, a cocky bully struts and parades all the time spreading his wings, angrily susurrating, every now and then giving the lard a hefty peck with his beak ... he will not get much into his beak from that ... but from the crumbles falling on the ground many others get fed. And that arrogant bully will surely get a slap from an even tougher bully. But eventually spring will come again, and the whole bird band escapes to the woods to enjoy love and family life.
Most people keep indoors now. But you can perfectly well watch the animals at their various businesses from a comfortable armchair in front of a nice fire with your laptop. Pig camera http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/2139 starts already at six in the evenings, when several groups of pigs scramble in to get at the apples; for latecomers there will only be wheat and corn left. Eagle camera http://www.looduskalender.ee/node/1943 had a quiet period in the beginning of last week, a hovering helicopter did not suit the eagles. But we could admire the wooing dance and songs of Mr. Crow, sitting on the eagles’ perch tree in last Saturday’s thaw. At the Nigula Animal Rehabilitation Centre the bear cubs are already rising to their feet (paws?), Kaja Kübar tells us. There is plenty of muscle and energy, soon there will be really serious romping and scuffing.
When I tried to interview the mayor of Lohusuu village, Urmas Soosalu, on the phone about fish catches in Peipsi he told me straight from the lake: “There is so much fish to catch that I can’t talk on the phone now – there were 6 perch, one after another, I have a perch in one hand and my mobile in the other!”. We can only hope that the phone conversation saved the life of one fish. There is half-meter thick ice on the lake, and in places stacks of ice, but no large cracks. Besides the perch, there are roaches, Rutilus, and of course ruffe, Gymnocephalus. In one day a man can catch 3 – 10 kilos. Outside the ice on the lake, the Alutaguse marshlands also have a strong ice cover, only Avijõgi River shows some glimpses of water here and there. When just a week ago there were only “stick-timber trucks” with 20 cm-diameter pulping wood on the road then now there are also real timber trucks with timber brought out from the bog islets. Probably trees are already all used up elsewhere, the bands of roadkeeping men collect arm-thick wood from the ditch clearances for heating.
On Lake Peipus there is half-meter thick ice.
Tags: 
