Last March Square: Bouquet For Becky

100_5389cr

Well, it’s almost a circle, this gorgeous tulip. And it does come with its own bee. And I’m sure everyone who has had fun with March squares in squares and circles in squares will want to say a big ‘hurrah’ and thank you to BeckyB for keeping us so alert and amused with this challenge even as she’s moved between two countries and not been very well.

Not only has it been fun, this challenge has also opened my eyes to the  quite surprising compositional dynamic of the square format. Laura (at Eljaygee) and I have been having  a bit of chat about this. If you go to her post linked here you can see a range of photos that she feels have been given new life by applying a square crop. It’s all fascinating stuff, and anything that makes you LOOK with fresh eyes is always a bonus.

THANK YOU BECKY AND HAPPY EASTER

 

March Square Please visit BeckyB for her final March Square

Six Word Saturday  Debbie has also been doing some fine squares so I’m also linking to her 6WS – another challenge that keeps us thinking as well as viewing.

Solar-Powered Apple Lanterns As Repurposed By Blackbirds ~ Thursday’s Special

IMG_3872cr

Sometimes it takes me a long time to reach the allotment. I set off with great purpose, shouldering a big bag of vegetable waste for the the compost heap. It is only a short hike across the field, although after rain it can be treacherously slithery, thus requiring due care and attention to avoid all outbreaks of undignified slippage. And then there are the distractions. And if I happen to have a camera in my pocket: well then, gardening must wait.

So that’s what happened when I spotted these apples that someone had slung over their hedge in the autumn. During the winter the blackbirds had nibbled the insides so neatly that only the skins remained. Not only that, the delicate apple ‘shells’ had now accrued quite new and surprising properties. Lying scattered in downtrodden grass and browning leaves, they were now capturing and emitting that too rare glow of winter sunshine. Thank you, blackbirds. A fine light show.

IMG_3886cr

Thursday’s Special: recycled

copyright 2018 Tish Farrell

Ice Magic

IMG_3078v

The continuing freezing temperatures in the Britain made me think of this photo, taken back in December. Now I have cropped and enlarged it, it looks like a Christmas Tree bauble, a piece of intricate glass. I also imagine I see a cloaked figure, a woman I think, fleeing for her life on a galloping horse. Or else it looks like a Victorian woman’s reticule, soft velvet with a drawstring closure. Or perhaps one of Scrooge’s stash of money bags.

How it formed like this, suspended from a coat thread caught on a barbed wire fence up at the allotment, I have no idea. It just goes to show that we do not need to know the hows and whyfors and whats of something to see its wonder. When I found it, I thought the elements had left me a gift.

Copyright 2018 Tish Farrell

Daily Post: out of this world

Yesterday Along The Lanes In Wenlock

P1040186

I don’t remember ever seeing lesser celandines flowering in January. They are at least a month too soon, and this one has clearly been around a while, and much rained on. Snowdrops, though, are timely, and they are cropping up everywhere in gardens and wooded margins around the town.

P1040181

All the footpaths are very waterlogged and slithery. On our walk yesterday it was necessary to stop at intervals to de-mud the boots and stop growing giants’ feet. This also gave me the chance to photograph the highland cattle in the Cutlins meadow, the sheep in the Priory park, and puddles on the track to Bradley Farm. Welcome to Much Wenlock in January.

P1040197

P1040212

P1040214

P1040219

P1040223

P1040225

Six Word Saturday  Please pop over to Debbie’s to see her very astonishing photo

Yesterday ~ A Good Scavenging Sort Of A Day

Ash trees

The field path to the allotment was a slithery assault course after heavy rain and the wind was bitter, but on the big allotment bonfire-heap-in-waiting there was treasure. On top were slices of a new builder’s pallet that someone had sawn up to make for easier disposal. Well thank you very much. Naturally I had to retrieve these for recycling man and the home wood burner pile. I stacked the pieces by the hedge beside my exit route for later transportation i.e. once I’d emptied my big blue IKEA bag of vegetable peelings on the compost heap; the reason for my visit.

But then once I’d fished out the pallet pieces I realised someone had dumped a mass of garden waste that would be so much better on my compost heap. (Why do people who garden not make compost?) My good fortune though.  I filled the IKEA bag to bursting. And it was during this exercise and under a load of tree prunings that I found the other half of the pallet that had not been sawn up. Yippee! It was just the right size to make the side of a new compost bin. I lugged it up to my plot along with the compost makings. Dug up the last of the carrots and discovered some parsnips. It was then I realised I’d been so busy scavenging and rootling, the weather had sneaked up on me. Over Windmill Hill there was a storm coming in. Just time to slither home across the field, deliver the pallet bits and untangle the sheets that had tied themselves in knots on the washing line. When I took them indoors they were filled with fresh-air smells that made me think of spring.

copyright 2018 Tish Farrell