Village Life

“Look into my eyes – you’re going to take me for a walk”

“Whatever…”

A walk through an English Village on a Late Spring Evening…

“I reckon we could have our own show, or at least maybe our own proverb.”

High as a kite

A green patchwork of potential

A thistle, its niche found, watches over as the bell sounds

In or out? No need to decide.

And, as the sun calls it a day, there is some last-minute pollen to be collected

A bee’s work is almost done for the day

The sun-gold yellow of the laburnum glows as the laburnum-yellow of the sun fades into a warm night.

Have a Happy Summer* everyone!

oOo

* Other hemispheres/seasons are available.

Top of the Pop(pies)

Here is a time lapse film of some poppies in the Chez Snail garden doing their thing, and blooming for a day. I was surprised at how early in the morning the flowers started to bloom, and also how high the temperature recorded by the camera reached (it was in full sunshine, but in free air).

For anyone even vaguely interested, I used a Crenova RD1000 Trail Camera, recording a 12 megapixel picture every minute for about 45 hours or so. I used Windows Movie Maker (the one that comes with Windows 10) to turn the 2700 stills into a movie – each picture is displayed for 0.03 seconds.

Enjoy!

oOo

Then there was the rain…

It has been a while since I posted here. I’m pretty sure that time does not run at a constant rate and is sensitive to diverse things such as temperature, happiness and percentage of blood in your alcohol (or vice versa).

Here in the UK we have officially had a heatwave, being 5 consecutive days of temperatures in excess of 5°C of the average for that day. Certainly one day was very hot for us, causing our dogs to almost melt. Good job they’re not chocolate*!

For inspiration, I walked around my writing office at Denmark Farm the other day, shortly after cooling rain had made it seem more like a normal British summer. The rain drops on the leaves and petals were too magnificent to ignore. So here they are…

oOo

• If they were, I probably would have eaten them by now anyway…

 

Hungry Birds – The Movie

The bird feeder at Denmark Farm attracts all sorts of avian visitors, hungry for peanuts and a natter with their mates. Here is a time lapse movie, shot over five and a half hours and compressed to just under four minutes so that you can see how fast those peanuts disappear! And watch for a few non-blue tit arrivals too!

oOo

Poem: And then the leaves fell

Look at the colours.
Breathe that air.
Kick through those leaves.
Just because they’re there.

Snap that stick.
Kick that stone.
Feel the sun.
Feel at one.

Leave the world
far behind.
Forget your life,
the daily grind.

Imagine that tree
is a castle tall.
Imagine kicking that stone
didn’t hurt at all.

And the leaves fell

With the sound of rain

But I didn’t notice

No, I didn’t notice

Because I was too busy

Being nine again.

oOo

Pictures were taken at Denmark Farm 1st November 2016