Art or life?
Photographed by a friend — thanks David ‘Ikey’ Jones
It is in fact a plume moth, alive and not in anyway damaged or poorly!
Backswimmer in the wake of a dragon
I never seem to understand the limitations of my eye-sight or reaction-time and today I’ve been trying to photograph dragon flies again. I have many pictures of their wake — the disturbed but empty air just above the water where, just recently, they were — but wait… What is this?
Something lurking just below the surface — not clear enough to see.
Can you see what it is yet? Sorry! It’s what I call a water-boatman but when I look that up I find the term is ambiguous — it covers a multitude of sins — this needs clarification –I rummage in the shed for a fishing net and plastic punnet — the one without holes and bingo!
It is a Back Swimmer (Notonectidae glauca) Known in Britain as the Greater Water Boatman. It swims upside down (according to our prejudices) just below the surface of freshwater ponds, attracted to prey by the agitation of the water — the waves on the surface. It has a nasty toxic bite and probably ate all our tadpoles. It’s a proper bug and can haul itself through the surface and fly away though it didn’t when I hoicked it out to photograph it. I think its eggs develop directly into adults.
What about the Lesser Water Boatman? I hear you ask. He is called Corixa punctata — he swims the right way up near the bottom of the pond, is less agressive (a bit of a veggie) but is otherwise quite similar unless you have a macro lens — I shall look for him tomorrow.
Unhealthy, Unsafe and Uninhibited.
It’s August — the silage is made, the lambs are weaned — the hill farmer’s fancy can fly!
Amser siow — Showtime!
He and she will disport themselves with their neighbours ( please note the youngsters in the background sloping off into the bushes).
Or he may just watch the people and think vaguely of finding a mate.
Watching the totty in the dog show
Young bucks can pit themselves, one on one, in the shearing ring.
Or in teams —
Winning team?
Challenging their elders —
Red Lions
–and winning!
While in the produce tent there is combat of a more serious nature — the carrot wars.
Carrot combat.
The children meanwhile are introduced to a tarantula by an entertainer with a mission — he hands a scorpion out absent mindedly to a little boy, ‘ Here, hold this!’ the boy looks uncomfortable and hands it to the even smaller girl next to him who squeals and drops it. It scuttles towards the flaps of the tent where the parents are huddled nervously, they all jump backwards. The man with the mission scoops it up and plonks it on another child’s eager out-stretched hand.
Later he opens box after box and, in the same casual way, hands out the snakes — puts the curled up corn snake down on the head of a convenient child and festoons his bag of snub-nosed snakes on the shoulders of another group who stand very still — but not for long. Soon there is a milling of excited kids all with reptiles about their person — pythons and a skink, which makes them squeal louder because it poohs. There is a beautiful green chameleon and for those who are scared of rats there is a giant Gambian pouched rat.
Gradually the grown-ups start to creep in to the back of the tent and he says, ‘Do you mind?’ to a wary looking man, ‘this is rather heavy,’ and without waiting for a reply, drapes him with a huge king python.
New bonds are made.
Now the nervous parents are stroking the rat and the reptiles which nestle happily in the arms and hoods and up the jumpers of their relaxed children — mission accomplished!
Out in the sunshine the donkey racing has started — a lady who does not ride horses and who has just drunk a significant quantity of fruit cider is loaded into a metal chariot which is attached to a mule. The race is on — she valiantly lashes the mule with the reins, the chariot corners precariously, it does not tip and she comes second in her heat — everyone cheers.
Time for the final —
and genes will out. The final of the Donkey Derby is fought out between a mother and her daughter who unmistakably demonstrate the same joyful vitality — though Mum has just a bit more grit.
Images of Summer
Bloodsucker on Ragwort
The sight of this flower beetle takes me back to the sunny meadows of childhood where holding one of these bloodsuckers was a right of passage! Misnamed, they hunt the flower heads for tiny insects although this one seemed to be drinking nectar.
Bloodsucker on Meadow grass
Bloodsucker on Ragwort
Bloodsucker on meadow grass
Fairies gambol and flit by the pond — dragonflies whizzing past my lens at the speed of sound — boom! I know — shutter speed too slow!
