Tag: rural

The admiral, the teasel and the goldfinch

Recently, an admiral sat on my knee. I was in my back garden, sitting in the sunshine of early (ish) morning and felt a tickle on my skin. I think I had been mistaken for part of the large buddleia I was sitting near and instead of joining all its butterfly friends on the purple blooms, the red admiral stopped off on my knee.

It seems to have been a bumper year for butterflies. I certainly feel I have seen more and I have heard lots of other people say the same. Like so many other nature spotted phenomena in this strange year, it does seem as if the natural world has been a bit more prevalent while we have had to become less so. I wonder, is this the case? Actually, MOTH and I pondered this on a short wheezy walk, edging our way round golden fields that were being   harvested. (This is the time of ridiculously bad hayfever for me and I will now spend the next few months breathing as if I had just run a marathon while playing the tuba). What is it that we normally do which we have not been doing that has allowed a boost in such nature as butterflies? Or, is it that we are just noticing them more because of our changed circumstances? I offer these questions with no answers, by the way, I am merely musing. If it is the former then it makes me feel quite sad because that would show the direct negative impact we humans have on the natural world – I can’t help but have the sneaky suspicion that this is probably true.

It has also been a great year for teasels. We have left several to grow, dotted around the garden and one has shot up to the heady heights of taller than me – yes, that is an enormous five-foot three and more! Particularly attracted to these spikey monsters have been bees, hoverflies, pollen beetles, spiders, and butterflies. I am looking forward to when it is the turn of the goldfinch, as they love the later stage of dried teasel where they can pluck out the seeds. I spent the first few years here wondering why we never had goldfinches on our bird feeder (despite the niger seed bought especially) until I realised we have hordes of them, but they prefer to bubble and chatter in the greengage trees at the bottom of our garden. And yes, looking forward to this moment does mean I am looking forward to more autumnal times, which by the already turning of the blackberries in the hedgerows is beginning to wave a distant hello.

Back to the teasels, did you know that it is thought that they might be carnivorous? The teasels’ leaves form a sort of cup in which rainwater collects – and also insects which drown in the pools… If I’m being perfectly honest with you, this is mostly hypothetical, there is some small evidence that the plant gains some benefit from the extra protein of dead bugs, but it is certainly not a proven fact that this is what they are doing – creating their own traps and feeding bowls. But, it’s an interesting idea, isn’t it?

We’ve had grass snakes in the garden this year – I have been most excited about this, although less so because our small, shouty and sweary cat with a gimpy leg did catch one and leave it on our kitchen floor. We have a thrush with only one foot. It seems to be doing well despite this set back, it sings most beautifully-madly, as they do, but I worry for it still. I am enjoying the lavender that is coming into itself now. I have picked some for drying (last year I made lots of lavender bags for Christmas presents, something that I will always remember doing with my grandma, and have lately been enjoying popping a stalk of flower heads into a pot with camomile tea. I’m not sure MOTH has seen yet, but this morning I tied a posy of lavender to hang under the shower head. Giving the buds a gentle squeeze as the water is running makes it smell a little like you are in a spa – go on – try it (in your own shower though, not mine, of course).

It has been a strange, awful privilege to have been forced to stay at home for the last few months. I miss hugging people an awful lot (not random people, my family and close friends, of course) but as a natural introvert, for me, I can’t honestly say it was all bad. Recently, I  have stepped back into my physical work, leaving behind the digital content creating I have been doing in lieu. I have been both excited and apprehensive about this. What I love about my job as a librarian is (yes, yes, it’s the books) but also helping people, quietly building real relationships with regulars and knowing you have truly given and made a difference to someone. Things will not be as they were for a while but we adapt. Change can be hard, it can be wonderful, it can be a learning experience, but one thing is for sure, nothing ever truly stays the same.

The simple pleasure of a pine cone

This week the weather quite clearly has no idea what it is doing. Or, if it does, it is working to some indecipherable plan that we are not privy to. I had to put a jumper and socks on today, for which I was actually more than happy. The few days we had midweek week where the temperatures tipped into the thirties, were far too much for me; I barely functioned. Perhaps it’s because I spend a good ninety-five percent of my life feeling cold and wearing at least three more layers than everyone else (I have been known to wear seven layers in winter) that when I finally get warm, my body has no clue what to do. After the scorching heat and dragging the electric fans out of the cupboard and discarding the duvet, the last two days have been more bearable, even if a little confusing.

We were promised thunderstorms this week; they did not come – which I was annoyed about. We have had some rain, intermittent sun and
cloud but goodness, a lot of blustery wind. But that didn’t stop me taking a post work stroll on which I experienced hot sun, high winds and rain in regular revolutions.

On my walk I had two incidences where I was very aware of how I am becoming more and more accustomed to simplicity and the pleasure and freedom it brings. The first was when on leaving the house I pocketed only my keys and my phone (and a tissue, but there is always at least one of those resident in any of my pockets). A while back, when we were in much stricter lockdown and supposedly not leaving the house but for the essential shop,  I tweeted about noticing that bags seemed such redundant irrelevances. They sit there waiting to be filled and carted about and for some reason they struck me as rather absurd at that point. And I am someone who has far too many bags of all shapes and sizes – just in case! But today there was a feeling of lightness and liberty in the grab-and-go of so few items. (I wonder if this is how men have always felt. Perhaps if decent pockets in women’s clothing had been de rigour from the start we wouldn’t have become so accustomed to dragging bags around with us at all times.)

