Onward March!

There goes another month, and although Winter has not completely been put to bed and indeed there was a frost this morning, the worst of the cold should be over.  That said, I never dump my thermals until the end of April.

The ground has dried up much sooner than usual and I think I've missed the 'roller window' for the fields - that's the time between the very wet ground being too cloggy for the rollers and then, sometimes only days later, it being too dry for the rolling to do any good.

The snowdrops are going over, the primroses have started sprouting in the hedgerow banks and the daffodils - those that didn't flower in December! - are out and blowing around in the high winds.  I even found a cluster of daffydowndillies up in a remote south-facing hillside on Grabbist and have been wondering since how they got there.

Greenfire has started along the Exmoor lanes.  Just a tiny wavelet of grass below the hedges will soon be followed by strands of nettle and wildflower growth and in a month or so, a mass verdant climb-away will light the hawthorn buds.  When they open fully, come May, the whole world will be properly alive again.

Lambing is over for one of my friends and only just beginning for another.  Farmer Joanna wanted hers out of the way early - she's gone to Australia for a wedding now - and Farmer Caroline's season kicked off at the weekend. No signs in either flock of the awful viral disease that has struck this year - Schmallenberg - but 121 farms in the south of England have now had cases confirmed and there's nothing anyone can do except hope.  The virus, believed to be midge-borne, causes deformities in lambs, which can only be detected at lambing time.  It also affects cattle but so far the reports have been mostly in the sheep community.

No Exmoor pony foals yet - it's a bit early, although they have been known to appear at this time.   A notable one, later called 'Bat-and-Ball' was born on the village cricket pitch about ten years ago. His mother has a habit of finding great spots to drop her excess baggage!

That's your lot for now.

Oh no, not quite: Patsy has nominated me for something called a 'Sunshine Award' and although I'm not sure I deserve such a thing - let's face it I'm hardly a regular Blogger - I would quite like to accept it. But before I do I'd better find out:
a) how I cart it over here and
b) what exactly I'm meant to do afterwards.

Something about putting Things About Myself on the web for any passing T,D or H to read and something about Passing On the Sunshine.  We'll see!  This little backwater blog of mine doesn't get many passers-by and I'm quite happy with that. It is, after all, just a Memory-Jog- Blog for the various Celiae Personae (don't ask, but I am Not Alone and neither are you!) rather than anything more serious or useful.

Dark of the Moon

From down in the Hamlet Hollow there was a fabulous view of the midnight sky last night - I even saw a shooting star and made a wish on it.  The Dark of the Moon is quite the best time for observing the night heavens and being so far from towns and light pollution, the Moor offers a perfect viewing environment: hence it has been nominated a 'Dark Park'. No doubt there will be Star Tourists soon ...

The owls, unimpressed by such magnificence, were shrieking their heads off and twitting to one another in the surrounding woodlands.  They have no sense of awe.  One of them had the audacity to do a fly-past so close I felt its swoop and saw its shape - but heard nothing.  Owl wings are rounded on the leading edges, to give them near-silent flight. Good trick if you're hunting I suppose.

I really haven't got anything useful to say, but Tosh had a go at me for my lack of posting, so here's the (probably only) February Offering.

Enjoy.

Mooncast Rainbows

A high bright moon, just over full (they call this phase waning gibbous) lit my route along the lane to the horses at 6am this morning.  The air was fresh but very moist and high overhead in the sky in front of me arched a mooncast rainbow.  I've not seen one of these for many years and it was absolutely beautiful, its arc-bands in different tones of a kind of purple rather than in definitely different colours.

Look up, if ever you're out walking in the dark of a winter's night and there's rain in the offing but the moon's full and bright behind you.  Look up, enjoy yet another of nature's free lightshows and be glad to be alive.

Something Fishy

I've just been going through some old photos and found this little gem.  He's a Lalique angel fish belonging to a friend. Isn't he just lovely?  He has a curious 'opalescence' if that's the right word and appears to change colour in different lights but I couldn't capture it on my camera.
Photographs are great inspiration for short stories ... so I'd better get on with a Fishy Tale

When I'm rich and famous I'm going to collect pretty things like this!

A Room with a View

This is the view today from my kitchen window.  I love it.

Three weeks ago all I could see was a tree-hedge the height of the remains of the offending article to the back right of the photo.

For many years, the owner of that hedge refused to have it cut down, despite my neighbour and me offering to help pay for the work. Poor Mrs A had bought her cottage for this view but and within a few years had lost it, completely in summer and partially in winter - until the Americans solved the problem. They'd bought another cottage just out of sight to the left and the 30ft wild and unruly 'hedge' was blocking their view entirely.

They set to doing The Obvious Thing: they bought the field as well.  They got a local chap and his boys to cut and lay the hedge and burn off the rubbish.  It looks a little stark now, in the dark January light but come spring, all will be well again.

Now we've all got our lovely view of the hills back!  I can see the 800 year old oak tree (it's dead, but one of its daughters is growing in its bowl) and the buzzards that land on it. I can see the deer as they pass through, the foxes going about their lives, and I can see the moon set right down into the rim of the world.

God bless America(ns)

Finding North

Finding North can be a tricky number.  To make things easier, I bought myself a compass last year - it looks like a tiny hunter watch, complete with a lid and a spring-loaded opening button and a clip-on hook.  But with a little effort, I can make north be anywhere from north-north-east to west-north-west. It's all very well having such control over the earth, but if I want to know true north ...

I go outside, away from any magnetic influences in the cottage.

It's night. From where I live the Milky Way is pretty clear and at the right time I can pick out lots of constellations, my favourite being Orion because he's so easy to spot.  Ursa Major - the Plough, the Big Dipper, the Drinking Gourd, whatever you want to call it - is opposite Orion and supposedly points north.  But is that a bit north or very north? And which part of it is the final reference point?

Out with the compass.  The little needle trembles in my hand, unsure of its reception or its future if it cocks my orienteering up yet again.  It says east is north. Frowning, I tilt it a little and the red part of the needle suddenly ungums itself and swings round several degrees.  It settles.

You sure?  That's North?  You don't want to ask the audience or anything?

No, the needle stays pointing towards Easter Farm.  To test it, I turn around and face the other way and the needle sways, wobbles and points back the way I've come.

Fine. I've found North.  I chalk a white line on the flat topstone of the wall.

In the morning, I'll get out the ladder and fix the weathervane.

Until then, navigators wanting to know which way the wind is blowing will have to lick a finger, hold it to the wind and check their own bloomin' compass ...

The Scotland Diaries: Part Two - Ashes to Ashes

Just a quick one, to bring the year to its close:

There was a death in the family recently - no excuse for not writing but it's the only one you're gonna get so make the most of it - and it has Been Decided that next year we will return the Dear Departed's remains to Scotland.

So should you be passing Loch Awe some darkening evening (see above) and you notice several furtive-lookin' blokes and a now-ash-blonde dame apparently shaking a huge pepper mill out over the silver waters ... you'll know it's just the family releasing Mum back into the wild where she belongs.

Knowing her sense of humour she'll get into all our eyes and up our noses and refuse point blank to be ejected over the loch because she never could stand deep water.  She'll blow away on the wind, up the mountains and into the free far north where her ashes will dissipate over the Beloved Country with those of my father and grandfather and all who have gone before.

Requiescat in pace