nest-making in the virgin springtime

 There was the moment I found that first token that nest-making had begun. . .  a single soft white feather had fluttered down and landed on the ground. . .  amongst tree roots and the rich mulch of goldy-brown leaves, steadily turning into soil. 

This was in the virgin springtime. . .  between Imbolg on the 1st Feb and Beltaine on the 1st May. . .    the earth wears a dress of pale pink. . .  petals drift down from the trees as if in a dream. . .  it is a time of darkness. . .  we are still in the dark half of the year. . .  it swings upon the equinox. . .  the change begins and light starts winning. . .  and then May Day arrives joyous.

 And the Earth changes her dress of virgin white, of palest green and petal rose. She puts on her sky blue summer gown,  her flower-spangled meadow-green.  Handfuls of flowering are happening in every shady grove.  This is the second season of springtime.  It belongs to the light half of the year, it breaths of summer, moist rich growth is everywhere.

We had the wettest April in a hundred years and the vibrant beginnings of wild plants and grass are coming up everywhere in the newly dug soil of my allotment patch.  I love weeding actually, it has taught me so much about patience. . .  it is impatience and dissatisfaction themselves that make a task unpleasant, not the nature of the task itself.

And I have made a lot of mistakes trying to start off my seedlings indoors.  They shot up beautifully growing taller and taller and all too spindly until they just flopped and ended up trailing on the ground.  I need to transplant them really soon to see if the outdoors can put them right, so I'm hurriedly hardening them off, leaving them outside a few hours longer each day.  I felt really down about this at first. . .  and then I remembered about mistakes.  That they are not something to feel negative about, they are so important, its the way we learn knew things, and knowledge is precious – so my mistakes are precious too. 

These photos are by me and are of nests I made from sticks and barbed wire and other things I found, a few years ago when I made a project of gathering things that I found on the ground.  I gathered many small white feathers in the virgin springtime of that year, they were the most precious thing that I found.

A conversation with a Robin

Joe and I were in the woods today in a secluded bower where we love to sit on some old logs surrounded by bushy thickets and tall twisted boughs stretching their myriad fingers high into the clear cool sky. A robin landed in a bush near to us and we both began making little whistling noises hoping it would come nearer. He flew out and landed on a stump between us at a small distance, facing us and began conversing with us in song. Every time one of us whistled he would sing back, sometimes even seeming to pick up on the rhythm of our whistling. He was so alert and so interested in us and his song was so gently sweet, it was quite an incredible experience and really made our day.

The pictures I have used here come from and 1839 children's story called the “Courtship, Marriage and Pic-Nic Dinner of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren.” It is very beautifully illustrated with hand coloured wood engravings.

There are also a lot of other amazing old kids' books in this online collection: http://content.lib.washington.edu/childrensweb/index.html

birds, birds, birds!

The first trees have started blossoming. Others are still in the beauty of their winter nakedness... leaf buds just beginning to appear...  so it is easy to see the birds, the birds, the birds! who have come out to sing in the early spring sunshine in little flocks or in pairs.

The very incredibly round, fluffy and extremely magically small birds in the Linden trees in Linden Grove are blue tits. It's not that easy to tell when you are looking at them from below! Those that were hatched last summer are still not fully grown, so they are a little duller in colour and their faces have not yet turned from yellow to white... they are so tiny that its hard to believe they are real!

 We have acquired an allotment. My mood is a strange mixture of trepidation and excitement. It needs a lot of work. I do love being able to dig in the soil. The backs of my legs are very stiff from bending and my fingernails are grubby from grubbing around in the soil. I can't wait to start growing things and I want us to build a really crazily higgledy-piggledy shed from assorted oddments of recyclable wood that we find... I think of it as urban driftwood...

Image credits and links:

1 " Tree-House" collage by Yitte

2. Blue Tit by Ben Fredericson

3. Driftwood Hut by Dennis Mojado

Sun, Snow and the first signs of Spring

 There has been an oddly mismatched quality to the weather in the past few months. During December we had sunny weather the likes of which was not seen in the Summer. And then, just as the first signs of Spring appeared, Arctic winds swept down from the North, bringing Snow and Ice...

