the great escape

"don't worry lambkin it is only a car full of dogs".

No one knows to whom these runaways belong. It looked very like the morning school run.

crossing the Zambesi and other boaring stories

the pack bravely crossing the mighty Inny. On the other side there were some unusual signs of much grubbing around, including areas of grass stripped off. These look suspiciously like the activities of escaped pigs or even possibly wild boars, which were released from a farm not far from us a few years ago. On the other side of the bank we found this large pawprint, definitely not a horse, and big for the small deer that live in the woods locally ... but not obviously with dew claws like a boar (see this link for an interesting guide to field signs of wild boar).
..

the road up to our village

the daffodils on the hill up to the village have been out since December (because of the mixture of early and late varieties). In the distance to the right the Temple is visible (see earlier photo) watched over by the large dairy herd.

walk 3 ...

more evidence of how our world has turned brown including one solitary celandine peeping through the fallen leaves.

walk 2 ...and the butterbur

the butterbur is late this year. This is giant butterbur, rather than our native butterbur which is much pinker

walk 1 ...and so it was

somewhat earlier than usual, but there nevertheless as anticipated, the gruesome purple toothwort. Not a speck of green, although some celandine is growing up through the bed of toothwort

orange things

last night's fiery sunset, and some fresh scarlet elf cups from this morning's walk. People are saying that this Spring will be very exuberant because the cold has delayed most plants and everything will come into flower at once. Elf cups appear in late winter and early Spring. Tomorrow we might go in search of the purple toothwort

a brown time

one of the stranger consequences of this long cold dry period is that everything has turned a light brown. Normally at this time of year (and all year) Cornwall is a rich vivid green. But no grass is growing yet, and the landscape looks as if Nature has taken to painting in watercolours. The sun is still quite low in the sky and in the morning and evening the world around us has taken on a novel hue.

For the last couple of weeks a pair of jackdaws have taken to sitting in a fir tree overlooking our garden. One of them is making a sound like a creaking branch or a very rough purr. I can't find any reference to this call but I assume it is a love poem. They are very interesting birds.

the road to Down House

the little lane down to Down House is once again full of colour, and the first Spring daffodils are coming into flower with the snowdrops and crocuses

please take me for a walk

Some creatures have started their work for the year. Some are just lounging about looking pathetic

a thicket of thorns

the male wrens are chirping away very vigorously, and are often very hard to see in the hedges and thickets. As the link says they have very loud voices for such diminutive birds. I also like the idea (probably due to my lack of classical education) that they are the cave dwellers' cave dweller.

Seaton

it has been a very sunny but chilly day. For a change we went for a walk at Seaton. There was not much to see just yet but it is a very pretty wooded valley and a popular place to walk the dogs on a Sunday morning. And every one was happy and smiling.

the first one of the year

ladybird looking a bit drowsy, still trying to hibernate, one of the markers of Spring which we are meant to record

two snowdrops and a crocus

a few flower photos to keep us on blog until things liven up once more

St David's day

not our native daffodils, but a celebration of St David's day anyway at the entrance to Khyl Cober, a little housing estate on the way into the village

a very small visitor

a wren, posing for a quick portrait before getting on with whatever it is doing ...eating insects or nesting?

primroses

primroses have been adding a splash of yellow for some time. And today, in the milder weather, the first celandines have appeared

at the end of the road

by some happy chance there was gold at the end of the lane this evening.

stackins

more catkins (nothing else wild is out yet except snowdrops, of which we have blogged enough for this year)

green tips

the greening effect of the metals in the spoil tip is very obvious at this time of year.

inner piece

freshly laid in a puddle full of it, I wonder.

more about addicroft

well, here is a testament to the power of the web. By looking up Addicroft and coming across this site (link) about memories of Cornwall, I discovered that Addicroft Mill was the home of Thelwell, the amazing cartoonist (this is a link to his site which is well worth a visit if you need cheering up) of fat ponies and oversized riders, amongst much else. His autobiography, which I have not read, is entitled "A millstone round my neck" about this very place. I confess to borrowing this picture from his web site, but I hope it will introduce more people to his humour.

four finches and a moon

Spring remains in abeyance and as a result there isn't much to photograph just yet. Nevertheless these male chaffinches are polishing up their plumage for the mating season and hanging out together looking for trouble, just like the kids on the block. We have just finished watching the story of Luna, the orca together (dogs and humans that is). We all share the view that there are deep connections between us that transcend the barrier created by spoken language. It has made me think about the meaning of sentimental(ity). I tend to use it I think to disparage feeling. It is derived from the latin word sentire, to feel. Maybe if it is used to mean feeling or sensitivity to the mental state of others without words it is in fact a very useful concept.

post script (25/Feb/10) .... after orca eats woman story from Sea World, Florida today, I wouldn't have let my 7 year olds stroke Luna no matter how sentimental I felt.

Addicroft

Addicroft is a little hamlet in the Lynher valley between Kerney bridge at Golberdon, and Rilla Mill, just above Plushabridge. This is one of the quietest and prettiest places in the valley. There is nothing to say what this old ruin was, and it is not marked on the OS map. Maybe it is the site of the old mill even though it is well above the river.

almost there

the catkins (lambs' tails) are well out now although everything else is waiting for something ... like a bit of warmth.

a lovely evening

of snowdrops and molehills

it is not only above the ground that we can see some signs of life flowing back into the cold blue veins of Winter's dead hand upon the landscape. Below the ground some small folk are becoming very active. This molehill is enormous and suggests that the builder was unimpressed by any metaphorical reference to a certain lack of ambition by moles and was single handedly setting out to change the world. In the top picture note the hairy dugong in the Inny.

on the road to Horsebridge

two views of lanes, one to the major metropolis of Pempwell (top), the other (bottom pic) to the ancient bridge over the Tamar (Horsebridge, or Horsa's bridge) across which lies the equally ancient hostelry, the Royal Inn, in Devon, England (Dartmoor is visible on the horizon). Just to the right of the lower picture you can see another of our little finger posts.

the crocus is out

whatever the weather, the crocuses are out. Crocus is also slang for a quack doctor.

frozen spawn

there was a sudden profusion of frog spawn about 10 days ago in every puddle and ditch. Today they are all frozen solid. I hope this does no harm. I doubt it; if they were that sensitive they would never survive the average English Spring.

Down House Snowdrops

snowdrops on the drive to Down House

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.

life in a snowdrop

we have been out experimenting with a long neglected Sigma 105 macro lens. It is very different. The snowdrop is one of the complex multi flowered heads that grow wild locally, the drop is for fun although it gives me the germ of an idea.