Evolution

The Thursday Thank You has evolved......


In tune with the changing season I feel that it is time for the Thursday Thank You to became My World This Week.




The need for change & the new name came as I was was walking the small dog. The banner sounds grand as if it belongs to a celebrity reporter or a newspaper editorial. But then I reasoned that most BLOGS are at least a bit self indulgent. And all BLOGS are essentially a means to meeting that most human need to communicate with and be heard by others.

Some memorable experiences this beautiful autumn week:

Sunday - the late-evening dog walk - a cool crisp night - hearing ripe apples fall from the trees.(Laughter).

Monday - late afternoon - seeing an apricot glow over a newly plowed field. Sitting under a mature beech tree & listening to the wind rustle the widely spread canopy. Looking up & seeing a fleeting view of the shining full moon before it disappeared behind the clouds. (Wonderment).

Tuesday - mid morning - sitting on a fallen willow tree & looking at the collection of coloured leaves floating on a deep fool. A loud "plop" but no ripples - the dog looked & so did I- what caused that? A falling twig, a surfacing fish, the elusive otter or something else entirely. (Puzzlement).

Wednesday- afternoon - walking the small dog in the breeze with dry leaves filling the air, falling like rustling rain. Kicking aside great leathery poplar leaves: reminding myself to bring a bag to collect up the rich coppery bronze beech leaves to cover my winter bulbs. (Participation).

Thursday - mid morning - sitting on a roman battelement high on a hillside watching & hearing two squabbling ravens & a buzzard in the cool clear blue sky. (Peace).

Friday - mid morning -walking quietly through a dozing herd of horses & ponies - warming up in the bright sun after a cold night. (Stillness).

There has been a lot of beauty & abundance in this week. I have continued to gather windfalls for the horses, hens & for food. There are now jars of apple & rose hip jelly & pear jam in the cupboards, apples & blackberries in the freezer & cooking, as I write, is a vat of green tomato chutney. This is the first year I have been in a position to make the most of hedgerow, orchard, garden fruits so I am making the most of it- who knows what next year may bring.

In amongst all the activity I have been trying to fit all this happiness with the sadness in the world. Difficulties both close to home, affecting people I know & further afield, affecting people I have no personal knowledge of but feel linked to nether the less. I have been reading a book that a few years ago I would have scoffed at - one of life's lesson - it is never wise to totally dismiss any source of information! I found this thought comforting..

"If you remove tears of sorrow from one mourner; if you heal one sick person who has heard the dread verdict that he or she cannot be cured; if you have enabled one soul to find itself; if you have given direction to someone who believed he or she was in a morass or a maze from which there was no escape, then whole of your earthly life will have been worth while" Silver Birch

From the sublime to the the mundane - back to the washing-up, the cooking & the cleaning - so much to do.

Have a good week.

poppym

Recipes:

www.cottagesmallholder.com
www.overthegardengate.net
www.allotment.org.uk
www.selfsufficientish.com

Interesting stuff

www.williambloom.com
www.myss.com
www.tinasdivadiary.blogspot.com
www.anna-world.blogspot.com
newsletter@forbetterlife.org
www.silverbirchpublishing.co.uk
www.actsofkindness.org

Autumn Contemplations

Good Evening on what has been a truely beautiful Autumn day . Autumn has as usual moved me into a contemplative mood.

Spiders - 4 moments
1. I took the small dog for a walk this morning, one thick with mist. We walked along a footpath between fields, every section of fence post was festooned with glittering spiders webs: complete webs, fragments of webs, single strands. I could have counted them but on this occassion I felt it would have diminshed the organic abundance of the experience. That the invisible has been made visible - briefly.
2. I was collecting ripe seed pods from my Morning Glory screen & wondering who would like to have/be able to use some of these. I reached out to pluck a brown pod & withdrew my hand at the last moment when I realized it was a fat-bodied, short legged spider.
3. My significant other was rumaging amongst some old farm hardware & called me over to look at something. "There" he said, "don't touch it, watch out, it's a hole-in-the-wall spider, they bite". It was on the wall by now, disturbed from it's home, a dark brown, exotic looking spider unlike anything I have previously seen in this country. I looked it up on the internet when I got home - a bet it's a False Black Widow Spider & they do bite http://www.britishspiders.org.uk/
4. A friend directed me a lovely site - give it a go http://www.poweranimal.com/. I got a spider.

Ripples
I stood and watched a snatch of wind make a leaf quiver - just like an idea, an inspirational thought, an idea. One that hovers & makes a tiny ripple in everyday awareness, so small a movement that it may be missed by a preoccupied or trammeled mind. Fortunately today I had a quietish mind that welcomed the poetic, the inspirational the new.

