The February Experiment



During February, I am attempting to blog a description everyday, with prose and pictures, although I will let myself lapse into poetry if I really feel the urge. My blog, my rules! This is a lead up to the A-Z April blog challenge which I have just signed up for. The 1,000 Miracles In One Day will continue, maybe offline for a while, but they are there and I will find them. Meanwhile, here's the story of February. 






The second month of this year arrives, in late winter style, on a coating of fine ice and chilled mist. There will only ever be one February First 2012, and if that is not impressive, this year the month is trailing an extra day, a magic day that appears on our calendars once every four years. Things we don’t see every year we can remember to hold in higher regard. 
This, the first day of the second month, calls for our attention with sharp air and soft horizons, a low pinkish sun lighting the cloud line behind the intricate lace of leafless trees.
All day the sky is clear and half of the moon stays out to see it. As the sun drops it melts to a sticky circle of orange, a colour that smudges a warm watercolour line behind stark inked twists of moor land tree, turns the landscape into an illustration for a fairy tale. The orange circle overfills and pours away into the dark ground. Half a moon is fixed in the deepness of the night. I imagine werewolves only able to grow half of a wolf-beard, asymmetrical beasts. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contact Pants Conundrum

Image
There is weather today, I do note it: take a few moments to reckon the size of a cloud (big) and the frequency of rain (sporadic.) Centre of my interest though is a stack of magazines. Not the fashion kind. This is martial arts research. I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for, but intuition calls loud. A range of old adverts skew some amusement. Contact pants, for example. Pants are not trousers where I come from. They are underwear. Professional contact pants: improved smirk value. But why would a person be likely to purchase a grappling hook and a lock pick set? For specialists and hobbyists only, the blurb assures. Guidance on the pheromone spray that attracts women against their better judgement? I doubt it works any more proficiently than the mysterious potion that defines your muscles while you sleep. But, then: I wonder is some sprayed on this paper? What was my intuition thinking, making this ghastly shout… Tea break time. There's a lot of words...
Read more

September's End

Image
September is all but done. Our fingers are purple from plucking berries, scored by thorns, sore and satisfied. How lucky we are, and how grateful! Through the cold spring, and the soggy summer, we have worked to make this place more and more beautiful. We are charming sustenance from the soil with our toiling; using the present to craft a kinder path- a tree-lined, fruit-bearing way.  And so here we are, in autumn, a time of harvest, glut, and storage. A time to plant trees, a time of festival. Our lives are seasonal, tidal, temperate, held in repetitions that are never the same; variations of repeating patterns, a common uniqueness. How lucky we are, and how grateful! Pollinator friendly saplings added to  the firepit hedge, lower field.
Read more

Spring Is Ticking

Image
It has been a while since I wrote a blog post - I have been writing books, and keeping a diary, the days and the work aren’t lost, just ticking quietly in a corner. [There’s a little dust in that corner but the shelf is made of strong oak planks, and the light is enchanting. A plant grows in a pot, it spouts leaves. A half candle stands in a china holder.] At Paddock Garden (properly titled Paddock Garden Orchards, I am a lazy typer) a tree corral has been constructed. It contains persimmons which may not have survived the recent cold blasts and heavy rain, along with some happy pepper trees, bladdernuts, and plum yews. We plan to underplant and interplant extensively in this concentrated area. Around the grounds also we have begun some windbreak hedges, mostly of elaeagnus and hazel. We have a line of sapling native oaks edging the spinney. The first of our camping bay areas is growing emerald grass that was seeded last autumn; the second has recently been seeded; the last three need ...
Read more