All I gathered in the wind...
a memory of autumn, robin, rat and road roller...
Hello dear ones, how are all of you beautiful humans this capricious October day?
Here in my wild corner of France the wind is howling around the hill as if it saved a mighty breath just for me, just for half-term! Leaves are flying hither and thither in a kaleidoscope of autumn shades and our power supply is off more than on.
Summer has left in a fluttery hurry…
Or did I lose a month somewhere back on the trail there? Everything, I mean everything, has been a sudden rush of colour and scent and cool air — and rain, did I mention the rain? — the light changed in a day, I walked into an ethereal misty morning and returned in shimmering stars at dusk with barely a breath in between. Then, it was over… Am I ready, hell no but I beckon slower days, shorter days, quieter days. Days to breathe in and out, to not count the seconds in between.
Almost a whole month has passed since I wrote a journal post for A Hill and I, it has felt long, a little lonely even, like a place that needed to be filled with something that wouldn’t stay still. I didn’t even keep my promise of sending you shorter posts and now, I am not certain I remember how, forgive me.
Summer is nestled in the past tense, the heat and dust blew away, caught up with seeds and petals, the extravagant sun and the long balmy evenings are cycling this planet as they should, and thank goodness for all that is still, mercifully, normal. Thank goodness for robins in conquest over winter territories, for the owls calling from rafters in the barn, for rats scavenging the chicken meal and hoarding walnuts then filling the silence of the night with their noises while cracking open the shells — yes, even!
I am grateful for so much in this broken world, including the road roller and other huge human driven machines that cluttered and clattered up and down the lane for weeks on end while they levelled out subsidence. Despite their tardiness — two years was a long wait — despite that part of the work included unblocking drains which necessitated scraping away all the edges containing next springs loveliness. Yet, there is hope, after four days of almost constant rain many of those drains are already blocked — great work guys! — sediments are collecting on the edges again, the trenches so painstakingly dredged out are filling and spring looks less sad. Flora will return after all. Of course it will.
It is dusk on a divine October evening, the air is brisk, filled with the chattering of a hundred invisible feathered or furred creatures, each as indefinable as the other in the howling of the Tramontana. The only exception, a blue jay loudly voicing his disagreement to my human presence as he darts into the forest canopy below. I am walking to that wild forgotten patch of wilderness where I once met a boar face to face. I am daring to forage for rose hips for here I know they are plentiful and ripe, just touched, as they should be, by a wayward frost. I gather hips in handfuls from between briar and thorn, trespassing sacred ground, recalling as I do, another autumn evening that held that great and glorious male with a scar on his shoulder. His tusks would have torn my flesh to shredded-meat in seconds were he to have had half a mind to do so. Were he to have felt I was hunter and he the hunted.
Many moons have passed since and he is no longer… I recall how I watched horrified with tears streaking my face, while his carcass was dragged without grace or ceremony, without the slightest remorse that his life, his beautiful, short, valiant, noble life — for he did not harm me that day— had been ended by a human finger squeezing a trigger to release one-hundred-and-eighty plus lead balls into his heart, how a trail of blood, still warm from the lethal wound, streaked the road. No, he is no longer, though I hear the grunting of his offspring at close distance, sniffling and snuffling in dense briars. And, though I am as unperturbed as they are I am cautious not to disturb them. I have no intention of inviting their curiosity. I gather the hips into a basket, quietly, unobtrusively, dutifully leaving nourishment for all other creatures who might feast upon their goodness, send a silent prayer out into fading, filmy light that he with the scar is perhaps still watchful from somewhere out in the great wide unknown, continuing his holy work from another wilderness, a tusked guardian angel looking over his family. I leave in silence, my half-smile in half-light shimmering over their continued calm with love and thanks for the memory of a face that endures.
