30 DAYS WILD : 26 - DRAWING TO A CLOSE

Seeing this Hart's tongue fern in someone else's wall (June 16th 2020)
inspired me to find out more about how to look after them.
I've cleared away some clutter from in front of those
in my own wall and have been drip-feeding them plant food.

After today, there will be four days of '30 Days Wild' left - a challenge set by the Wildlife Trusts to do some random act of wildness every day in June. The 'wild' ideas they suggest have not been very 'wild', not in the way of the street parties which have been breaking out around the country as lockdowns are lifted . . . they have been things like going for walks, for picnics, for listening to the birds, watching out for butterflies.

It has coincided with other challenges in all our lives. For my part, in the early days of the month I could not go out at all because I was 'shielded'. More recently, we 'shielded' people have been encouraged to go for walks as long as we keep away from others so I have swung from being totally at home and pretty inert to walking in remote places and scurrying along for the sake of exploration and to re-animate my body before it gets too sluggish and slow.

I've managed quite a few of the 'challenges'. I planted some corncockle flowers for the sake of pollinators. (They didn't come up.) I checked there is water both for the frog at my allotment and for the birds but as I'm allotmenteering by delegation instead of in person I haven't the photos to show you. But it's there.

The Wildlife Trusts sent an email poster with 'Wildlife Yoga' positions. My next door neighbour, with whom I now share a long-distance cup of tea every morning, suggested we should add outside yoga into our routine. 'What, in front of all the people passing?' No! And I haven't taken up the suggestion that I should make a mandala out of leaves and things either. (A sort of circular pattern which I think is supposed to be meditative but . . . )

I suppose these sycamore seeds (13th June 2020} could have
been turned into an artistic arrangement but I got carried
away by looking at the inevitable aphid . . . and wondering
whether the two sizes and shapes of seeds came from different trees outside my house.
Then I realised - that despite there having been plenty of blossom
on both, one has masses of these winged 'helicopters'
or 'keys'but the other has none.
Can you spot the aphid? (Clicking the picture will enlarge it.)

So it's been a bit of a mixture. Some things I've done. Some things not. I think perhaps I've been a bit lacking on the artistic front. I included a poem but I've not drawn any drawings. My photos are my 'art' so maybe it's a good moment to introduce you to 'Message in a Milk Bottle'. Until I got leukaemia I used to post a picture there every day. And I have, from time to time, on and off, since. But mostly, recently, Message in a Milk Bottle has been neglected. Unlike on Loose and Leafy there are no words - just the photos. The discipline of (almost) daily posts on Loose and Leafy for June has been gearing me up for going back to posting on Message in a Milk Bottle. Loose and Leafy will gradually drift back now to a post roughly once a week but if you like my work you might enjoy Message in a Milk Bottle on the days in between. I'll aim to start again at the beginning of July. In the meantime you might like to browse what's already there.

It isn't all nature - perhaps about two thirds. It depends what I'm doing and what's around. I like shapes and colours and walls and things dropped on pavements and bits of plastic caught in barbed wire too.

Has doing the Wildlife Trusts' Challenge changed me in any way? I think perhaps it has made me more self-aware of what I am looking at. After all, a post a day calls for rather a lot of concentration. And I've become more aware of my place in the landscape. The photo of the digger on the hill is the kind of picture I would usually post on Message in a Milk Bottle but this digger is so prominent it has become a sort of Pole Star on some of my walks.

21st June 2020

And I've become more aware of some of you. Some who have been reading and commenting on these posts are old internet friends. Some have newly arrived. As I potter around the house, noticing the presence of woodlice in the cellar and the strange absence of spiders, as I've left my vase of flowers to decay on the windowsill so I can watch the petals fall, as I've counted the sycamore seedlings I've pulled out of the pots in front of my house . . . I've been chatting with you in my head. Some of these conversations have turned into posts. Others, you may never know about. For both, thank you. Thank you for accompanying me - in my head as well as on our screens.

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Links:

Wildlife Trusts

Message in a Milk Bottle