Month: February 2022
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Simple tidiness is more than its own reward
I’ve never been the tidiest person, so on the occasion (rare) when I do tidy the place up, and when I sit back and look at the space that’s emerged from a jumble of accumulated stacks of papers, I have to laugh at myself admiring the neatness! That huge expanse of white, upon which my…
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Harbinger of snow . . .
My brother wrote to me that Sunday morning had turned into a beautiful bright and dazzling snowfest, and also, incidentally, that inspired by my bird feeding musings, he seems to have got the new suet block feeder up just in time! The little birds are very keen already, as his photo shows. I’m wondering if…
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Where do things start?
Sometimes I think that things need to percolate a bit, or maybe it’s more like stewing, but after the simmering, new projects emerge almost as if they’re fully formed. But they have to start somewhere. The current tally of nest boxes around our little smallholding, up on the high fellside of Sparty Lea, is seven…
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Great bar snacks . . .
Delighted to serve you, sparrow friend. Your presence has brought a little joy into our kitchen. Not so colourful as their colleagues the blue tits, the chaffinches or gold finches, nor so cheeky as our cock robin, nevertheless the chatter of the hedge sparrows and the dunnocks, when the wild bird seed is laid out…
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The painted lady
This month’s visual stimulus at VisualVerse.org (February 2022, or Volume 9 Chapter 4) was very confusing to me, and elicited no response at all from my poetic sensibility, until I remembered a feeling from only a week or so ago. ~So, this short poem is in a classic format: Shakespearean sonnet in iambic pentameter, alternate…
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A bridge too far
I didn’t realise there was a bridge out there, high on the fellside above Sparty Lea, until I inspected this photograph more closely. When I finally clocked it, it reminded me of the little stock bridge down at the bottom, over Swinhope Burn, that also carries the telephone line for our cottages. That bridge safeguards…
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All the comforts
Up here on the high fellside, our beloved neighbour has developed his artistic hobby to a high degree, and intriguing birdhouses line the walls of our sheds. This one, a verbatim copy of my man-cave, the eponymous ‘Elf Hole,’ delivered with aplomb on my birthday, is meant to accommodate a friendly blue tit family. When…
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If you plant it, they will come . . .
In the film ‘Field of Dreams‘ Kevin Costner, responding to some bidding voice — ‘If you build it, they will come’ — builds a baseball diamond out of a section of his corn field, and the iconic baseball players of the past, including and most especially his deceased father, appear to play an enchanted game.…
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Orientations . . .
Everyone knows that the ancients who built Stonehenge orientated it to align with the sunrise at the solstices. Similarly, barrows in Scotland may have a long passageway that is only fully illuminated on one morning of the year. The due diligence of the ancient astronomers who built their calendars so precisely is justly lauded. But…
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Does abundance of ‘choice’ bring joy?
I have to start this piece with the caveat that I do not know the answer to my question. I only have some examples that have stimulated my musing today. The first example comes from our daily Wordle grappling. We sit opposite each other, first thing in the morning, and try to wrestle our minds…
Roads to Joy 