The second moment was as I neared home. I was mildly grumping at this point as the last public footpath, that takes me across a field to my home, has once more not been looked after by the land owner and is again impassable; so I had to take the road route. But, by doing so I passed some large pine trees under which many cones had been scattered on the ground, most crushed by passing cars but one excellent, fat specimen called to me. As I picked it up to bring home I realised I experienced the same feeling as I have done in the past when buying a new item of clothing or the such. I read a book recently which talked about how we get used to new things so quickly that they lose their ‘spark’ in very little time which is what compels us to then buy again and again and again. It’s why some very rich people have multiple cars of huge value and still never feel satisfied. They are merely looking for the next hit of new. That being the case, perhaps a pine cone really can have the same excitement-producing reception in the brain that a new pair of boots can.

In some ways we have all had to live a little more simply recently and at the beginning I had hopes that this would have a positive impact. But, like so many people, I have been appalled and quite upset at the sheer magnitude of people and the destruction and littering they have left behind at some of our destination spots. I dared to dream that out of this strange time we are living through, there might have risen a more compassionate, thoughtful and caring collective consciousness. But it would seem that now, perhaps more than ever, we appear to be a species divided between those that think beyond their immediate bubble and those that don’t. I find it hard to not fall into the thinking that, I am right and they are wrong, nothing is that clear-cut of course, but I simply can’t understand the continued devastation on large and small scales across the globe of the beautiful world we are lucky to inhabit. Nor the drive some seem to possess to split us into divided groups of people based solely on geography, aesthetic, lifestyle choices and all the things that make us so wonderfully rich and diverse and of these differences that we should be celebrating and sharing.

It doesn’t help that there are so many ways now to see so much of this negative behaviour. Sometimes I have to go on a news and social media break just to give my (admittedly very sensitive) heart and brain a break from it all. I want to believe there is more good than bad. It is always worth seeking out happiness and care and opening our eyes to the little things that can bring comfort and hope, and to find the joy in the simple things.

To this end, my pine cone and I will be quite happy at home. It will sit in my bowl of found natural treasures, all of which make me smile – yes, even the skulls. And if you need a break from the treadmill of bad news, you can join me on a very blustery walk in the video below. The wind shaking the trees and rustling the long grasses speaks louder than I can, but I don’t mind being drowned out by nature.

Grazing Bales

Sunday, late afternoon; I’ve just been out for a short post-work walk and am wondering why I don’t do so more often. I always feel at my best mentally and emotionally when I am outside and in nature.

Today, the weather and scenery were stunning. Having just had several days of rain, (which I was most happy to see arrive after the driest May on record had the land scorched to dust) the sun has returned. Yesterday was all big blue expansive skies that seem to be bigger than they ought to, today the blue has been punctuated with white cloud and a slight breeze.

The route I took is quite short and one I have done many times before. If I don’t dawdle (which of course, I always do, stopping to look, smell, feel and listen to all the wonders around me) I can leave the house and be back again in half an hour – if I rush. But why rush? I’ll never understand people who charge their way through a walk. Why aren’t they stopping to trail their hands in the long grass, to peek into ditches, do they not close their eyes and breathe the fresh air pretending for a brief moment that nothing else exists? I can’t imagine going for a walk and not holding stones or picking up feathers or peering as close as I can at insects and lamenting, as ever, my lack of bird call knowledge when I hear the twittering around me. Although, today, I was quite happy that I was able to identify a chiff chaff.

Not all land owners and farmers are great at encouraging people to walk the public footpaths by keeping them clear and easily identifiable – there are a few round here like that. But, others are very good at it, and my walk begins around fields on a path that is kept mown; wide enough for one, or two if you are very close. I was led initially by several tiny brown flittering butterflies who appeared to skip about only a few inches ahead of my toes. One finally settled long enough on a butter cup for me to take a quick (terrible) picture and I think they were small heaths. The area I was currently walking round has been left to go to wild land and long grasses and the beautiful feathery fronds jigged in the breeze with their soft green and purple hues. Beautiful. But, as with as many places there is talk of it being built on which saddens me greatly. I can see brambles beginning to flower in the hedgerows, bringing promises of delicious fruits to come. I will be out picking and eating later in the year.

A little further along my walk I spot a large black shape on a nettle leaf. Looking closer it is a caterpillar, dark and bristly; looking extremely gothic. As I peer further into the nettle patch, I see that there are in fact many of them, all on nettle leaves, and so once more I take to my books and the internet to find out what they are: the caterpillars of the Peacock butterfly.

The reason I had stopped and began perusing the nettles was because I was getting myself back together after being highly startled by a pair of pheasants. I think though that they may have been more startled by me. I gave my apologies, especially as it was a male and female I had rudely interrupted. They flew off in the clumsy, flapping barking that they do without giving me the courtesy of an apology for scaring the life out of me.

Against all the blue, green and yellow of this early summer day, large shining black plastic greeted me next – the covering for bales of straw. My best friend and I have long loved the sight of bales in fields, particularly as we feel they always seem as if they are grazing. Many a time we have sent each other pictures of such with the caption: grazing bales. I may have tweeted a video at her this time.

My head and heart by this point wanted to continue to walk for hours. Unfortunately my body, with its various ails, does not comply and so reluctantly I begin to head home. I can manage an hour of gentle walking but by the end will still be in pain, so I am learning to take things easier than I would like – learning but not liking – I get very grumpy about this.

But I am blessed, I know, to be able to go out at all and also to be close enough to be out in nature so quickly. I know not everyone can and so I recorded just a short part of my walk, which you can watch below. Watching nature and imagining yourself in it can be beneficial too. When I was going through cancer treatment, I would sometimes close my eyes and take myself off for a walk in my mind. I would imagine every detail from putting on my shoes and picking up my keys, to what I would see and feel out there; and I’m sure it helped me. Perhaps, if you can’t get out, for whatever reason, I can give you this little bit of nature.