Emmerdale
My Significant other is an Emmerdale fan so we watch it every weekday evening. I have been following the battered wife story-line & wondered where it would fit on the realism-TV gloss continuum. It appears that they are going for a dose of realism. Unlike Jo, many women do not find close friends & family who believe them: they chose to side with the man -who lies to cover his tracks, not prepared to question his story or character. Jo is an intelligent, accomplished woman with low self confidence. She is able to realise that by beating her & mentally & emotionally degrading her, her husband is pushing her along the road of brutalisation & thus acceptance of the way things are (the way he wants things to be). It will be interesting to see how the story continues to unfolds. I applaud the writers & producers who have chosen to deal with an unglamourous but wide-spread issue.

So my Thursday Thank You this week is to a quivering leaf that has enabled me to understand that, the time, when I chose to believe an unpalatable truth & take action, was a gift to that person. To the spiders who have reminded me that there are hidden things revealed at the special moments. To the good things TV soaps can chose to do, and actually do..

An Autumn Patchwork

Hello again on a beautiful autumn day - blustery, showery & sunny often all at once

Autumn is perhaps, just by a sliver, my favourite season. This week has been really autumnal & busy, so I thought today I would put together a patchwork of seasonal images:

A young raven sat on top of a spindly, redwood on a hilltop, cawing away as I gathered windfall pears in the sunshine.
The first real "autumn blow" sending golden leaves & fruit tumbling.
A butterfly feeding on a windfall pear in the sunshine: a Comma butterfly I think.
Buzzards gliding high in the clear blue sky.
Collecting a pound of rose hips for rose hip & apple jelly.
Discovering a crop of enormous blackberries whilst walking the dog around a stubble field.
A butterfly eating a ripe blackberry: another Comma I think.
Cutting a posy of pink roses from our wedding roses in time for our anniversary.
Pulling up exhausted & dead annuals - making room for spring bulbs.
Leaving the Autumn Festival tent at a show, exhausted & bewildered: the giant vegetables were magnificent, weird & grotesque.
Having an impromptu picnic under a huge umbrella watching the weather change from showers, t0 gusts to sunshine & back again.
Collecting the last flowers of dandelions, clover, yarrow & flea bane for the hens.
Turning on the central heating.

So my THANK YOU this week are for having a warm dry home (however imperfect), for being able to gather abundant hedgerow/orchard fruit and for the colour & energy provided by the late autumn flowers still growing in my tubs.

Birds, Bees & Bananas

Some interesting thoughts for the week......

Birds

Couple backed over bird feeding

pa.press.net

A couple who were warned by council bosses to stop feeding birds in their own back garden have won the backing of wildlife charity the RSPB.
Mick and June Dunny, from Belford, Northumberland, were told to stop leaving food on a bird table for birds by Berwick-upon-Tweed Council.
But the RSPB said it was vital that birds were given a helping hand - even in the middle of summer - and said responsible feeding was to be encouraged.
The council acted after a neighbour complained that the Dunny's nature-loving ways were attracting birds, and therefore mess to their pretty rural village.
An official wrote: "Birds cause some considerable problem in forms of noise and dirt. Not only do their droppings damage and contaminate property, the birds also carry various diseases such as salmonella."
The warning letter said nesting birds can block chimneys and gutters, adding: "Food put out for the birds will also attract rats and vermin. If we establish that a nuisance or pest problem does exist, we may have to reconsider further action."
Mr Dunny told the North East-based Sunday Sun newspaper: "Let them put me in jail... It's just crazy. What do they mean by noise? I'd hardly describe the dawn chorus as noise."
An RSPB spokeswoman said: "We would encourage people to feed their garden birds throughout the year. This is an important time when a lot of adolescent birds are putting down fat to see them through the winter, and they need to feed up."
She said responsible feeders made sure their tables were regularly cleaned and no food was allowed to spill onto the ground.
"Over half of adults in the UK feed birds in their garden," she said. "Providing birds with supplementary food brings them closer so that we can marvel at their exciting behaviour and wonderful colours."

Bees

http://www.britishbee.org.uk/bees4kids/index.php

Throughout the ages, bees have been used as weapons. Beehives were dropped or thrown at opposing soldiers. As recently as 1915 in Africa, the German army used bees to delay the advance of British troops.

For centuries, bees have been used to guard valuables. In India bandits used the large Asian honeybee Apis Dorsata to guard loot near mountain caves.

Bees are pollinators vital to our food chain. One third of the food we eat would not be available but for bees.

