Wishing everyone, a happy weekend!
Ashley
A Fungus Foray
Last Saturday, I joined a group from a local wildlife society on their annual search for, and recording of fungus. We visited Derrymore House near the town of Newry.
I am not a recorder of fungus but I enjoyed a pleasant afternoon in good company, out in the park and took lots of photos. Here is a small selection:
If you would like to know more about Derrymore House, in County Armagh here is a link to the National Trust website for the property:
History of Derrymore | National Trust
Some more of my photos:
If you would like to see some wonderful photos of fungus, follow the link below:
https://picpholio.wordpress.com/2022/09/30/holiday-mushrooms/
Ashley
Flower Friday
Nerine (possibly bowdenii) also known as Guernsey or Jersey lily, and sometimes spider lily.
Still there are flowers, As the daylight fades; Spider lilies.
Ashley
Flax
Harvest over; The scent of retting lingers, Everywhere.
Some weeks ago, a fellow blogger, Mark (*1), challenged his readers to write a haiku about cotton. Like me, Mark follows the seasons in his blog. At that particular time the cotton plant was beginning to open. Of course where I live we don’t grow cotton and so having no experience of that process I wondered if there was something here, in these wetter, cooler lands that could be written about.
What came to mind was flax, the plant from which linen is made, and not so many years ago it played a massive part in the life of this island. Finding out something about it here was easy enough; the website for National Museums NI (*2) has lots of information but I wondered if anyone still grew and produced flax. Eventually I came across a farm in County Tyrone (*3) who’s ethos was to grow and produce flax using traditional methods in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Making contact with the farm, I was able to arrange a visit for my wife and myself on a glorious late September morning. Accompanied by Helen and Charlie we tramped over their fields along with their dogs, and actually pulled some missed stems of flax. We also helped to pick some of the remaining hedgerow blackberries.
How privileged we were, hearing the farm’s story and their plans for a sustainable future. Perhaps next year we will return to see the fields filled with the “wee blue flower”.
Everywhere, Carried on the autumn wind, Golden memories.
Ashley
(Retting: the process of soaking the flax in water to help soften the stalks so that the flax fibres can be separated from the core and outer casing. The smell is very distinctive).
(*1) https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/117283304/posts/4218663982
(*2) https://www.nmni.com/story/warp-and-weft-story
(*3) https://mallonireland.com/pages/linen
Autumn Equinox
Here in the northern hemisphere it is that time when both night and day are of equal length and from here on daylight reduces and the nights become longer. It’s a time for preparing for the colder months but it is also an opportunity to plan for the months beyond the winter.
Planting bulbs,
As the darkness grows –
Flowers for spring.
Ashley
A Weekend Away
A short break, away from home, our first since 2019!
A few days on the Ards Peninsula is good for the soul. Places visited: Portaferry, Donaghadee, Ballywalter, Castle Ward and Strangford.
Ashley
On the seashore
With such high temperatures, the best place to be is beside the sea.
There’s a line in a Percy French song that goes:
“Where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.”
Newcastle, County Down, Northern Ireland. Enjoy it here! Or better still, why not visit this glorious part of the Northern Ireland coast.
Have a great weekend,
Ashley
August
The beginning of a new month and the festival of Lammas; a time of harvest.
Bees hurry Between the flowers; Autumn.
July
It’s almost the middle of July and the night skies are light until late. However, if you want to look beyond our solar system, the James Webb Space Telescope has produced amazing pictures of deepest space.
Closer to home, on the 13th July here in the UK, we may see something amazing in the early evening!
Mid July; For those who lift their eyes from the earth, A supermoon.
Ashley
Original artwork and verse by Ashley
Summer Solstice
Here we are, On the hill of summer; The longest day.
This is a verse I published last year and it so I happened that I was in the same place yesterday where my verse came to me! I hope you don’t mind me repeating it? When I first wrote it, I’d been browsing through one of my favourite books, The Hill of Summer by J.A. Baker. I just love the descriptive writing in that book. Baker is probably better known for his extraordinary book, The Peregrine.
(The title of J.A. Baker’s book, The Hill of Summer, comes from a line in A.E. Housman’s poem A Shropshire Lad.)
A Different View 