Blue and Green
Colours for farmers and poets
We had a Blue Moon at the end of May, which is a second full moon occurring in a calendar month, so the moon doesn’t actually change colour like it does for a Blood Moon (reddish/orangish). I wonder if anything shifted for you?
According to some astrology websites, the moon is in Sagittarius energy, making it a good time to take a look at your life from a helicopter perspective, meaning the view is of the expansive landscape and not the detail of a flower in bloom. This broadest of perspectives should bring clarity to where risks are being avoided and highlight the things that need to be discarded. It’s time for a ritual with capital letters, say a bonfire, rather than a candle.
I have been persistent and very patient over the past week. Generally, I like efficiency and effectiveness and find things that don’t work as I expect them to a cause for annoyance. However, I discarded my habitual reaction of frustration, which was caused by two different, but equally time consuming events recently.
Firstly, the Inland Revenue wrote and asked me to complete an income tax self assessment. I did think, briefly, about paying David’s accountant to do it for me, but since I used to do it for both my youngest son and my brother-in-law, I decided it was money I could put to better use, such as gym clothes from Sweaty Betty (my favourite brand).
I duly went onto the website and completed all the rigmarole of signing in, including a new and extra layer of security that involved access codes, only to receive an “error message” that I have been de-registered for the service and would need to re-register. Well, I should imagine that many people wouldn’t be in a hurry file their tax self assessment after such an experience.
Secondly, I had to deal with the ‘black hole’ that is our local authority. It concerned an issue that is upsetting for David and me and involves one of our protected trees. Sadly, our copper beech has Cambrian disease and will need to be felled. The Tree Surgeon came for an inspection and he could see the cankers and split in the trunk. I thought the cankers were were where branches had fallen off, but apparently not. Consequently, I needed to report it to Council and submit a five day emergency application to have it felled on the grounds it is diseased, dead and dangerous. That’s hours of my life I won’t get back...
On the Council website there is a page for Trees and Hedges and then Protected Trees. You tap the button for emergency applications and a message says you need to apply via the Planning Portal. I did that, but the Planning Portal has an error message that says emergency applications need to be made via the local authority and so, stuck in a virtual loop, temper if not sanity may be lost...
On a much happier note there is a cuckoo on our woods. I heard it call a few weeks back, which is the first time we’ve had one in the ten years we’ve lived here and I heard it again this morning, so it was more than a passing visit. I haven’t seen it, but there are plenty of other birds to watch, such as bluetits, common woodpeckers and pheasants.
The only birds that Ruby, the Beagle, doesn’t chase are the tiny wagtails. She watches them bob across the lawn, but then ignores them. Perhaps she finds them too small to be bothered with. Pigeons, on the other hand, offer her hours of entertainment. She races one way to chase them into the hedge and then zigzags across to the other side of the garden to make them fly over the fence. I don’t believe she has ever caught anything herself, although there were some tail feathers from a pheasant down by the oak at the weekend. David says it’s more likely to be caused by a fox out hunting, then our dog.
A farmer has planted linseed (flax) in a few of his fields down the lane this year and the blue flowers are out in bloom. In the UK, flax is used for crop rotation with rape seed to disrupt disease and pests and improve the heavy clay soil, which is found in this part of the world. The swathes of blue on dusky green stems makes the landscape look very pretty. Unfortunately, I can’t sow it outside, by the polytunnel where our soil is at it’s most dense and heavy, because it requires full sunlight to flourish and that particular patch of garden is shaded by a yew tree and hawthorns.
The American poet Mary Oliver was inspired to write by walking in nature, observations of wildlife and the beauty of landscapes. She has become an inspiration to me, so this weeks poem is a tribute to her. It comes from my fifth collection of poems called “Elusive Reversals”:
PASTICHE of Hummingbirds by Mary Oliver PHEASANTS The female and the two chicks, already as big as pigeons, scattered, stiffly in their soft cream dresses then they ran, pretty ladies, into the shadows and stopped then they waited, each one on sturdy, brown feet - each one alert in the grass - and looked at me. I meant them no harm, I had simply gone outside to put out more seed on an autumn day, not knowing they were there, ready to explore the reaches of the garden and to traverse, for the first time, in their leaf-brown helmets with long, angled tails - each hidden wing. with every strut of limb, drawing tram lines across the lawn. Then with a rhythm of jolts, like three tolling bells, they were gone. Alone, On the stone patio.