Category: Rural Idyll
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Clearing joys
It was a hard job, but somebody had to do it! Over the years I’ve been accumulating defunct items in a corner of the field. The weeds have overgrown the small heap so it was as if there was nothing there. But I knew the day of reckoning would arrive, and yesterday morning it did.…
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Ineffable delight of the alpine orchids
Orchids seem so exotic, and possibly because of that it’s a wonderful pleasure to find them growing wild on our own little patch of Eden. On such a sturdy flower spike, or inflorescence, put out by the broad-leaved marsh orchid that’s found an excellent habitat in these upland fellsides, upwards of 40 separate blooms cluster,…
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After the move . . .
I can’t say ‘job done’ yet because it’s not; there’s the small matter of the biosecurity netting, which has the additional advantage of protecting the chicken feed from the jackdaws and pheasants. But that’s a task for this morning, with any luck. Meanwhile, with the chickens ensconced (apparently happily, but really, who knows for chickens?)…
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Chicken moving joys
So yesterday I finally cleared all of February’s hawthorn hedge trimmings from the potato patch, and pulled out this spring’s encroaching nettles. I thought I’d leave the newly sprouting potatoes, emerging from the wanton tubers I’d missed during the past year’s harvest, for the chickens to scratch around. But then I wondered, hmmm, potatoes are…
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The yellow water lilies are getting ready to bloom
Although there were some stiff breezes when we set out for a late-morning walk, the ambience was tranquil as we moved deeper into the marshland. Our eyes were caught by the plentiful buds of water lillies, which should open soon to provide a splash of vibrant yellow across the murky marsh water. I recall presenting…
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Delights of the bluebell woods
We walked up out of the little burgh, past the Golf Club and on into the woods. The trails in these woods are, as I discovered in one of my Googling researches, maintained by the Local Initiative New Galloway group, LING for short. Anyway, we were on a mission to check out the bluebells, which…
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Sometimes, the joy is better the longer the wait . . .
When my mower, aka Plough-poo-mulcher, bit the dust a month ago, I despaired. I could see that nobody here in the UK stocks a replacement part for the mowing deck any longer; it’s long been retired. But the John Deere brand is hugely popular stateside (apparently we can thank the invention of the mass-produced steel…
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Unexpected joy on a frosty morning . . .
The world is a small place. I thought I’d take a quick snap of the lovely sparkling frost covering the garden this morning, and when I returned to the kitchen table to upload the image, my brother’s snap of his own frosty morning (yesterday’s) pinged into the laptop. Our mother related with great glee how…
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A moonlight experience on the high fells
I’m delighted to add a guest experience to the joyful collection today. Jeff Richardson writes about the midnight perambulation I alluded to a week or so ago: “Couldn’t sleep Saturday night so went for a walk — set out on my adventures about 12, into a night illuminated by a full moon. Walking down the…
Roads to Joy 