The snow came down like feathers falling in a dream, in the dark of night, and silently. It was caught and cradled in the up-stretched arms of trees, and covered the woodland floor with soft snowy white. The pristine icy whiteness made the sunset gold burn all the warmer.

The little footprints in the foreground are from a small fox that scampered off before we could photograph it.

Now that the snow has melted it really feels like Spring is about to begin. I saw the very tiniest of birds in a Linden tree. I know they were tits, but I am not sure which sort. I only see them at this time of year when the trees are still bare and they come out to pair up in preparation for breeding. It is a sight which quite takes my breath away... they are so incredibly and magically small.

Twelfth Night

The last time I blogged was in early October...  I remember October as a really magical month, with the first golden leaves drifting dreamily down from the still green trees. As Autumn progressed I began to notice how the wood was like a tapestry that was being reworked with warm red-golden stitches among the green as the leaves gradually began to change colour. Everything came alive with a richness of intermingled green and brown and red and orange and gold. Since then every last leaf has fallen... and now there is a certain dullness and greyness to the wood, but it is made up for by the magical winter skies that are captured in the lacework of bare and beautiful branches and twigs... and by the birds that have become visible... roosting in the airy fretwork of slender boughs.

Twelfth Night... the eve of the twelfth day of Christmas... begins today at sundown. (The 12 days start on Boxing day and end on the 6th Jan.) Traditionally the Twelfth night was a time of great celebration. It involved tricks, games and the staging of plays. Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night or What You Will was staged as a culmination of Christmas celebrations. It was... and still often is...  believed to be bad luck to leave Christmas decorations up after Twelfth Night. This is because it was believed that tree-spirits dwelt in the  greenery brought in to the home during the dark days of midwinter. If they were not allowed outside again, disaster would ensue and the vegetation would not start growing again.

H.M. Paget - Bringing in the yule log

The enormous Yule Log that had been dragged in on Christmas Eve and and kept burning all through the twelve days of Christmas was allowed to go out on the twelfth day Christmas. The remnants of the log were kept in the house to protect it from fire and lightning and were used as part of the kindling when lighting the next Yule log. This fire had an important sacred significance originally associated with the  time  leading up to the Winter Solstice when the sun was said to stand still for 12 days,  and hence the days grew shorter and shorter. The Yule fire was kept burning during this time in order to persuade the Sun to move again and bring about the lengthening of days.


In Christian tradition the Twelfth day marks the beginning of Epiphany and celebrates the entrance of the Three Wise Men onto the Nativity scene. My own personal interpretation of the Christmas story is particularly whimsical and my three wise men as well as their elephants come in Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear sizes. There is also a tortoise who is making friends with the littlest elephant.  
 

primitive ceramic nativity set. 20% of the price will be donated to the Red Cross East Africa Food Crisis Appeal

Indian Summer

PricklePin takes a bath

Its too hot to think … too hot to move. I am enjoying having a break from my usual dark, cool inner rain-gloom... and yet I miss it all the same. Only days ago I noticed the first trees turning their own special shade of Autumn's ruddy warm golden brown. Already ruffles of fallen leaves decorate the pavements... even while we are having the Summer that never came.

PricklePin the hedgehog has been taken on a long journey. To where he could be released in a safe place. Here he is, eating his farewell meal. I made him a special little “cake” decorated with sultanas and biscuits. We miss him and will never forget the mysterious nocturnal magic he brought into our lives.

of forest and of field

 The oak trees are dropping their summer's growth of acorns on the ground....

Fields, newly turned after the wheat harvest are redolent with the smell of manure....

The young moorhens are old enough to climb and make their ungainly way up into the branches of trees that overhang the pond... led there by their parents to escape potential dangers. We never realised that moorhens hid in this way until sighting them roosting awkwardly in the trees recently.

I don't know  how they do it quite,

their feet are so huuuuuuuuge.