Thursday, January 31, 2013

January feather

A small, pure white downy feather on the grass by the eastern edge of The Square Metre. Such a delicate, out of place thing, unsullied by the muddy wet of winter. Wild rose leaves stay green all through the colder months. The blackbirds are singing loudly. Tiny midges float across my gaze, little disturbances in the atmosphere, little flying pieces of smoke.

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I have spotted a plant of wood avens or herb Bennet, Geum urbanum, in Medlar Wood, a new record for Emthree and the first new record for 2013. As the name implies, this is characteristically a woodland species, but comes up very frequently in gardens. The roots have a clove like taste and can be used to flavour food and drink.

Friday, January 11, 2013

Two bricks and a stone

Quite cold but beautifully sunny for most of the day making it feel almost like early spring. I kept to my promises to myself and took a second brick down to Emthree and have installed it , frog up, next to yesterday’s frog down example. I filled the sky-reflecting frog with local water and was quite surprised by the amount it held.

I think it is worthy of the Tate Gallery.

IMG_1140I also uncovered the Glen Lyon Stone. The lichen has gone, but otherwise in is, unsurprisingly, not visibly changed since its arrival in 2004.

The top picture shows how it was yesterday.  The second picture how it was today.  And the third picture how it was in July 2004.

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Thursday, January 10, 2013

New refugia & thistles

It has been a mild opening to the year, but is now turning colder – only 6.8 C on my midday visit. I have installed a pale orange chunk of split sweet chestnut (from the wood at the end of the garden) to where the first piece of wood, now long decayed, once lay. It was called ‘Gingerbread Refuge’ and I shall continue to use this name.

20130110 Metre chestnut refuge (2)Just outside the north west corner of Emthree I have replaced an old, black plastic plant tray with a reddish house brick, its frog (the indentation on one face), lain downwards. I might add another brick, face up, so that the frog acts as a tiny shallow scrape, though I will have to keep it topped up with water.

20130110 Metre brick

I noticed two kinds of thistle rosette. One, growing almost vertically on North Wall, has very weakly serrated leaves quite different from the marsh thistle towards the south east corner of Emthree whose leaves are deeply serrated and very prickly. Both will need watching as the season advances.

20130110 Metre thistle (6) 20130110 Metre marsh thistle