relativity goes tits up

Our neighbours all report seeing long tailed tits regularly in their gardens but they seem to avoid our feeders (too full of hungry sparrows?) so it was very pleasing to see one (on the frozen apple tree) for the first time today.

two suggested universal laws of nature:-

1. Buy any garden furniture or barbecue equipment after 1st March  and it will rain incessantly until September.

2. Put some fertiliser and weed killer on a grass lawn and it will not rain again for several months.

Clearly these two laws must interact, and this would suggest that you should only buy garden furniture a day or so after fertilising the lawn, or conversely fertilising the lawn several hours after buying garden furniture. This may be one of those higher dimensional problems with a solution in an alternative universe.

getting on with life

a walk on Bodmin moor on a stunning day, a raven flying above us all, and below Spot recharging his endorphin levels after what has been a period of obvious uncertainty for him after his mother's death.

Cassie's demise has left an emptiness in our house. It has left me pondering why we experience grief. As an emotion it seems to have no biological value at all unlike every other emotion, all of which seem to map on to some sort of survival activity. I do not share the view that animals are mindless automatons, I think their minds are just not quite like ours, but I suspect we are the only animals to experience grief (perhaps elephants?) and so maybe it is the price we pay for our ability to articulate that we are alive.  If so it feels like a bad deal.

paradise found

the meadows at Greenscoombe are full now of butterfly orchids (the lesser variety) which are slender and have a barely detectable but sweet fragrance. There is in these things a deep sense of joy in having lived at all in this vast cosmos, and to know that one has lived.

for all fellow bloggers these lines from Milton seem very apposite

For who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity...

 

flow

this picture captures better than most the hectic flow in our little babbling brooks. My friend Brian , who occasionally makes an appearance in the comment columns as the Rationalist, and who is, I have just learnt, the celebrated author of the seminal work on de-umbilification, drew my attention to a passage in the Book of Silence by Sara Maitland which I want to quote in its entirety because it describes what we seek on our walks and occasionally find.

" And there, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, I slipped a gear, or something like that. There was not me and the landscape, but a kind of oneness: a connection as though my skin had been blown off. More than that - as though the molecules and atoms I am made of had reunited themselves with the molecules and atoms that the rest of the world is made of. I felt absolutely connected to everything. It was very brief, but it was a total moment."

For me these moments seem timeless, and above all I feel present and deeply interconnected, the boundaries have dissolved, but it is wordless, pre-verbal; and Spot shares this with me. It is not thought free, in fact it feels deeply thoughtful but wordless, unconstructed, unlabelled. I think it must be how we thought before we used names to crystallise out the world around us, and perhaps is similar to the inner mental space of other creatures like Spot.

the road to Norton manor

Spot has been thinking. He is pleased to be a part of the 14th cosmic billennium (abb), and a small part of planet Earth's 5th billennium. As a billenniard (or should that be billionaire) he thinks it is amazing that he should enjoy a four hour walk followed by biscuits, because he is very very small in comparison to some things he has seen at the Galaxy Zoo (link), and yet there is room in the universe for his tiny pleasures. He has taken to thinking about the journey he makes, and has calculated that his life as a fraction of all the time that has passed, is as long as one millimeter on a journey of about a million miles. That is not very far to get, is it? Maybe it is the travelling that counts. And yet American bankers have lost trillions of dollars, and British bankers pay themselves about the same amount per year in pensions. How did they get it all into one suitcase?

let the trumpets sound

sorry about the lack of new photographs, but the weather has turned cold, damp and grey so walking has become an exercise in wet coats and muddy paws. I always find the period after Christmas very dreary, and February is the dreariest month of all.

Why is it that ecologists and greens are so elitist and unfriendly? I know humanity is the problem, and we are busily eating the planet, but we are also the only solution. If we head back to some false, imaginary, Elysian past, women will be the main sufferers; the life of unremitting toil will return. What Spot and I try and do is to share the joy of the world around us in the hope that more people will learn to value and cherish it. Should we worry that blogging and googling is supposed to keep kettles boiling? And maybe we do not hear enough about the qualifications and reservations that often follow statements of doom. And Venus is a lot closer to the sun, and only rotates about once every 8 months, so it is not a model of where we are heading.

We have to embrace change without alienating people, and we have to take all of humanity with us if anything is to change.

despondency

Spot and I are feeling very despondent for reasons that can be understood by studying the difference between these two meadows. The bottom meadow is in France and is full of wild flowers, the top meadow is nearby and has little in it other than thistles and trefoil. The total lack of species diversity in our home meadows makes them a biological desert. Why oh why is the agricultural pound valued so much more than the life pound? Just a little bit of husbandry (care) creates an environment where wild life and flora can flourish without detracting from our ability to feed ourselves. The French appear much more sympathetic to the rhythm and demands of Nature and practice a traditional agriculture that sustains the wild. We try to be optimistic and open and to share the joy of life here but the land is being suffocated by greed and idleness.

Stoke Climsland

another year goes by. Very little has changed in the view of the village from Kit Hill, caught in the lovely soft low light of evening in late autumn, although for us many things have changed. I sometimes wonder where these changes reside because often they lack any materiality. When you look at these images, imagine the millions upon millions of invisible connections and relations of all the people before you, their memories, thoughts and emotions; in what space do they lie?

armchair philosopher's mission statement

my leitmotif is to give you an ersatz zeitgeist, the weltanschauung from my rucksak, to blitz you with my wanderlust. I am no dumbkopf but a wunderkind of dobermen, a meister hund; this is no bildungsroman but a festschrift of canine schmalz. Donne und blitzen (as the comics used to say)! I am off for some bratwurst and riesling, and gesundheit meine freunde, while I abseil off the planet before I am overwhelmed by my torschlusspanik (no, I haven't heard of this one either but I've got it) .