Bananas

pa.press.net
Sunday, 07 September 2008

Deadly spider found in fruit bunch

A cashier felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end after discovering a deadly South American banana spider nestling in a bunch of bananas.
The highly-venomous arachnid was spotted by Kate Whitmore, 25, as she unpacked a box of fruit to put on display at the Co-Op store in Wayfield Road, Chatham, Kent.
The palm-sized eight-legged creature, otherwise known as Phoneutria nigriventer, ranks alongside the black widow and funnel-web as one of the most dangerous spiders.
Recalling the close encounter during her Monday night shift, Ms Whitmore said: "I lifted the lid off the box, ripped the bag open and in the very first bunch I noticed something.
"I picked the bunch up, held it close to my face and thought, 'What is that?' It wasn't a very nice spider."
After alerting her supervisor, the shop was promptly closed while the RSPCA was called out. They were advised to keep the spider contained and not approach it until the animal collection officer arrived.
Mother-of-two Ms Whitmore said: "He lifted the separate bunch off with leather gloves and put it in a box which had a separate container. He asked to borrow a pen and as he nudged it to try to move it into the container, the spider reared up, hissing and put its fangs out.
"It made us all jump."
RSPCA officer Anthony Pulfer said: "It was very aggressive and trying to go for me when I was putting it in the box. It was really jumping around and trying to attack me."
Ms Whitmore added: "We had customers coming in saying, 'We'll kill it for you, it's only a spider'. We thought, 'If you knew exactly what it was like you wouldn't'."

This week's Thursday Thank You goes to MSN for directing me to these fascinating facts & news items. The couple who had problems with bird feeding are not alone, I seem to be surrounded by people who feel birds have no right to exist along side people. All summer I have watched bees visit our trees, vegetables & flowers & have benefited directly from their activities.Visit the bee site & see what can be done to benefit threatened bees. I thought the "spider in the bananas" story was an Urban Myth - it would appear not!

Autumn, Fruits & Words

Hello on this beautiful Autumn Thursday (18th September)

This morning was calm & misty with a sharpness that says winter is well on it's way. For me it was the first real day of autumn & to celebrate I took the little dog for a walk & watched the sun break through the mist. We collected rosehips, hawthorn berries & elderberries from the hedgerows for the hens. The trees & bushes are profusely covered in fruits, does that mean we are in for a severe winter - what I believe is referred to as a "blackberry winter"?

All week I have been gathering fruits for the pets and, for me & the significant other. Whilst the gathering of food for the bleak months ahead is an ancient ritual the searching of the Internet for recipes & storage advice is not! It feels to me like an excellent juxtaposition (what a fabulous word) of the oldest & newest of human technologies. It also set me reflecting on serendipity (another wonderful word) - lucky chance. Many years ago whilst I was at university I went out with a chap who was at Cambridge doing research on how to get the world's computers to talk to each other - yes - that now indispensable Internet. He went off to Silicon Valley & I expect he is now earning a 6 figure salary or has dropped-out & is trekking in the Himalayas searching for yetis!

In my fruit gathering I have discovered that :
* one flimsy supermarket plastic bag is totally inadequate for collecting blackberries - the thorns just rip holes in it - smugly returning the berries to the ground!
* the green husks of walnuts really do stain your hands brown & it doesn't come off easily.
* the same husks can be used for dying things - I now have a soft-brown cloth bag (much better for fruit gathering).
* that chickens love shiny berries & run round excitedly with them in their beaks.
* too much fruit gathering gives you sore feet, sore hands & a bad back,
* but the aforementioned complaints are ameliorated (a lovely soothing word) by eating puddings made with them, accompanied by lots of custard: with the side-effect of a warm lingering virtuous feeling!

On leaving the army my significant other took a course in furniture making -little did he think that those skills would be used to build a "Poultry Palace" or "Cluckingham Palace" as someone has labelled it. All the wood is reclaimed, the floor was bought at an auction for few pounds, the nails & roofing materials are new but bought as great prices. Even so - I estimate that labour costs alone would price the Palace at £1,200!! That doesn't include the flasks of coffee & moral support that a perfectionist, master craftsman requires!

So my Thank You's this week are to the wonderful words in the English language (my favourite word is lozenge- what's yours?), the abundance of the hedgerows & a husband who loves his hens so much he builds them a Palace.

Pears, Poultry and Pets

Hello again on an overcast September Thursday (11th September)

Pears - Today I was gathering windfall apples for my horse when I was delighted to discover pears. They were small conical pears with a slight blush, very beautiful little fruits. I have walked passed that pear tree for a year now & had thought that it was an apple tree like the others in the little orchard. When I really looked at the tree it was clearly a pear - I've taken it as a little reminder about making assumption & jumping to conclusions!

