Number 5 (ish) of an occasional trawl through back copies of Eureka and its predecessor which were the club magazines pre our website.
Although, having said that, the June 2000 issue includes an article from a member who was working on establishing a WKDC website. Lesley tells me that he got it up and running but, being a callow youth, didn’t have it in him to keep updating so it fell by the wayside.
The 2008 article about crotal bells caught my eye with its mention of sleigh bells and jingle bells. Now I can’t get the words of that darn festive song out of my head. The defintions of the origin of the word crotal are interesting.
Having recently searched on a stubble field I noticed the vast amount of worm casts there were. So Ken Peters’ paragraph from the 1994 issue (he’s been around for ages although I doubt he purchased the 1830 edition of Gentleman’s Magazine at the time of publication as quoted in the above extract) also caught my eye.
“Earthworms at Work! Ken Peters has given me an item which states that it has been calculated that, in one acre of pasture over one year, ten tons of earth pass through earthworms. When one realises how this can shift the angle (and depth – Andrew) of objects, particularly coins, it becomes clear why apparently exhausted sites can still produce after an interval of time.”
Whilst chatting with the owner of said stubble field I asked when it was going to be ploughed. It was only then that I learnt that, for many crops, seed is sown directly into a lightly scored surface without any ploughing as we know it being done. I wish I could have got onto some lovely, dark brown, buttery, deep ploughed fields I saw on a recent trip to Northumberland.
Going back to Ken’s pet annelids, perhaps pasture is not so bad after all. A search earlier this week on such land was turning up quite a reasonable number of items. I can’t remember the figure, but, historically, a large percentage of our land has been “under the plough” at one time or another. So don’t see red when you see green! Mind you, with the ground so water logged at the moment, those poor worms will need diving suits.
It was a shame that the Christmas meeting did not go ahead but, all-in-all, I think it was best to pull the plug rather than have a very small gathering trying to be jolly. The competition judging will take place at the next meeting on 16th January so please bring along your entries as previously mentioned.
I hope you all have a very enjoyable Christmas – I can’t wait to put my grand daughter’s train set together – and have good signals in 2015.
Andrew.
