where eagles dare

 A friend of mine(you know who you are) sent me a series of photographs of this thirteen year old Mongolian girl who is the only female hunter in her country. I think they are sensational and liberating pictures and I'd love to be this girl in another life. I've moved on from wanting a tapir and now would like a golden eagle. In fact the pictures have so inspired me that I feel another story lurking in the distance and have immediately booked an appointment with the golden eagle man at the hawk conservancy. More on that at a later blog. Is this a cliff hanger?

 Meanwhile, not in Mongolia, we had a wet Easter and we were unable to do the Easter egg hunt in the garden for the first time ever. The weather has never stopped us before. The blazing sun might have melted a few of the eggs, Pixie might have found a few before we did - but we have always carried on regardless. I exclude myself from this because I hide them - but even I forget where I put them sometimes and have discovered them whilst gardening later in the year around June or July.We attempted a small hunt in the house but as each room is full of clutter it was n't worth hiding them in mysterious places or no one would find them and when the heating comes back on in the winter there'd be a lot of melted dust covered chocolate. We did have an Easter bunny though that Pocket (quarter Bengal) or Nancy brought in - but only the ears and tail.

 I'm very happy with these miniature tulips called Candy stripe. They shut up in the evening and open up like lilies in the day showing a white interior. The picture below was meant to show them opened up but that eagle has flown into the frame again so I might have to put them up on the next blog.{perhaps with news from the hawk conservancy}

I don't think the farmers around us would be too pleased if I had a golden eagle of course. I have images of lambs being brought home which take up a lot more room than rabbits. Also I'm not sure that cats would be too safe. Still, as Beezle and Nietzsche would say "that which does not kill us makes us stronger."

The Eagle



He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls
And like a thunderbolt he falls.


Alfred, Lord Tennyson

rhinos on the lawn

 Spring stroke Summer is here in the garden now - the magnolia is in full bloom along with the tulips -some of which have already gone past. Spring might be late but looks as if Summer may be early. However what isn't in my garden right now are  couple of white rhinos grazing on the lawn.

 I wanted to do some research on an idea I have for a new book and went to the Cotswold Wild Life Park which is owned and run by a friend of a friend of a ...... It is the most fabulous place - none of the animals are caged and like these rhinos you can get up quite close without being tossed into the air by one of those horns - as if you were a hat that a coat peg took a dislike to.
Now what I really want is a tapir.

 I just had to take a photo of this bizarre tulip - called Pirand - which I hadn't wanted and wouldn't grow again but it opened up like a waterlily and was the size of my hand span. That vase is not a thimble by the way. Actually I don't know why I wasted my camera battery taking a picture of a tulip - what I meant to photograph was my first egg! Well not mine personally, but the first egg of the year laid by the clever white lady duck in the polytunnel area. They are all girls there now, four of them, all different colours like a box of assorted chocolates. There's brown and white, white and brown, a black one and a white one. Last year after their mate died they stopped laying and I was beginning to wonder if unlike hens they needed a male duck before they laid but I'm happy to say they don't because I still can't bring myself to split the two boys up who live in the garden. I had to put one of them on bed rest for a fortnight because he had some trauma in his leg.( that's vet speak and very expensive it was too.)
He just stayed in the wendy house which is their sleeping quarters but it's very nice and has two pairs of green gingham curtains and a small blackboard incase they want to practice their numbers. They spent most of the day talking to each other over the stable type door. The one not on bed rest running round the garden then occasionally popping back to the wendy house for a chat with the patient.

Beezle and Pocket.

 There's such a lot of activity out there now, birds busy with their nest building and also laying their first egg I have no doubt. Insects buzzing, horses shedding their coats, hedgehogs trying to dismantle their GPS collars, but in the house there seems to be an awful lot of sleeping. Most spare area has something asleep on it. Either a cat of some sort or a dog. But as Beezle and Nietzsche would say "Every man's an artist when he dreams."

Narcissi Thalia now in abundance

Meanwhile as the woods are holding their breath for the eruption of the bluebells people are in there with their chainsaw stockpiling wood for WINTER! I don't think that's very Zen. What about living (or sleeping) in the moment?


'This is the first thing."


This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood.




Philip Larkin

fog and rolling horses

 I must have been writing these blogs for a year now because I seem to remember putting up a picture of the hellebores before. But they are so pretty floating in the water as you hardly see their little faces on the plant itself. Each year they increase in number but sad and inevitable is the fact that the pink ones increase and the startling yellow and delicate spotted white ones do not. Pink is the dominant gene.

 Also pink and smelling amazing is the Daphne odora which is right by the gate so that when you walk into the garden now you do not notice the headless mouse on the path because you are so intoxicated by the heady perfume of the daphne. Things are growing at an amazing rate. The air is filled with the scent of petrol as opposed to the sickening smell of the central heating oil running out as people take to their lawn mowers to clip and trim that grass into shape. This means the grass in the horse's field is growing too so no more hay.