Poultry -For ages we have wanted hens for eggs & are at last in a position to have some. After extensive research we decided to start out with about 10 rescue hens & some Light Sussex. At the weekend we bought 30 hens of different breeds - so much for sticking to a plan! Once my impulsive husband saw the hens on offer he said yes to them all! So we are now the proud owners of 5 Calder Rangers (brown), 5 Black Rock, 9 Bluebelles (smokey grey) & 11 Light Sussex (mainly white). And the final touch - we have been offered free a Light Sussex cockerel - fate! The hen house (aka Poultry Palace) is not quite complete so the horse has been evicted & the girls are squatting in there for a few more days. More on hens in another post....

Pets (& Domestic Animals) - I believe that there are people in the world who don't have them, don't want them & cant see the point of them! I can remember a time in my young adult years when I didn't have any & those were definitely days with less colour, action & responsibility. It's very hard to explain to non-pet wanters the expansion, even a tiny, low maintenance pet can bring to a life.

There's the research into what makes them happy & comfortable & then finding the suppliers that can provide their material needs: whether is be the familiar supermarket, locating a specialist store or talking a local greengrocer into giving you unwanted veggies!

Then there is the activation & accessing of latent wells of care, love & commitment - these often "gushing" when the pet is not well or has presented the owner with a challenge: eating through the phone cable, trashing a door, standing on a foot, knocking over the spouse, biting and so forth!

And for those pets that require regular exercise, there are safe routes to find, leadership & socializing processes to get to grips with & fitness development - on both sides!

Then there is the sadness & grief we feel on discovering those pets who don't have caring owners, who suffer abuse & neglect & outright violence & malice. This part of pet ownership can change people's lives for good & bad. Think of all those animal shelters, welfare workers & veterinary staff, they all involve individuals who have been profoundly moved to take action to directly alleviate the suffer & misfortune of unfortunate & sick animals.

And then there are those who are prompted to question the wider relationship between pets & animals & people & who lead us all to insights about compassion, about relationships & about what it is to be human.

So this is a Thank You to those countless animals who have directly enhanced individual people's lives. It is a Thank You to all those animals who by living, dying, suffering & interacting with people have helped the evolution of compassion in society at large - everyone & everything has benefited from that.

Some interesting Links
http://www.cesarmillaninc.com
http://www.safepets.co.uk/index.html
http://www.trallwmfarm.org.uk/index.htm
http://www.dog-training.com/springer.htm
http://www.animalaid.org.uk
http://www.janfennellthedoglistener.com
http://www.intelligenthorsemanship.co.uk
www.montyroberts.com

Fungi, Frills & Fun

Hello again on this wet & windy Autumn Thursday (4th Sept)

Puffballs
For the last few week I have been gathering giant puffballs - to quote "Mushrooms - River Cottage Handbook (no 1)" by John Wright :
"If there is one edible fungus that cannot possibly be mixed up with anything inedible, it just has to be the wonderful Giant Puffball."
I found them on an old muck heap amongst the nettles & burdock - softly glowing. Now I'm not one for eating mushrooms of any sort - they just don't agree with me- but I am reliably told but my "significant other" that a puffball omlette is a culinary delight. So if it's "safe & legal" get out there & try one -even better share one with friends!

Bread Making (more fungi)
After years of complaining to those around me that commercial bread was horrible I went out & brought a bread-maker. With a bit of experimentation I have found it possible to produce - REAL BREAD. Not only has this stopped me moaning I have discovered how pleasurable it can be. I know all the books go on about how satisfying it is but it really is. Call it alchemy or science - it is fascinating mixing the wet & dry ingredients, adding the yeast (more fungus), letting the mixture sit & voile la - a frothy mass. I recently tried a new recipe that required a very wet mixture, I let it over rise & it became a creeping mass that nearly fell off the work surface! Then from this bubbly mass comes bread - with that wonderful aroma matched by taste, especially when spread with butter!!!

Gladioli (the frill)
Gladioli- no wonder the word "glad" is in there - they always make me smile: yes I know it's derived from word for a the roman sword. I have some at home at the moment, great spears of outrageous ruffled pink. They rise from the slim vase like an effervescent fountain or a placket of frills on a summer blouse! Absolutely no restraint - a most un-English flower- hurrah.

Fun on the TV
Still on a theme of fun, this week I watched an old episode of the "Good Life", I'd forgotten how good that series was. Of course the best part was given to Margo Leadbetter perfectly played by Penelope Keith. Later on in the week I managed to catch "Bride & Prejudice" - a Bollywood version of "pride & Prejudice" The music is infectious, the costumes jewel-like, the tone up-beat & the storyline comfortably close to the original. Get a pizza, frothy coffee & some friends round & get dancing to this movie!

So this week it's a "Thursday Thank You" to the wonders of nature (& science) and to the script writers/film makers/actors who have made me laugh.