there is a place near me called 'Lucky Date' which gives the ick
Lecturer in Environmental Literature at the University of Glasgow's School of Social & Environmental Sustainability: ecopoetry, walking, place - environmental humanities
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there is a place near me called 'Lucky Date' which gives the ick
it is such a relief
& equinox began with 1st frost of the season, a day of soft light & shadow (all peripheral, out of corner of yr eye), gentle arrival of evening & all that will fall glowing
the dark half - night before equinox - the plough moves beyond the kitchen window again
& late-september (cousin of late-april), a hare from a medieval codex spills rain somewhere; it is the time of fires, & open skies (flight frankfurt - mexico city comets over the lane)
& cool wind (in the west a ragged window heals closed), truck uses the longroad as a ratrun (or follows satnav slavishly), steams along until you hear airbrakes at the bend in the woods (somehow they get away with the manouvre); seconds later it is tawny owl calls blown towards you
thank you very much, that is so kind
the UK has no beef with Iceland or Greenland & these Pink Feet are most welcome
& in wisp of cloud before a new front & darkening distance, a chevron of pink footed geese squeaks over & wavers, then turns its own needle towards coast
stay you
& harvest over the quiet of gather going to grid in the hills, summer over & the pills of lights before 8, last checks of stock & stitches of households in haggard of canopy, mewling of tawny owls & hawing cattle echo through the glen
?
hard agree
for a change hit my morning buzzing from coffee roasted locally - so strong that a water chaser was needed - black as my heart & bitter & nutty as a divorced dad wearing shorts & a baseball cap backwards
a shifting stability
o thank you, not much to be said but it is all educational & believe me fcuking teachable...
all is material, all change; all will be fine because all must be fine.
& so you document it all, though futile: the longroad's particular camber, [redacted] farm on the hill whose produce & honesty box are key in winter, the roil on [redacted] ridge where a different weather pertains
& you try to be reasonable & accommodating but the wild garden razed for a droneshot, the shifting goalposts, the clear message that is not clear, the constant horizon, yr last autumn here
& break in rain clouds probing downhill & canopies waver in pools horizon buffers shades of grey in the verge & across the longroad evidence someone (with unroadworthy trailer) had a bleak afternoon
yep. when child #1 was little would only feed watching small sparkle of loch over neighbor's fence. guy decided on higher fence. major effect without any intent or blame.
thanks Luke, looks like Linden aka Lime - such a neat piece of work
& territorial robin is enforcing space (perhaps same 1 as last winter, who knows how to use a feeder) - in flailshattered hedge it drives off passage warblers all day, even in sheeting rain, a blur within blur under washed-out rainbows
so sorry, the small (to others/in unknowing action) things matter so very much.
Hmmm. Have-to-pull-in-as-wipers-overwhelmed-@fullspeed here. But yeh also April. Are Sept & April not also cousins of a sort?
what is the title of this please? @luketurner.bsky.social (copied in, as it were)
& after evening of deluge a metallic light pertains in which forage & transit is fleeting before dark (we are all backlit & vulnerable, heron, human & huddle of copse), then a subtle rising of mists to obscure anything noctural, inhibiting their gaze, sharpening a sense of smell
*that was what the day required
how you hate driving but that was the day, back to scowling moon, back to moon in hawthorn thorntowers
& yr headtorch bips flash & you replace spring batteries, then out into sizzle of rain & yet still male tawnies whoo, lights of home waver in puddles that cancel cracked earth
& the rain & the rot are in - birds are taking out slowed-down butterflies & the pet rowan-in-a-pot (awaiting our foreverhome) admits to rust; even in fragments, though: all colour, all life
lovely use of gif!
do be good to yourself, Saskia
ugh
& you tinker with the boiler at moonrise - yr limited skills, but those that have worked before - the thing fires & (praise be) hot water: the moon falls on tools, glides wedding ring, sits on watergauge you then top up.
2nd Brian. The debate about this in Scotland in media & academe rehearsed these arguments in early-90s. Then then a certain novel early 2020s & round it goes. James Kelman won the Booker Prize in 1994 & is woefully underrespected.
this debate goes round & round, depressingly: Tom Leonard (deceased), Len Pennie (very much not).
& the torn quiet of chaos, cloud colossal & a barn owl twists - the silly muscle car & gunshots in the riverfield - the moon in trailing mess, the 3rd will be vouched for, no doubt, as management & not fun
& no rustred rise, no bright beam - the last fullmoon of summer is a shy brightness - a willing eclipse - casting topographies in cloud
& a frog enters the door that is ajar, after catch & release another goes by; watching that one, a toad portages the toe of yr boot towards a corridor of cover
Solway. High tide so even sandbanks are under. The wind is strong but warm, edge of a new front. Strings of lapwing mid-estuary. Dark vortex of saltbloomed sloes. Late season sea aster still busy with pollinators
& a sudden fall of meadow pipits on transit - strong & loud, perching wires with scimitar hindclaws locked - then in a tumbling shoal moving SSW #birds
about to turn in but turn out a spell instead
& at the bottom of the track, across from the bins, a pair of grey herons startle & make for the heights of the ridge, wavering above & then sinking out of view, down the lee side
this wonderful person passed their PhD today, no corrections. It was a privilege to work with them in a minor way. check out 'skein dial' & 'moth kota' - magic stuff - kudos to @slipshodspeller.bsky.social as main super www.hannahimlach.com
& the twilight you make your own despite fullness of time - reset between sun & moon & the wavering - & the coming time as they draw closer, the coming equinox, the squeezing vice of dawn & dusk
thank you. you picked up eclipse - if skies are clear - 7th?
so sorry, Polly
solidarity. my pockets have beechmast & rosehips in. not growing out of pocketing treasure.
hard agree.
enough what?!
wld be disappointed if yes. Growing up is overrated.