The lime green of the euphorbias really brighten the garden

and the beautiful red of the new leaves on the rose bushes

Harry

 We've had a bit of all weather this week. Sun, rain. FOG! It's rugs on, rugs off, rugs on for those horses as it can't make up it's mind if its Summer, Spring or Winter again.
 Took the dogs for a walk in the horses field today and I realise what a policeman Beezle is. He doesn't like anything out of the ordinary. Harry (without the rug) decided what he really wanted was a nice roll in the dirt and Beezle couldn't stand it. What was a horse doing on the ground? They should be standing or trotting. He raced over to Harry barking like mad  Bark bark - which made Harry get up, flatten his ears and threaten Beezle with a hind hoof. You'd think he would have learnt by now.
About ten years ago he was kicked in the head by a horse because he chased it. He still has the scar and a centimetre higher he would have been dead. Bark bark.
And this morning when I was walking round the home field with them (listening to an I pod which my lovely girls had given me for Christmas with all the tunes they knew I liked on} I suddenly unexpectedly broke into a dance. Beezle was really cross at that. Bark Bark. Please stop making a fool of yourself Mum he was ordering. (I took no notice - Pixie just looked on bemused but then she's still on heat and dreaming of that wolfhound James from Crufts.}

Anyway back in the horse's field one of last year's swans veered off the river and found the one remaining tributary into the field. Pixie thought it would be funny to chase it till it reared up and hissed angrily at her. Beezle just watched smugly from the sidelines. As he and Heraclitus would say "One cannot step twice in the same river."

Fog


The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbour and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Carl Sandburg

Best in show

Ricky- best in show

 I happened to watch the end of Crufts last night and am still amazed at the Best in Show- Ricky a standard poodle. His hair styles was so incredible it reminded me of something Madame Pompadour would have worn or been drawn by the Swiss artist Fussli. (1741 - 1825) Fussli was obsessed with hair styles.

a Fussli hairstyle

I love his work and I can't help thinking if he knew what was happening in the dog world now, he would have endless fun incorporating them in his paintings. I think there was no doubt, watching Ricky do his paces round the ring that he was nothing other than Best in Show. Whether or not he was best dog is another matter. He moved like a miniature show pony with his extraordinary pom poms bouncing all over the place like a bizarre piece of black topiary. It was fascinating to watch but hard to believe that he had come from a wolf - which indeed all dogs have originated from. I think a wolf might have felt a bit silly with all that fluffed up hair - you'd imagine their prey would just turn around and laugh at them.
Of course there isn't a class for wolves at Crufts - they're not recognised by the Kennel Club - but there was a magnificent wolfhound called James who could so easily have won.

A midsummer's night dream by Fussli

Pixie was very taken with the wolfhound James and has immediately come on heat.(She is a member of the Kennel club)

here comes my Best in Show - Beezle (along with Pixie of course}who is only a member of his own club. 

An earnest young man with headphones and carrying a large t.v. aerial appeared in the garden the other day. He was tracking the hedgehogs that they had fitted with GPS collars and announced that one of them - Shirley - was under the decking.(see above.) The other - Doris - was still asleep in the strawbales
but this is very exciting for us that Shirley has found a nice quiet safe place to set up home.

Spring has definitely arrived which is great news after all that rain and mud. The river is retreating in the horse's field and the swans have gone back to their own tributary. When I called in on them at the weekend - I discovered poor Trude (the beautiful Friesian) had got her rug clipped onto the fence half way down the field. Poor girl - I don't know how many hours she had been stuck like that and amazed the rug didn't break. She stood calmly by the fence but she had pulled it so tight it took a long time before I could unclip the clip. Where are wirecutters when you need them?
Then the next day I returned with the dogs and Pixie leapt out of the car followed by loud wailing as she had managed to get her back foot wrapped up in the seat belt and now had her body out of the car without her foot. Again she pulled so tight I couldn't easily untangle it. Poor girl- she was screaming in agony. Where are scissors when you need them? Ah -  I know the answer to both questions. I should have invested in that item in the Innovations catalogue that has a fold away tool set you can keep in your wallet. I shan't laugh at that catalogue again. It obviously has some very needy inventions.

And talking of hair cuts I've cut back the heavenly orange branches of the salix britzensis so that it'll do its amazing colour transformation next year. Now it is definitely not looking Best in Show in the garden.

Dogs and Wolves

by Sorley Maclean


Across eternity, across its snows
I see my unwritten poems,
I see the spoor of their paws dappling
the untroubled whiteness of the snow:
bristles raging, bloody-tongued,
lean greyhounds and wolves
leaping over the tops of the dykes,
running under the shade of the trees of the wilderness
taking the defile of narrow glens,
making for the steepness of windy mountains;
their baying yell shrieking
across the hard barrenness of the terrible times,
their everlasting barking in my ears,
their onrush seizing my mind:
career of wolves and eerie dogs
swift in pursuit of their quarry,
through the forests without veering,
over the mountain tops without sheering;
the mild mad dogs of poetry,
wolves in chase of beauty.
beauty of soul and face,
a white deer over hills and plains,
the deer of your gently beloved beauty,
a hunt without halt, without respite.