Dragonfly
Dragonfly I took last year
Cheating — a blue chaser from August last year!
Just above the water of the pond, perched on a rush, is a tiny skipper — it seems to be laying eggs.
Orange Skipper — not clearest image
Here she is again
Skipper with her tongue out
Skipper laying Egg?
Impressionist image of Orange Skipper
In the back-ground on this idyllic day is the sound of this little chap, well thousands of him, and not heard often in wet Wales!
Can you see the Meadow Grasshopper?
Sorry — not always the crispest of images but I am working on it!
Eternal Analogy
Don’t panic but I’m talking about the relationship between Man and God. I should say between God and Man because God is more important but then, when it comes to the ‘relationship’, Man is probably the main mover — wielding his free will and his recently evolved imagination.
The analogy: you guessed — the shepherd and his flock (why does this woman never stop talking about sheep?) It’s not blasphemy — me and my sheep — the precedent is well established by great authority, it stands to reason and is immediately evident to anyone who keeps a woolly congregation.
Position is relative: I am the Walrus, the Ombudsman, the Gatekeeper, the Father. I don’t control the weather but they think I do. They plead, they nag, they accuse me, and when it rains for a week, they stand in full view, in rows, entranced, fixing me with all their psychic energy, praying (I swear they do) – it’s not easy being the supreme power.
Sheep’s view of Supreme Being.
We, — the trilogy — Him, the Maa and the Holy Dog — put up fences, make barriers, structure the known world. But we don’t make the lambs stick their heads into the fence and get stuck. We spray for fly and we immunize but we don’t hold dominion over all living things although they think we do.
You believe in God if you want to but be reasonable, believe he makes the boundaries, puts up the fences but doesn’t stop you crossing them — sticking your head in where it doesn’t belong and getting into difficulties – getting stuck. He can’t control everything – you may not like it but he’s muddling along doing his best. We all muddle along together — that’s Life.
Thanks to Peter Jenkins for image of the iconic arse (all rights reserved).
Grass Roots Bio-Diversity.
Here’s a political picture: four man-made layers — you just know it’s wrong.
From the top — over-grazed mountain; wind-farm on peat-bog; desolate, monoculture pine forest; mechanised farming
In contrast, the farmland we tend here in Wales is designated by the Government as 100% habitat (which is probably true of most places if you know what you are looking at) — but it’s official, half our land is ‘oak and wild hyacinth’ — bluebell woods to you — ancient woodland that was felled after the war for pit-props for the economic recovery and grazed until 2006 when the Forestry Commission, with unusual wisdom, offered us a modest grant to replant and, more importantly, to exclude grazing for 15 years.
So for the last 8 years this land, nestling under the old hill fort has been spared the ravages of the hardy native sheep that we love but whose mission is deforestation. 
I never understand why folk get so enthusiastic about protecting the bleak moorlands of this area that are scoured bare by unnatural numbers of hungry sheep when, if left to its own devices this land would be broad-leafed woodland bursting with wild flowers, song birds and little furry creatures!
Couldn’t resist a little furry creature!
So here we are — our saplings, oak, hazel,rowan, aspen, alder, wild cherry and holly wrestle with self-sown birch and willow and the creeping shoots of blackthorn and hawthorn which insinuate themselves from the old hedgerows. They were planted naturalistically (not in rows), not to confuse the tree counters from the ministry, that was inadvertent (a happy accident) but to give them a head start and to make the wild-life feel at home. In the wet gulleys the alders are already 5 meters high in places. I don’t like to embarrass them but they are sexually mature with lots of little cones, the rowan have berries and this year for the first time there are wild cherries! Some of the oaks are taller than me (I sound like a parent) and in the spring and early summer the foliage on the new growth is bright red.
Red leaves on the new growth
Our new old wood is very young and we will need to maintain the glades and open areas — it would be nice to re-introduce a charcoal burner or an oak tanner, sadly extinct, to maintain the woodland clearings where the meadow-sweet can grow as it does now in the floor of our little dingle.
Imagine the vanilla perfume, the hum of bees and the tintinnabulatiion of the hidden stream
Fruiting moss — once harvested for florists – you sink into it like green snow.
