Archive for the ‘Flora and Fauna’ Category
Pushing Up Daisies
July 4, 2008
From the grave yard of a little chapel, built in 1673, that’s tucked away, between the forest and the hills; a beautiful place on a beautiful summer evening: pushing up daisies? to be dead, buried beneath the ground.
Hacked Off
June 26, 2008In more than one sense of the word. A walk to one of my favourite spots,
revealed some tree stumps all that remained of some handsome Scots pines.
it’s National Trust land (that’s leased for grazing) so I wouldn’t have expected to see such crude forestry management,
Walking deeper into the stand of trees, I found the reason. Someone’s idea of ‘al fresco’ dining on a summers evening.
Kid’s? well probably older than that, as I suspect they would have driven up there and parked in the layby, after all you wouldn’t want to walk far carrying an axe, booze and BBQ food, but who ever, it really hacks me off. I live in hope that next time they will get more than they were looking for
Potential
June 8, 2008The seeds of next years ‘honesty’ (Lunaria annua), all neatly stored in a ‘blister pack’
Honesty flowers attract butterfly’s, I like its silvery seed pods (a favourite with flower arrangers) that will develop as the summer progress, I suppose that’s where it’s Latin name originates from, they look rather moon like; it grows on a pile of rocks at the bottom of the yard.
(Note to self, to try and get some established in the garden.)
All Roads Lead to the Lake District (part IV)
May 22, 2008Miscellaneous
The pressure is on, so much to do, so little time to do it, so only few words, just look and see.
The path ahead, taken from underneath a splendid oak tree, I would have hugged it if I could, but it was way to big, so instead I sat underneath it for a while.
Wild garlic, broadleaf woodland
Wild garlic, detail
Hawthorne blossom, it is exceptional this year,
it looks like snow in may.
The tail end of the primroses
Stepping stones
Bridge
Post box
Back door, multi-purpose boots.
The End
Loitering with Intent
May 10, 2008The local herons have been spending a lot of time by the pond, eyeing up the fish. I don’t think they manage to take many as our pond has steep sides and herons won’t step into deep water they will only wade in from the shallows. I like seeing a heron by the pond and don’t begrudge them a few fish, we have more than enough and I think the golden orfe are now too big for the herons to tackle.
How ever Inspector Gadget explains that doing what comes naturally (to a heron) is reportable offence
‘Theft of Goldfish from Pond - main suspect - local Heron’
I disturbed a heron yesterday, it flew off and perched in the sycamore tree, they do look rather ridiculous sat in a tree, there is something about herons that doesn’t seem to add up, as though there was a miscalculation at the design stage, herons legs look like they might snap and their beaks look too heavy, (I’ve yet to manage to get a photograph of one, so I’ll cheat)
the ability of herons to catch fish led to a belief that their legs must produce some magical substance that attracted the fish, this resulted in anglers scattering pieces of herons legs around the fishing ground, in an attempt to attract fish, now don’t try this at home because
and such a fishy incident will result in even more paper work for Gadget.
I adore our pond, you can see why,
We built it six years ago, we borrowed a mini digger and a dumper truck and Mr Uhdd set to work, it ended up a different shape and a bit bigger than the original plan (not unlike the heron) and the liner cost as much as the new sofa we planed to buy at the time, six years on we still haven’t bought a sofa, but I have no regrets, the pond investment was the right one and the old sofa will be fashionable again soon. The pond is spring fed and whilst it doesn’t run all year round it is a big enough body of water not to need topping up. We were amazed by how quickly wildlife just turned up and took over it, (treat of treat has been a visiting kingfisher) This summer I will be on a mission to get more photographs of some of the visitors, this is the best I managed last year
I think I shall make a mug of tea and go up to the pond, bliss.
Forget- Me-Not Blue
May 7, 2008
I’ll not forget, back in my flower shop days making a posy of forget-me-not’s and lily of the valley, for a child’s funeral, it was delicate, pretty, ephemeral.
I’ve written before how flowers can send you back in time, date stamp a time and place, be it happy or sad, Dame Honoria Glossop writes about a similar experience, as does Bo; today’s flower thought was a little melancholy, but I have a lighter one to write about as well, I’ll be back soon.
Isolated Showers
May 5, 2008An away day this weekend, we yomped off on to the moors to help plant thousands of cotton grass plants
on the Kinder plateau; Joe, Tom and I were joined by a friend and her son ‘the young man’ who is only five.
The forecast was for ‘isolated showers’. I think the showers decided they needed ‘to get out more’ and had found each other on some sort of Internet ‘metrological forum’ and decide to meet up for the day, on Kinder Scout: we were on the hills for five hours, it rained persistently for four of them!
It was my plan to show you lots of arty shots of cotton grass planting, but it was just too wet for anything more than a couple of grab shots, and they are of poor quality, sorry; but on with the story
Kinder Scout, is important both historically and environmentally, in 1932 it was the location for a protest march, that paved the way for the public rights to access to areas of open country; a report from the Manchester Guardian newspaper, dated April 24th 1932
‘Four or five hundred ramblers, mostly from Manchester, trespassed in mass on Kinder Scout to-day. They fought a brief but vigorous hand-to-hand struggle with a number of keepers specially enrolled for the occasion. This they won with ease, and then marched to Ashop Head, where they held a meeting before returning in triumph to Hayfield. Their triumph was short-lived, for there the police met them, halted them, combed their ranks for suspects, and detained five men. Another man had been detained earlier in the day.’
Environmentally, the area has taken a hammering
‘As the environmental pressure on the area has grown over the last 200 years – due to a combination of acid rain, major wildfires and past excessive grazing – the peat soil has become so degraded that, instead of reducing carbon in the air, it is actively releasing it back into the atmosphere.’
It is a wild landscape, deep black peat, that shakes like a jelly if you jump up and down on it
The cotton grass planting is a National Trust project, to stabilise the area, despite the weather more volunteers had turned out than expected; many hands make light work, so when we made it up there they had just planted the last plant not 5 mins before. This could have be akin to telling ‘the young man’ on Christmas eve, that Santa was make believe! It was a long walk for one so young, his mum coaxed the National Trust Wardens in to digging a couple of plants back up again, so that he could plant his all important cotton plant.
(Cotton grass on a sunnier day!)
Tom and Joe just had to take the disappointment on their rain drenched chins.
As made our way home the National Trust wardens, who were no doubt glad to get off the hill and out of the rain earlier than expected, bumped past us down the track.
The weather and the planting didn’t turn out quite how we expected but the day was something of an adventure.
A Fondness for Ferns
May 5, 2008
I am very taken with ferns, I like the way they start out from the crown, tightly rolled, clenched like a babies fist
then they gradually unfurl
They are squeezing out of the smallest of spaces
I have a book, it was an impulse buy, but a good one, it’s features the photographs of Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) with reproductions of many of the plates from his book, ‘Art Forms in Nature,’ take a look they are stunning, Blossfeldt was a lecturer of sculpture at Berlins Arts and Crafts school and he seemed to like ferns as much as I do
