A few small things...
stone, old fox, three owls
Hello lovely readers and writers, creatives and dreamers, thank you for being here. Knowing your time is precious makes me grateful beyond words for your presence.
I probably asked the same question last year at this same time, all the years before too, but I am compelled by the sheer speed of passing days to say it again. How, in the name of all heavenly seasons, are we almost half way through the year already when I am still wearing fur lined boots and jumpers? What did I miss?
Spring is finding every way conceivable to be contrary, every day feels like a different season. My tomato plants are shivering, the aubergines too, courgettes are curling up their leaves in attempt to stay warm and chilies cringe in the chill air, every fragile plant is shocked into super-cooled stagnancy as a cold north-west wind whips up the valley gathering delightedly in vim and vigour as it climbs. By the time its gnarly northern fingers curl around the hill it is an excited monster with biting mouth and whipping tail, slaying every frail victim in its path.
I had goosebumps for the ten days!
Three owlets;
I have just returned through dusky light from a quick visit to a nursery, a three baby owl nursery... I could hear them calling mom for their supper delivery with their baby owl voices, tchk-tchk-tchchchk, from the canopy of mingling ash and wild cherry leaves. But, alas, the dusk was too dusky and the leaves too lush and I watched, more than a little glumly, only one departing silhouette. Hitching up my disappointment, I walked back up the hill thinking maybe tomorrow I'll be lucky.1
The following evening; a fierce north wind is blowing back and forth surfing the barley-waves left in its wake, I am returning home from the valley, winding my way up—the wind on may face smooths the lines of my years; a temporary makeover, cool right?—I follow cattle tracks worn eons before my own through meadows drenched in fragrant musky suds of meadowsweet and oxeye-daisy, buttercups entwined with curling vines of vetch and white ipomoea. Honeysuckle tangles in drifts of eglantine rose in the hedges, their petals like hundreds of white hearts picked up in the wind blow hither and thither…
Are you breathing in all that gorgeousness? Good…
At the bank where badgers roam. Though it is not yet dusk—too early for black and white snouts to venture from their labyrinthine homes—I idle a while, sit in the sway and swathes of waving grasses. Just in case there’s a wild’n in there. Just in case a wayward cub too curious to wait for permission to ‘run along and play’ steals out in defiance. But it’s not yet June, the setts are quiet. It’s of no never mind, I know they’re there, I know they beat the baiters… for another year at least.
I zig-zag through narrow stretches of woodland splitting three fields that converge just behind my own borrowed parcel of trees. Birds are beginning to quieten, crickets still loudly rejoice as they have a tendency to on a dry evening. They pay no heed to cold winds. I weave my way quietly through the trees, dawdle amongst the rustling of leaves. I turn into the last stand of young, slender ash trees. As I let my eyes adjust to the gloom I hear a call I recognise, I stand and listen again, a tchk-tchk-tchchchk, followed by a warning click-click of beak. I stop, stand motionless, my eyes peering into the darkness curving around tree trunks, up through the canopies of leaves. Could it be them, again?
One young Tawny owl flies off, still clicking, clumsy in flight, not quite sure of its feathers yet, lands in a branch behind me. I can hear unsteady wings, an unsteady landing, I am imagining the wobble just as I catch a slight movement in front…
Two of three owlets, curious, unafraid, are staring at me from a branch barely ten feet above. I stifle a shriek of joy then another of dismay. I am ill equipped for such a beautiful image to be captured for eternity and know instantly this is probably the first and only time luck will grant me even momentary company with two pairs of chocolate-button owl eyes at the same time and, they are staring right at me, are as motionless as I am, I try hard to be small, to sink into the murk of woodland floor, to not stare back, to bring camera to eye…
For a few short seconds I was blessed in their quiet, observant presence, too soon, opening young wings, with a final click of curved beak, they fly through the now near darkness and are gone. I have just one fuzzy shot, its enough.
Old Fox; I have been on my feet since dawn, a comfortable seat, or so it seems, was not part of this days plannings. It’s been a tricky day, I was told, too bluntly for comfort 2‘tu es vieille’ by a one of my angelic charges—I would have shed tears but, from the mouths of babes—then, as if this one ache is not sufficient weight to carry, I swim in a whole constellation of stars yet to be discovered when a rugby ball slams into my temple whilst I shiver on the sidelines of a school match in a still brutal north-wind.
The day has left its marks. But it is not yet ended, there is still time for healing. I gather up my aches with an idea to sit on the outcrop at the top of the hill a while. Watch a few clouds, maybe the house martens swooping for flies, the wild wind—ever the hedonist—still surfing the barley, let the chill in the air anaesthetise the days wounds.
I don’t count the minutes that pass while tending my one curable wound—nothing cures ageing except death I realise—from the corner of one weepy eye I glimpse movement that is nothing to do with the gusts, except that I am sitting downwind and as such unnoticed by Old Fox who appears from prickly thickets. I do my best at shrinking to invisibility though I needn’t have bothered, he appears oblivious of this spectator. Oblivious of everything except his hunt for small creatures he knows are plentiful in a freshly cut meadow. As predatory as he is—we’ve had our run-ins—I admire has a fine chestnut coat and thick brush, his almost portly belly, he has feasted well this spring and I am gladder than glad. Perhaps my hens will be safe a while longer.
Stone; This morning, a smidge before sunrise, on the lane behind the house laying half hidden by overhanging daisies haggling with gypsophila for their rightful place, I find a perfectly smooth, honey-coloured, oval stone. In the half light it holds a curiously magnetic luminosity. I pick it up intrigued, turn it over in my hand, find it heavier than I expect. It has fine white lines and marks that look like another undiscovered galaxy of stars running through its dense make up. Certainly it isn’t a hill stone, not even could it be a stone from within a hundred of miles of the hill, maybe even a hundred-thousand! Then, I notice, shining faintly on the surface, shimmering golden in gathering light, a symbol I could swear is a heart. I feel a slight tremble threatening as curiosity wavers at the edge of superstition.
One could believe a stone such as this to be something precious; a fairy stone perhaps. Whatever it is or wherever it come from, it has been a warm treasure in my pocket ever since.3
Briefly; For three days I have been feasting on handfuls of tiny sweet mulberries, picked straight from the tree. I pass often.
“Thus do the gods speak with tiny causes.”
― John Steinbeck,
Five years ago, apparently—thank you Apple—I picked bowls and buckets full of glistening, crimson globes then wondered why I hadn’t just left them for the birds because what the devil does one do with that many cherries? This year there isn’t a single cherry worth picking on any one of three trees and yet elsewhere they are plentiful. I wonder, do cherry trees need a ritual beating at the beginning of spring like walnut trees?
If I squint my eyes, I can see remnants of the past on the hill, the faintest lines where once stood a hedge, the scattered stones of a dismantled dry-stone wall, I wish I could find comfort in those traces…
With once again belated windswept love
The above is a comment I left on Sunday evening after I read Baby Bird Day To You by David E. Perry. For those of you who don’t know David, let me tell you, he has a way of making smiles with his lilting words and sublime photography that makes one feel like everything in the world is just fine and dandy. His discerning eye is capable of seeking out from the darkest of places tiny miracles most of us would never even imagine. I could learn much from a gentleman like David…
You are old.
An hour ago, my beloved found another… curiouser and curiouser!
Picturing the scenes. Such beautifully woven words.
I can feel your excited northern monster here Susie, reading your words. We are catching some of his wake, with wind and rain, but I am hopeful for a return to sunshine soon. What wonderful glances of old fox and young owl - I am transported and transfixed and so glad of your fuzzy photo, magical indeed. Sending much love and wishes for a warm weekend 💛✨