Briefly - My hens are in hiding! For nineteen days they have huddled, terrified in the corner of their coop for fear of their lives, only venturing out if I am present to keep watch for the two badass-buzzards who have circled and tried relentlessly to nab a chicken for their supper for the entirety of those nineteen days. They have failed, so far. Each time murderous talons appear from between the branches, each time a vast span of wings shadow the ground, my hens scatter into the neighbours overgrown field to hide trembling in low brambles — for once I am thanking the gods of all weeds. They remain like this, crouched, immobile, until I rescue them, tuck them gently under my arm and return them to safety. I cannot think of the brutal sound of feather being ripped from their warm, fragile living bodies, likewise I cannot stand guard over them all the hours of light the day sends. I fear for their friendly1 lives.
Three robins have fort furiously and vociferously for their right to the fig tree in front of the house, I am uncertain which little darling won but I whisper to the two who didn’t that there is always the peach tree or the linden or the willow, all have equally accommodating branches from which to sing at dawn or dusk, that they are welcome there too.
Sometimes, when the day has given in to inevitable darkness and the silence is loud, with eyes half sleep-heavy, half awake, I am caught in a ghostly, luminous light sliding under the door. For a while it tangos across the walls then, more slowly, waltzes across the floorboards. It leaves, always, by the window, its last celestial magic curls like grace in muslin curtains and is gone. Curious I follow — bewitched or bewildered, I cannot say — lured by intrigue, enchanted like a child. I draw open the windows and watch as moonlight pools silver light-leaks on the grey slate roof of the barn. I throw back my head and smile to the universe above me. Littered over an inky tapestry are a trillion glimmering stars. Their shimmering light touches the fine hairs on my cheeks and bare arms. I name but a shameful few of the constellations but I am ecstatic.
Just one week after the lane was cleaned and cleared, drained and filled, after all the machines have left their deliberate marks — thankfully not their noise — dear Mother Nature, in her infinite affection for seasonal dampness, sent rain in abundance. Now, grass and dandelions are pushing through the tarmac again as if in divine right. And, a million acorns fall in the wind, rain washes down a whole forest of leaves making bright yellow carpets over the new, almost clinically clean surface. The lane is lethal to drive. Oh but it’s beautiful to walk.
I am very much dreading just how many hours are taken up by the dark starting Sunday evening.
The buzzards still circle. I know either they or my hens will suffer, either way nature will win. She always will.
My home, and the air inside its thick stone walls, is filled with hearts. Heart shaped music and cards and cakes with heart shaped kisses litter every surface, while two, very real, very young hearts lay curled in each other’s arms in blissful oblivion listening then laughing then eating on repeat. I am not certain if my constant tears are for the future or for the debris that lays in their wake.
This morning the two remaining, still homeless, robins were in heated conference a metre apart on a branch in the linden tree, this was at an hour before daylight. By evening I am still uncertain of the outcome.
NEWS ; My dear and gorgeously talented friend Pipp who writes Vineyard Tales has published her second book. Each page is a glorious ramble through an idyllic Mediterranean town and its vineyards in Northern Spain where she lives with her ever coming-and-going family. Pipp’s photography is a balm for all weary souls who would like to pause, reflect, and find solace in the simplicity of the moments she captures in her lens. It would make a divine gift for a friend or a loved one no matter the time of year.2
With forever love
These are five dear — the dearest — hens rescued from a local free range chicken farm. A few minutes later they would have seen them loaded into a gas chamber with 35 thousand others. Every evening they wait for me to scoop them up into my arms, they wait to be caressed before sleeping in their coop. If I sit down they will hop up onto my knees. They are the friendliest, most human-loving hens I have ever known. I believe they know how close they came to becoming cat food and are showing gratitude in the only way they know — apart from laying eggs! Which they do, still, almost two years later, daily.
This is me not wanting to think about or mention the C word, but it really is close enough to begin thinking of gifts - Stiges Sanctuary would be perfect!
That was a calming soothing tapestry of perfect wonderfullness. Thanks Susie!
It is a joy to wander with you through dawn and dusk, to join your rosehip picking and hen rescuing and to feel the hearts and the tears - I think perhaps, they are a little for both, the future and the debris.
We had hens many years ago, and they loved nothing more than to flap up into our laps for a stroke, particularly Ginger. I can still smell the dusky scent of feathers and feel the vibrations of their rumbling purrs and their warm bodies… I hope that the buzzards find other quarry to quiet their hunger. Much love xx