Here is Beezle and Pocket (quarter Bengal) having a peaceful moment. Pocket is the only wild thing in this picture and likes to surround himself with other wild things - rabbits, mice, birds which he distributes on the door mat and around the house. Ear of mouse, tail of rabbit, eye of shrew - sounds like something from Macbeth. A Macbeth doormat might be a lot better than the one saying "Oh no not you again." when you open the door.
Pixie having a wild moment in the field where the horses are - where the great heron feeds.She was dancing when this photograph was taken (thank you Chloe)
and singing in this one.
Meanwhile here is a real wild thing - one of the 300 hedgehogs at the wild life hospital. I am sure any day now they will be released into the hedges and grasslands. I am putting up my hand for a few. Although our running ducks eat the slugs and snails I'm sure there are enough to go round and the badgers (who eat hedgehogs) are over a field away.
Here are the running ducks in the garden - this photograph taken by one of our guests (thank you David Jenkins.) They look as if they are holding a conference and it's only now I look closely that I see they shouldn't be in this part of the garden at all. They have clearly broken in. It transpires that this is why I found two of them marching down the track outside earlier in the week. They discovered an escape route from the forbidden garden. I had to round them up and they dutifully ran back though the gate as running ducks would.
Harry is moulting his coat furiously and it's great to see the rooks flying off with beakfulls of white hairs to line their nests. Those nests must be pretty lush. They don't tax their lives with the forethought of grief that's for sure.
As Beezle and William Blake would say " Great things are done when men and mountain meet. this is not done by jostling in the street."
Pixie's very interesting fact for this month's blog post is No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery. I told her that wasn't a fact - not even an interesting one - it was a lexophile. She said you mean to write with a broken pencil is pointless ?
What is pointless is going onto Face Book and finding that you have joined numerous groups. The Lurcher Appreciation Society. The We love Lurchers, the We love Hairy Lurchers, Foxy Fans United,
Problem Parrots (why - I don't even have a parrot?) When I found myself watching a video on how to make a cardboard washing machine I thought this has to stop. Still - I will put this post up on Face Book - after all it does feature a hairy lurcher.
I absolutely love this poem by the farmer poet Wendell Berry. In fact I love his writings.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