All this induced by one visit to the vet

Venterdon

... the little village of Venterdon. Sam Davy died on Tuesday and did not live to see this fine evening. He lived here all his life. He was a lovely man. He knew about gardens and growing things, but he hated collies, for good reason I think, because he was one of the three people Uncle Max has bitten (the other two were more deserving of a good biff). Life is sad sometimes. Goodbye Sam.

ripples

these are water boatmen. I think I am right in thinking that they transmit their size and fitness by stamping their feet and sending out ripples across their watery space time continuum, a paradigm for all of us in a way I suppose. The guy at the top left is pretty tough, and the guy at bottom right is in a state of learned helplessness, lacks agency and the will to live in this pond, and therefore is depressed. The moral of this picture is therefore the more you wag your tail and the more you stamp your paws the better it will be.

Harriet Ford

...our adventuress, leaping across the same raging torrent just for fun before rescuing Dad and carrying him to safety in imitation of her pin up whose picture she has over her basket; it is also the case that we have reached the season of our discontent for the first time and are inclined to wander off looking wistful, wearing make up, and generally fooling around like all adolescents. Oh, cruel youth.

And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.
"I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea..
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/eliot/additional.htm


The river is very low despite the recent rains.

fractals

Apparently my surfaces cannot be defined in single dimensions, I am hugely more complicated (x1.333) than this. Hence, it appears that my journey around the Tamar may not have an end. This is a fractal rock with sand grains. Harriet however is simply fractious (x 1.67).

winner takes all

well, it was an enormous show with folks from all over the place and the world Luckett, Liskeard, Callington, Trebinthar, Tresinthat, Tredunit, America and Croydon. I came first in everything except the pairs where Spot let us down by being black and spotty, although he did come fourth in the crossbreeds (only just I thought) and then it was me FIRST, FIRST, FIRST and BEST BEST, now I'm off for a bit of spar therapy and to do my claws, Dad where's my mirror? love you all, kisses
Harriet the BEST

terzanelle for anonymous

Spot finds villanelles tough but terzanelles ...

thanks for stimulating his interest.

.......................................................................................

I saw a dappled fish gleaming

To leap and take the fly

And fall back to waters teaming

.......

To disappear beneath the silver sky

Full of life and dreaming

To leap and take the fly

.......

Swifts arrow in, and screaming,

To touch the water with a sigh

Full of life and dreaming,

....

As willows watch the running by,

Waiting as they always do

To touch the water with a sigh,

....

Their roots contorted so, to

Touch the earth, absorb, or die

Waiting as they always do.

....

Of this I know not the meaning

Except our time is short and so I

Touch the Earth, absorb or die,

And fall back to waters teaming.

.....

Spot, one I wrote today

Kit Hill twinkles

further to my reflections on the Terrano (our four wheel drive monster) you will notice that there appear to be stars in the water. Is this another galaxy? Is this more evidence for alternative lurcher universes where I am called Blaze and was invited to THE party? It reminds me somehow of the snow last year (see http://tamar-valley-life.blogspot.com/2005/11/twigs.html )

training

Sundays:-It is so wet and miserable today that we have had to amuse ourselves by training the boss. Here he is giving us a Bonio after a lot of whining and moaning (it takes a lot of effort, really) when he knows he should be taken for a walk but he insists on standing at the window and talking about moving to France. Will he take me? Should I be worried? I hear the poodles there are very haughty. Is that halo above his head significant?

water for thought

water, cool, dark, filthy; best in old flower pots, puddles that have been stomped about in, or in byres and old algae ridden troughs. Cow puddles are a particular delicacy. Uncle Max can only take water in stiff mud (while saying "here's mud in your eye"). It is also important to take every opportunity to immerse oneself in dirty water. On emerging, vigorous shaking will help humans to appreciate the existential wetness of it and they will often show their appreciation by throwing something else into the water to get you wet again. Humans are very strange about water. They like to sit in it. They keep a supply all to themselves in small rooms dotted about the house, in tall porcelain bowls. They will not let us drink this water but often disappear for long periods into these drinking rooms; as always it seems to me they keep the best for themselves.

peace and quiet

Sadly, the boss's camera has got to go in for a clean, there is more dirt on the CCD than photons. This may give me a chance for some more philosophical musing on a dog's life; two bees or not (this is a profound mathematical question for those who use base one maths). Anyway, no new pictures for a couple of days; maybe some archive footage will be available.


lots of love Spot, and Harri who came third.

on the art of barking

Barking is an important part of my life. It must always be loud and purposeful. Bark whenever someone you know wants to gain entry to your house, otherwise remember it is rude to bark at strangers. Find someone to bark with, this is much more fun, especially if conducted as a polyphonal chant in separate and discordant keys. Bark meaningfully, that is imagine you are looking at a large snake and cannot understand why no one else can see it. Try barking at night, this always sounds much louder and will impress everyone so much they will get up to listen to you more closely. Make sure the barking noise is set at a frequency that everyone can hear, you will notice a pleasant look will cross their faces, and they will often join in by barking back, usually in the limited form of a shirrup noise repeated in a rising crescendo. Yipping is also fun but needs someone to yip with, for example get your best friend to lie across the middle step of a flight of stairs then yip to pretend you can't go up, and when friend has been forcibly removed and you are at the top of the stairs, yip again because you can't get down. Never do anything without barking. Barking is part of the inexpressible rightness of being (thank you, Kundera).

thanks to the boss for his helpful comments and criticism.
Spot