Digest>Archives> November 2001

Light Reflections

Fall at the Lighthouse

By Sharma Krauskopf

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Fall has arrived at the lighthouse. Since the Shetland Islands have few trees and the area around the lighthouse has none, we do not have the brilliant changing of the leaves to indicate the arrival of fall so the first sign of fall’s arrival is the departure of the sea birds. Each day more and more birds leave the area. However a few birds do stay all year round. Huge flocks of lapwings take flight as I walk in the hills. They are a magnificent bird with a long curved crest on their head and black feathers on their back with white underneath. If you walk up on one of the flocks they will fill the air with bright black and white blotches of colour. The other bird I find wandering the hills is the curlew or the “whaap” as it is known in Shetland. They are a pale brown, mottled colour with a distinctive long curled beak. When I stumble upon a group of these the air is filled with their plaintive call.

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I have taken my last trip in our caretaker’s wee red boat for the season. During summer I would see all kinds of feathered hunters; now only the cormorants and a few gannets are seen seeking food. Even the seals have taken off for better shelter. A few are still around but the number can be counted on one hand.

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The colour of the land has begun to change. The bright green of summer is being replaced by the browns of drying grasses and the darkening of the heather as its bloom is coming to an end. On my hikes in the hills I still see a wild flower here and there but most of these have been replaced by toadstools.

Fall is the time of harvest. As I shared with you earlier it is a battle to grow anything at Eshaness Lighthouse. My vegetable harvest was two different kinds of lettuces. Lettuce does well here, as the climate is cool.

This year I was able to get a few flowers to bloom. I had three or four pansies and two nasturtiums. An unexpected surprise was the flowering of 15 Gazanias. As I write this they are still blooming. When the gales batter them they just fold up their blooms and wait out the storm. As soon as the wind dies they open their magnificent flowers to the sun and show a blaze of colour. Thanks to the Gazanias I felt like I won my battle to have a flower garden. I definitely will have to grow them again next year.

Another success story were my petunias grown in dilapidated lobster creels. It occurred to me early in the season that I needed something that I could wrap in plastic to protect the plants. One day when I was at a neighbour’s house I saw a pile of lobster creels and it dawned on me they would be perfect. So I brought two home and put one on each side of the my front door. I started petunia seeds inside and transplanted them to pots that I placed in the creels as soon as I could. I kept the plastic covers over the creels until July when blooms started to appear. They bloomed beautifully beginning the end of July and continuing through August and September. There are still a few blooms surviving today.

The days are getting shorter and it will not be too long until the sun only shines for five to six hours each day. It is amazing how quickly the daylight is shortening. I have been washing and drying wool fleece so I can spin it on my antique spinning wheel during the long dark nights. I have three big garbage bags of clean wool to spin and card which should keep in out of trouble.

The other big sign that fall has arrived is the gales are increasing. In the summer we will get an occasional day when the wind is above gale force but beginning in late fall (October) it becomes more and more common to be confined to the house by winds strong enough to blow you over. Sea spray will start gushing through the blowhole in front of the lighthouse and the spray will wash over the building as the gales get stronger and stronger.

The disappearance of the flowers and the arrival of the gales make fall seem like a bad time but it brings one colossal blessing. The northern lights (aurora borealis) soon will be dancing all over the sky in shades of green, reds, and blue. And that is a special time of year.

This story appeared in the November 2001 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.

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