At first it’s tentative. One foot in, one foot out. The icy winds don’t help. The community has retreated. Keeping their heads down.
Winter is steadfast in it’s stagnation.
Then suddenly all bets are off. We start to re-emerge, stand on corners and chat, bend down and pull a few weeds from the path, smell the primroses. Spring has arrived with buds, catkins, new leaves and birdsong.
Meanwhile the lower field has been cleared of every messy thing that I loved. They are making it pristine for planting the greenest of grass. This is all they want now, progress and pasture. My increasingly wild couple of acres are becoming a blot on the landscape of “lawns” for horses. This garden the last bastion of cover and wilderness, briars and gorse, seed heads and sceachs.
Where is the sense in wilderness anyway? No sense that can be explained maybe. But wouldn’t we all thrive better if we could live and let live? Disturb as little as possible. Permit, with all our big headed power, the tiny mouse to shuffle aimlessly through the undergrowth, even though when we meet her head on we might shudder……
Beautiful photos
Thanks Val:~)
What a poem to spring! I hope it comes soon to our parts, cold, grey Bavaria.
Spring will come even to Bavaria:~)
If only they would leave a few wild places for Nature to flourish….
If only Bridget…..
absolutely! love your photos and your spring time love! the very last one makes my heart sing. xxoo
Thank you Rebecca, singing going on here in unison:~))
Yes 🙂 Here's on of my favourite poems by one of my favourite poets.
Inversnaid
This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness ? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet ;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
That's magic Felicity and I never heard it before!! Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet……if only……and thank you for that bubble of inspiration……
It is the 'lawns for horses' that are a blot on the landscapes..
Freda, that is plain speaking and I have to agree…..many thanks….
Gorgeous photos Catherine. I thought of you yesterday when just feet from my dressing room window a heron landed on the apex of my neighbour's roof and was all lit up in the early morning sunshine. We stood eyeing each other for quite a few minutes and then I braved moving away from the window to grab my camera. When I returned the bird was hunched down as they do. I raised my camera to my eye but all I could see was a dirty window. As I tried slowly moving towards my window the bird took flight and I thought "That wouldn't have happened if Catherine had been here. She would have got a fantastic shot." All I was left with was a lovely memory – and the thought that the bird had actually be down at my pond no doubt after my fish before he landed on the roof. Come to think of it I haven't seen any of the fish today!! Philippa xx
Phillipa I had to laugh at this comment!! You have no idea how many blurs across the sky I have in my collection! Birds are such flitty creatures and cannot be relied on to sit for two minutes!!! Whenever I go the lake shore the only chance I have is to walk ready to shoot and even then 9 times out of 10 I am still not ready enough!!! But that moment when you find them looking back at you and you have to decide whether to get the camera or not? Most times now I just look back and enjoy the moment as I have learned that as soon as you turn your back, they continue on their way, blur up and ruin the shot…..
I find it strangely reassuring that you have a collection of blurs across the sky. I have one of those too. In the days when my camera had film in it I always used to take at least 2 photos of everything with the 2nd as a safety precaution in case the 1st was no good. The trouble was that my best friend used to tell me whether she was looking at the 1st or 2nd of each photo they were all equally boring! Don't you just love best friends for their frankness. Mind you she must have some redeeming features as we have been friends for nearly 40 years………….but I don't show her my photos anymore! Philippa xx
Haha!! No don't show them to HER anymore!!!
I'm so happy that spring has returned. I planted yellow pansies yesterday. That little splash of color makes me so happy. 🙂
I know!! It impacts on our mood in a profound way, enjoy!
What a beautiful ode to the coming of spring. Here too – I'm feeling that FINALLY – all bets are off!!!
Fingers crossed!! Thanks Marcie….
All I could think of reading this lovely post were these lines from Locksley Hall by Alfred Lord Tennyson:
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Thank you Jean! Spring is bringing out the poetry in us all……beautiful words, I often heard my Dad recite them……..
Love the photos especially the chicken one. yes , it certainly feels as if Spring has finally sprung!
June
Thanks June:~))
Beautiful spring light in your photos Catherine, but cast not a clout…..I fear winter is slow to relinquish its grasp.
Agree!!! Will cast not a clout for sure!! Keep wearing all the woollies….
It's the shuddering on meeting the mouse that stays with me.
I'm struck in thought that the last paragraph may be a metaphor and a much deeper insight into the beauty of the wilderness.
'…of every messy thing that I loved.' beautifully written and reminds me of when my boys were little.
Great depth of focus on the first image,wonderful blue in the second – bursting buds fab!
x
Thank you so much Roisin!! Yes I suppose how we care/care less about every living thing is reflected all the way through our world. And then I have to remind myself how many times I fail too………
Lovely photos and words again. The sun is shining here too and slowly we are warming up and see buds opening of my Camellias. I cleared the garden but it is not too tidy. Now time has arrived for gardening but I am not in the mood . I just want to look, dance and jump around enjoying the beauties of nature together with my border collie Snarf.
O I love that picture of you dancing and jumping around with Snarf!!! Sounds like the just right the thing to be doing:~))
Ah, someone has already quoted Inversnaid at you 🙂
Such beautiful photographs! You found spring!! I could only discover a little corner of it here, but it's coming 🙂
Yes Annie it is, bring it on:~))
Hello Catherine.
Your photographs, are stunning, as always.
My Soul is Winter-weary, as it is with many. I, too, welcome the Springtime. Yet, in all truth, I love each Season. I see this in your photography, and sense it in your writing, as well.
Thank you, Catherine.
~Beannaichte'!
Alicia
Alicia, winter weary just about describes it….I love it but enough winter now:~))
Spring is here even with the warm days turning to raw cool ones….wildness is what I miss…those wonderful days when all is not clean and pristine but wild and messy…my garden is wild and messy now but I will be clearing some debris to let the new growth in as the wildlife returns….
Such beautiful, gorgeous, lovely words. You sum up all that I've been thinking…and feeling recently.
Nina x
Hello Catherine
Your image of the robin and the buds made me recall a childhood in Ireland. I adore this time of year, so full of promise.
I am in total accord with leaving things alone and "live and let live". The mouse and snakes (here in America) were around long before we were born and will continue. My father had an expression, (translated from Gaelic) when we commented on someone who did not agree with our point of view:
"leave them as you find them"
Helen xx
We thought spring had arrived as our grass began to green and buds appeared on the Bradford pear trees…. then we were hit with a surprise snowstorm. This week however, spring is indeed here as I watched a pair of cardinals discover our bird bath. 🙂 Lovely photos you have today.
Zaczyna się budzić nowe kolorowe życie w przyrodzie, długo oczekiwane. Pozdrawiam.
He starts to wake up a new colorful life in nature, the long-awaited. Yours.
Hello Catherine
I was reflecting on your last paragraph about leaving things be, the old adage of live and let live – but often humans press on regardless of the smaller animals and habitat they may trample with their big feet! So tread softly I say and respectfully and I firmly believe it will make a difference in the end. To me anyway, the small things are often the most significant. Lovely post, thank you.
Sal x
Thank you so much Sal for your thoughtfulness.
Stunning images..