@thehoursgodsends.bsky.social
& you feel warmth under the weight of tholed canopy, all laminated by sun & waiting to drop - (airy sky above the ridge silvers in lightness) - the moon crosses an open field quickly, the lane sinks with you in it
& land agents arrive tomorrow to decide on plots. an Amazon driver from Ghana stops to chat. & after that a leveret bounds towards & folds 6 inches from yr foot. only the shorn & most tidy sheep graze. the berries flailed to atoms & and hedges square-tidied. all is for sale.
her language was more foul & more eloquent than mine.
o thank you, it's not me I am concerned about & she knows what she's about, just that it should happen at all. The painting is from 1874.
20.00, 1st day of meterological autumn, the moon coming & going above the small plantation, SW sky bright as darkness begins to emerge from ditches, to attach itself to trees, to cause lights to spark in the hills
end of summer / last of august
& last of August, bramble season ending when it would usually begin - afternoon foraging with red admiral butterflies & half-pissed wasps, goldfinches in their gleaning watch you all work, & squally winds carry tired leaves & bring down acorns early
lots still to gather here. there is no inertia yet at all. just belonging, without possession.
thank you
thanks, Lin. on we go. it will be fine because it has to be.
thank you. the ghosts before, & the ones to come.
& beginning of new days. onwards.
thanks so much to Nicola. Will try to reply to people tomorrow. Thinking through of this situation is in my piece @ The Learned Pig online journal (where pics have suffered decay, but this seems fitting) thelearnedpig.org/field-notes-...
& early evening yr landlord's range rover slips into the yard without warning. by the time you rise from the table it is almost dark. the farm & its estate will go to sale in '26. soon someone will decide the numbered days until you must leave this place.
would be interested
& squalls puddled with clarity & effacement young heron squat mid-field & pixellating into dusk trees with right-angled canopy attest to trucked bales sudden whomp & judder of twin-rotor helicopter the military cruising through
did a mmmrrrrmmm under my breath which daren't become more coherent online
& the moon is in there *somewhere* & a female tawny owl opens parley with kerwik, willow warbler middle of seasonal amnesia begins ascending scale then peters out, robin has found darkhalf score: sings it in 1 - the whole movement
all the way home communes of starlings lined thick along wires - electricity, phone & fibre - every making of an uprising
same
Oooh. 1.
& glow & darken - the bolt-tether-chain that looks hostile is code: bull in field - artichoke galls & bales laid out for stack (blinking amber of tractor kicking up dust on the hill you have just climbed), forecast wet overnight
& dusk bearing down (3 hrs of light per day gone since solstice, equinox approaches) - you hope for some slip of new & setting moon, but nothing - just slow, fractious movements of torn cloud, ripped & shipping quiet
when you posted last year did wonder if this was invasive where you are...
west too but inland a bit so frost guaranteed - have heard about the freezer trick but doesn't seem in the spirit of seasonality... (& how to replicate the slow workings of frost hmm...)
for those who liked the feral farm kittens: 2 have reappeared, pouncing at bank voles & sauntering - no tolerance for any hint of human activity
with locations down, time will take care of itself - no hurry at all
2 years with local shortage of sloes - out casing places today & it looks a mast year - will return after 1st frost; then into cool of woods with knopper galls & dor beetles (who are all lightning blue of leg & armour gap)
back home this weather would be called 'close' - too-much at hand & face, airless & grainy of vapour - distance a hazy & throbbing doubt, claustrophobic calm - bales 2 fields out pixellating before you raise the camera, heifers in lanyards wheeze the ridge, thistledown does not stir
O thank you - wishing you time with lines of hill
& oak marble galls time of long shadows tractor squeaks bales into heavy wrap & swallows jitter lines when the light falls harvesters bleed up & pulse the backroad
what time is yr nocturne atm? - just for reference - 20.30 or so here
hmm. Lots of raptors here at the moment living on tyre-tenderised pheasant, 'poor motherless bairns' as someone once said, no clue at all once they stray (in luck, in its opposite)
& this strange season, neither summer nor autumn - a hot & airless interregnum - brambles ripe & haymaking - & the empty house of your neighbours - retired to the coast, house empty & fields rented for grazing - a motion-sensor lamp awake in the evenings, indicating to no-one
& hanging laundry, sudden whistling calls: high above in unbroken blue, a pair of red kites checking you out
those glints beyond the sunlit edge, those crumbs of light
& at the river you are all clatter on exposed shingle, a dipper deets upstream & you are left with robinsong & the green, humid fug of dwindling central channel
'blue-veering-night' is great
thank you, Bob, that is very kind
burned citrus of afterglow black tapers of corvids dry wind drifts their voices away
& a setting sun in willowherb spires - a heron issues a raawk behind you & stays there as the ridge goes black & singe of afterglow is all there is; half an hour later, temperatures falling, a thick mist rolls in & hillside & heron & you lose lines of sight
& air so heavy your throat must grasp it - highly localised & heavy rain (in places a line in the road between wet & dry) - sky that promises thunder but cannot deliver, ghosts of rainbows that waver & drift away
misread that & thought you'd diminshed them a little too much...
& sunrise, you are never ready
& out in the lateflare & gasblue - night before stars - too hot & humid (26°c too much for here), huffing uphill, pathetic & tired
in the yard no kittens (mother hunts still, frequently, you have assumed she has moved them), the very old wall - arrowslots bricked - says much you know from maps (& too much for here), back out into humid & fading
& harvest all but over, warmth of the dry in colour of stubble, in the lightness of bales that will inform the winter of what has passed; skies brood but do not break, corvids rustle themselves in groups to glean aftermath