The land looks wild but cut back the undergrowth a little and you will find signs of quite sophisticated engineering from long ago, built by hand with shovel and river-stone.
Drainage culvert
And beware invaders when you clear ground; where we dug out a hidden culvert in the spring to unblock it and release the pond that had squatted along our track, we now have a bank of rose bay willow herb.
Rose Bay Willow Herb flourishes on any bare ground.
What amazes us is the variety of plants and animals that show themselves as the year progresses; every week the micro-landscape changes as the colours and shapes reflect the constantly changing balance within the ecosystem. As taller plants like the ferns, the miriad tall grasses, the foxgloves, meadowsweet and the parsleys grow up and take the light, the undergrowth of smaller plants, the mosses, shamrocks, wood anemones and bluebells, having flowered while they can are obscurred and you have to wade, shoulder deep in a tangled profusion of humming, scented, sometime prickling, jungle. The lushness and fertility of it all just knocks your socks off!
Tormentil — good for toothache
Orange skipper.
Angelica
Ringlet butterfly
Stream side hab.itat
Ringlet butterfly on nettle
Bursting sheaths of wild angelica.
The other half of our land is ‘severely disadvantaged’ and ‘unimproved’ pasture (what a cheek!) that we work hard to maintain without recourse to chemicals or artificial fertilizers — we hack down the bracken and dig out the gorse and cut the thistles just before they seed and we harrow the mole hills and we mend the fences and the sheep do the rest!
Sheep in the meadow — once the orchids have seeded.
Double, double toil and trouble.
Auspicious day? Yesterday I cleaned the house which must have unsettled everyone. Today I could feel it through my feet – bare feet, next to godly feet – feel the silky smoothness of the wooden floors, the springiness of the fluffed up carpet pile and…
Bless the cats – a field mouse, just what I wanted for my birthday, but not as much as I wanted my breakfast. A bowl of muesli, topped with fruit-salad and — go on, spoil yourself – some double cream. I’ll eat it in the sunshine. So I popped it on the table outside the kitchen door but remembered the mouse (other members of the household are more squeamish than I), I picked it up by its tail, went out of the door and hurled the little body towards the overgrown bank (for the thrice mewing buzzard to eat)– not a very good delivery (sad in a cricketing family) – Splash. Luxury dead-mouse muesli!
You see I’d been reading Macbeth — so it was ordained and it set me thinking what else I should add to my birthday breakfast.
We live in Wales – so Dragon scales and it’s a classic recipe so
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog (all freely available),
I can get hemlock and yew,
but liver of blaspheming Jew?
‘That’s racist!’ interjects the spouse,
‘Just make do with mouse’.
Entrails of a cursing Celt
Would probably suffice –I felt
For offensive antiquary
Insert anathema contemporary
Nose of Turk will no longer work
A politician’s naval I’ll convert.
For Tartar’s lip — a grated betting slip,
Ear hair from a defrocked priest
would be in the spirit of the piece.
Gall of goat and sweat of stoat —
Microwaved in belly of python
And foamed up in a soda syphon…
…That should do it!
Time traveller’s guide to Mid-Wales
The sun is shining, a domestic cat is yowling to announce its slaughter of a grey squirrel which it is dragging through the tall undergrowth of grasses, foxgloves but, this year, no policemen’s helmets (that is carnival policemen — pink helmets of Himalayan balsam): its June 2014 — elementary.
Farm cat — hunting
This time it’s a rabbit
All these factors give away the time — grey squirrels in Wales puts us somewhere in the last 120 years, foxgloves bloom in June when it usually rains, but not this year! Balsam only arrived recently — another invader, I prefer the notion of a pioneer species — but it doesn’t like floods in autumn and spring and, by God, we did have those. That’s narrowed it down, June 2014 and the bins are out in the lane — it’s a Tuesday — it’s today! I knew that all along!
Foxgloves
What I want to say is that, here, June is pink and purple with foxgloves and thistles and clover and orchids. May was blue and white (bluebells and wood anemones, dancing in the breeze) heady with the perfume of the May flowers and April was yellow. In July the valley floor will be cream and scented with meadow-sweet. June is pink.