Hearts and hurricanes

As the winds howl and the rain beats on the windows I have spent the day reading Ernest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea which seemed appropriate. (Ha - more weather!}The men in his novels often find redemption in Nature. I think over these past weeks we must have all marvelled and cursed at its power.

 I love Hemmingway as a writer - he said  "The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."

Today is Valentine's Day after all.

 And talking of death here is Autumn's flamboyant display of death on the wall.

I came across a very old copy of Innovations magazine the other day. I have mentioned Innovations before with regards to scarifying shoes for your lawn - and it really does make an amusing read. Apart from the "At-a-glance-motorised tie rack" and a gadget to fit six tools in your wallet - I was particularly drawn to the hourly reminders of endangered species in the form of a unique clock. I imagine an endangered tiger roaring by my pillow - I know then it is six in the morning. At three in the morning a ring tiled lemur had already whimpered in my ear. At four in the morning the hump backed whale sang. I remove the three AA batteries{which were not included} and go back to sleep.

Pixie and one of the ducks which she is particularly scared of.

and Beezle not worried by anything

Flood


His home address was inked inside his cap
and on every piece of paper that he carried
even across the church porch of the snap
that showed him with mi mam just minutes married.

But if ah'm found at 'ome {he meant found dead}
turn t'water off. Through his last years he nursed,
more than a fear of dying, a deep dread
of his last bath running over, or a burst.

Each night towards the end he'd pull the flush
then wash, then in pyjamas, rain or snow,
go outside, kneel down in the yard, and push
the stopcock as far as it would go.

For though hoping that he'd drop off in his sleep
he was most afraid, I think, of not being 'found'
there in their house, his ark, on firm Leeds ground
but somewhere that kept moving, cold, dark, deep.


Tony Harrison.

pebbledash and valentines

I don't really want to write about the weather but as it has rather taken over most everyday activities - it is hard not to. I weep when I see the farmers in Somerset losing their livestock and their grazing to the floods and am in awe at the size of the waves crashing against the Cornish and Devon coastlines. Nature's revenge perhaps for our own wilful destruction of her planet.

the snowdrops have at last broken into flower along the bank

 Really, all the wind has done up here is wash away some soil on the fields that have no crops in, just leaving masses of exposed flints. The fields look like acres of pebbledash walls lying flat on the ground.
"I saw you toss the kites on high and blow the birds about the sky - and all around I heard you pass -"
Beezle murmured as we battled the wind.(he'd been reading some Robert Louis Stevenson}

Nice rounded shapes in the garden escaping wind damage. No leaves that would tremble.

Hyacinth Carnegie

the cat formerly known as Prince miffed at the lack of livestock to catch

 Beezle has not been enjoying the wind in spite of his murmurings.  In the field where the horses are he found a thin red plastic ring that must have belonged to another dog and had absailed over the fence. At first it was a great source of fun for him until the wind strengthened and blew it back over his head so it looked as if he was wearing a halo. Then it was a great source of fun for me.

 He looked as if he'd stepped out of a Piero della Francesca painting. Pixie was most reverent  towards him.

 He looked just like St Valentine and hey -  it's Valentine's day at the end of the week. The date was thought to be the beginning of the mating season for birds but unless the wind drops they'll find it challenging.
There - the whole blog post has been about the weather - I thought as much

Who has seen the wind?

by Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

leopards in the grass

 How thrilling to see a touch of Spring in the garden again. I see this year the hellebores are keeping their stems short until the winds pass. To be felled to the ground after all those months of preparation and competition to be one of the first flowers out in the garden, would seem so pointless. They are even ahead of the snowdrops up here.

 In fact it's been quite mild and I'm half expecting the hedgehogs to wake up along with Beezle who has been practising his periodic heart beat all winter.

 As Beezle (above) and Socrates would say "Beware the barrenness of a busy life."

I would rather hope the foxes were hibernating as they had the hunt up here this morning. But sadly they don't and if they did those terriers would soon be digging them out. Beezle, Pixie and I stood firmly behind the gate as they all rode past. Several of the huntsmen raised their hats and called me "Madam" - I'm not sure what they were trying to tell me - but I smiled back as they trotted on.

At the beginning of the winter someone lost their leopard print scarf on their walk and some kind person hung it on the branch of a tree to be found. Surprisingly no one has claimed it and the winter winds have gradually reduced it to shreds so that now it lies tangled in the undergrowth looking exactly like a leopard waiting to pounce out.  This is certainly what Trude the beautiful Friesian thought as we rode past it the other day. It had to be the most terrifying thing she'd seen since my new coat and took off at great speed up the rode, dragging me and Harry the other horse behind her. I thought horses were meant to smell things like leopards before they see them - I can't think her sense of smell is doing her any favours. She really is quite a "Madam."
 Perhaps the pack of hounds have unearthed it by now. you don't want leopards littering the countryside.

                                             Unidentified object in the bagging area.

And talking of hunting please sign this petition below to stop the Japanese slaughtering the bottlenose dolphins which they herd into a cove and kill - often by breaking their backs. The filmic evidence is almost unbearable to watch.

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Japanese_Government_Stop_capturing_and_slaughtering_Dolphins_specifically_at_Taiji/?email

Thank you.