Cling, we are fading

I am lucky to live in the countryside, in a place I love, surrounded by woods and fields and ancient tracks. As I return from whatever travels the day has demanded up the lane that leads to my home, trees arch above my head and welcome me back unfailingly. The copse where we often walk the dogs is full of old trees, some cloaked in moss and many tipping at unnatural angles where strong south westerlies have pushed them from vertical over the years. Many of them have fallen and now provide complex ecosystems for all of the wildlife that bursts from their softened sinews. I can't help but imagine fairy folk peeping from between the tangles roots and hollowed out trunks. The outstretched roots of the tree in this photograph are to me a big green hand grasping at the earth...holding on, clinging.

How resilient is the noble tree and how willing to adapt. How giving.

As the Crisis continues to escalate and unfold, I spend more and more time exploring how to foster my own resilience. Not just on how to grow and store food, keep warm and physically do everything I can to enable my family and friends to survive but also on how to keep my heart and mind open, to be in and of the moment, to continue to nurture others and find a place for strangers at my table. The communities we gravitate towards will be increasingly important. There can be no more business as usual....for business will no longer be relevant. We are still for the moment anchored in the fossil fuelled reality of modern life but a transition is coming and how we relate to that will shape the future. 

I find myself reaching out, searching for deep ancestral memories. As I lie awake most nights, images of ancient, familiar faces project onto my eyelids. I wonder how these people lived and died. How there once was a time when we were profoundly connected to nature. There was no separation. We innately knew the seasons, the growing patterns, the cycles between birth and death. Every plant had a use and was more than just a flowering. Each wildflower held the secrets to a myriad of functions and different either household or medicinal purposes. Mysteries had been revealed to us long ago and now as we chose to ignore the truth they had so generously shared, they are once again held tight and are once again as secret as the night. It's up to us to knock and ask for the closed doors to be opened. To make the effort to see what is before us.

I am glad that I spent many years in the discipline of working as an architect. Painful as it often was. Understanding how to fit elements together, how to make a building warm and cosy with breathing materials and fresh air creating a healthy environment. The often confrontational and adversarial atmosphere of the building site has knocked off many of my own corners and taught me skills to at least try to resolve and not apportion blame but fix what is wrong as best one can and move on. To be part of a team is a privilege. Old brick layers can unlock mysteries if only they are asked. Equally the latest research into solar panels for example, can change the way things have been done for decades if not hundreds of years. 

"Cling we are fading" was one of the first pieces of art made by my son. It perches in my kitchen and reminds me everyday to be in the moment. To be aware and to breath gently.

A walk in April with the asbos

Scrabble, Gata and Tata all a'twitch with exciting spring smells

Oil seed rape growing in the field behind us

The motorway outside our gate

Great view of the soft rolling Downs. In the distance is Lady Hamilton's Folly 

over the way from Uppark

Early May blossom always makes me think of poor Anne Boleyn

Cowslips nodding if not mooing a welcome by the gate

Bluebells ringing in Spring

A rather lovely little virginal bluebell all in white

An  early campion

I think this is a tiny little hardy geranium

Darling primroses

More shocking pink campions

Violets my grandmother's favourite little flower. Can't imagine why anyone would want to cover them in sugar and eat them..they are so pretty to look at.

This old ash tree is like a great hand coming out of the earth

Ahh lovely wild garlic...ramsons

I wonder what kind of fungi this is..looks like it would make a good black ink..so long as one didn't put the brush anywhere near one's mouth!! Ykk

They almost look as if they could crawl away!

This post is at the corner of our field

Deer slots in the claggy mud

May blossom

Baby camomile with what seems to be rabbit droppings by the side..

So love when the spring flowers start to bloom

A July morning walk in the woods

 Our house is a way over there in the distance.  In the gently hilly background is Harting Down set in the middle of the 100 or so miles long track known as The South Downs Way. A basic tarmacadam track lined with hazel trees and wild garlic takes you to our front door and the big house as we call it further down the hill along what is known as The Borders Path and then it's just forest and wonderful walks. We used to get deer poachers sometimes at night but not for a long time now. Instead we are plagued once or perhaps twice a year by Raves kicking off in the woods..the thump thump of the music they generate keeps us awake all night ..but it doesn't happen often...

Fields of golden barley waiting to be cut.

We took the dogs out this morning for a walk in the woods...it was sheer magic. The only sound, the wind in the tree tops and birdsong. It's still July but we had a massive rain storm yesterday so for the first time in ages we put our coats on.

 So tranquil and pretty. How lucky we are to have such treasure on our doorstep.

Moss growing on the tree trunks.

I should have turned the flash off as it makes it look rather disco.

Suddenly a Buddleia tree or Butterfly Bush in full flower. Not a normal woodland plant although our garden is full of them and they do tend to grown like weeds so maybe I'm mistaken. So many butterflies dipped and dived around us as we walked.

Clouds of red admiral butterflies flit from bloom to bloom although my camera 

doesn't seem to have caught any.

Wild flowers and dripping trees everywhere. The dogs have all scooted off into the long grass and up the steep hill to the right. More often than not we see deer galloping through here.

I stop and stand just marvelling at how beautiful it all is.

 How lovely...wild raspberries grow along the path.

Earlier in the year these Lords and Ladies berries..poisonous of course look very different! They look rather like slender pale green ladies dressed for a day at the races in huge elegant hats that could have been designed for My Fair Lady .The plant's fascinating shape and form has inspired a wide variety of names:

• Jack-in-the-pulpit
• Soldier-in-a-sentry-box
• Bloody man's finger
•  'Kitty-come-down-the-lane-jump-up-and-kiss-me' (an old Kentish name).

Perhaps not surprisingly, many have rather bawdy associations.

The Hemp Agrimony, Eupatorium Cannabinum, belongs to the great Composite order of plants. It is a very handsome, tall-growing perennial, common on the banks of rivers, sides of ditches, at the base of cliffs on the seashore, and in other damp places in most parts of Britain, and throughout Europe.Although oddly it's not really damp where this grows and seems to be thriving..my own garden is full of it.

A sadly out of focus Large Cabbage White probably flown in from snacking on 

local brassica crops for the cows. 

Here enjoying a sip at a thistle flower.

Pretty Spotted St John's Wort with it's many medicinal uses grows in patches of sunlight.

Not sure what this pretty little one is called.

An architectural fern under the shade of the trees.

Seed pods getting ready to pop.

|Russian comfrey. This used to be used in ancient days to help mend broken bones.

.also called Knit Bone.

More comfrey.

I wonder if this is a kind of hop..it twirls and twists its tendrils all through the undergrowth.

Rose Bay Willow Herb and my dear old friend the Nettle.

Perennial sweet peas..wild and tangled and sadly without a scent.

Honesty seed pods before they turn silver..asking to be Christmas decorations.

I'm useless at taking selfies..my daughters say to hold the camera so it's slightly looking down on you but I can never get it right...hey ho!!

Come along and see what happening at the 

Our Simple Homestead Blog Hop #10

http://oursimplelife-sc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/blog-hop-button.jpg

http://www.mittenstatesheepandwool.com/2015/07/our-simple-homestead-blog-hop-10.html