Orchid meadow
Fritillary butterflies flit between the thistles, the air bumbles with bees and hums with wing-beats — I never was aware of the sound of bird’s wing until we came here. The pied wagtails have fledged and are sitting on the truck to avoid the cats — there are some feathers on the ground. The sparrows in the eves and the house-martins under the gable are still chattering in their nests. They say ‘any time now’. There is plenty to eat — a good year for midges and the damsel flies fluoresce in flashes around the pond.
Pied Wagtail fledgelings
Flitillary butterfly
Large orchid in grazing excluded area –spotted leaves
Red Damsel Fly
Orchid
Flitillaries canoodling on a thistle
More Orchids
Common Blue Damselfly (probably).
In bed at night with the windows flung wide, there is squeaking in the yard as the bats whizz around on silent wings — Good night.
All you need to know about female sexuality — for free.
‘How to get your man, and hang on to him,’ Or something like that – that’s what the smooth young man on the internet was promising to reveal if you registered on his site – ‘what you do that turns men off!’
Pin back your ears, Men. Here it comes! From the other side of the sexual divide – all you need to know about female sexuality – and it’s free.
Don’t worry about the science, it’s simple – women have two hormones – one called compliance hormone (which make her say ‘bless him – oh I do love him,’ when you say something dumb) and non-compliance hormone (which makes her say ‘That’s dumb!’ when you say something dumb). During her reproductive years the levels of these two hormones go up and down but compliance hormone is dominant for far more days than its brother – this is what makes marriage possible. The variations in these hormones are endlessly confusing to the male of the species. Some say it keeps him on his toes and maintains his interest. It is much simpler than that.
When there is a biological chance of pregnancy compliance hormone says ‘bless him – I do love him.’ When there isn’t, when conception has failed, non-compliance hormone says ‘God, you are irritating, why don’t you sling your hook and let someone else have a go.’ This is called pre-menstrual tension by men. Nature calls it sexuality and it makes life very difficult for some women and most men. It causes infidelity and makes life difficult for counsellors who try to help women decide what they want to do when what they want to do changes with the tides every two weeks each lunar month (Note — doctors also think it’s more fun not to warn people that various drugs, contraceptives and aids to fertility mess with this system causing perplexing emotional turmoil.)
Not surprisingly women complain about these dramatic changes in their emotional settings… That is, they complain until the menopause when they become blissfully stable and go back to how they were when they were eleven – pretty un-compliant and free from the influence of compliance hormone. Then they complain about the lack of hormones and take HRT (hormone replacement therapy) – this is to avoid re-negotiating their marriage or getting divorced. The former would probably be best for everyone as divorce is distressing and men generally become more compliant and dependent upon their wives as they age due to slight waning in their I’m in charge hormone, sadly this is not the case in my own marriage but that’s another story.
All this evolved when sex was about dominance, about belonging to the strongest, richest, most aggressive man who could protect and inseminate a woman most efficiently – long before love was invented.
This is why it is so difficult for women to leave what we call abusive men – cave men. (note – I’m sure there is another, as yet unidentified, hormone — let’s call it extra-compliance factor, released in women after sex – a project for a PhD perhaps)
Lastly women are attracted to men that make them laugh – thank God for that at least, I hear you say. Laughter is all about dominance – did you not know that? Big people tickle little people to let them know who’s in charge, little people giggle to show they understand.
Is it any wonder that sustaining a sexual relationship for any length of time is difficult.
Thanks to David Merrigan for his image of the Gerkin, London (cc-Attribution-Non Commercial) via flickr
Life is short —
Andy had enjoyed life and particularly paragliding so what better way to celebrate his life than for him to posthumously drag his unfit friends, one last time, up the steepest hill, have a few drinks then jump off the top in tandem with an old friend.
Advanced party
Canine support
Time for refreshment.
Rest and refreshment
A different point of view
Sharing
Blue-sky thinking… Drinking
Granddads
Priority
Ready for one last turn around the valley
Ready for the off
Waiting for the wind
Lift-off
‘Mind my barns’
And so Andy’s ashes soared over the valley he loved and then were scattered on the mushroom field where he had taken his friends for one last picnic and some quiet reflection.
Andrew Stewart Pryce
21-5-50 — 4.12.13
dianaashworth 