Harvest
Maize, raspberries and the differed between a rat and a shrew.
Art
When I was at school and writing a topic I would sometimes find myself unable to spell a word because I’d seen it so much it didn’t make sense anymore. Mostly I don’t think about spellings, but when writing a word too often I’d start questioning it. Some spellings are very odd. I feel this way with my present print. I finished the sky and I couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. I’ve seen it too often and I need to put it away for a bit before continuing.
Working for a month and then putting it away for four months because the fieldfares left, working another two weeks and then stopping because I need a break; it’s not the story people want to hear. I’m meant to work in a manic frenzy for three days and produce a masterpiece at great cost to my mental health, not enjoy a gentle pootle along with lots of tea breaks. I could put up old photos and pretend that I was working in a neat and linear pattern with no stops and starts but it’s a part of my creative process and I like tea breaks, and honesty.
I also have to be honest about how uncomfortable reduction printing makes me feel. On a multi block print, if I don’t like the colours I can reprint it until it looks how I want, but here, where the block is incrementally carved away, there’s no going back, and I don’t really like that. I like to be fully in control. I like to know how it’s going to look before I start; which is why this is a good exercise for me. It doesn’t matter, really, how much I like it, I have to accept it the way it is because literally can’t fix it. I get to deal with my issues of perfectionism and control, which I’m not really enjoying.
Inspirations.
Every morning I get up and return with a handful of smug raspberries for my porridge. They are smug because it’s so hard to grow vegetables, anything worth eating has usually been eaten by some ravenous small mammal, or bird or whatever the hell genus slugs belong to (molluscs? Gastropods? or are those people that like eating?), so be tolerant when people post photos of their hard won vegetables.
The raspberries I put in two years ago, three different types for harvest from early summer to late autumn. They barely existed the first year, and the second year, the hot one, the berries were miserable things, sparse and shrivelled in the heat. This is the first year of any worth, three years worth of loving care. The berries won’t last for much longer. The wheat is gathered in months ago, and the tomatoes are done for, despite the warm weather. The last harvest is nearly upon us.
I like the maize because you can hide in it, but I like it better when it’s cut down. I can see the trees again, and I like the lines; the stubble, the tracks, the yet to be harvested standing stalks.
Laurence Llewelyn Bowen once grandly said there were no straight lines in nature, as if nature is chaotic, messy, and fluid and only human activities are neat, and straight and orderly; but humans are often messy and there is not much straighter than a crystal lattice, or, as a friend pointed out, a fat monkey hanging on a vine.
The field is planted but the maize grows straight up, all by itself, and harvest was probably delayed by people leaving their cars chaotically all over the place. The no parking signs are futile, so when access is needed, farmer puts out the cones, which are moved by people who feel entitled to for reasons that elude me. The farmer puts out tyres that are harder to move, and people start to park illegally in odd places, which is stupid because tractors are big, and have a large turning circle and if you like your car to remain intact you really don’t want to annoy farmers. The farmer puts out tyres, with cones on the top. The saga amuses me, this year at least, because the gate posts haven’t been knocked down (yet). Mite about as much conflict as I can handle in these terrible times.
I’m calling it maize, by the way, because I seem unable to get past the old ways of calling wheat (or any unspecified cereal) corn, which I though was a common but apparently isn’t anymore. My son would correct me, until my husband weighed in to tell me I’m wrong before pausing to realise barley was called barleycorn and corn dollies are made of wheat ears and all these words predate the farming of maize in the country which is a fairly recent thing.
It also means you can tell the magpie song (sung by the unthanks) from the TV show the detectorists is a modern song; saying barley, wheat and corn doesn’t make so much sense when wheat and corn are used synonymously. It was written in the 60’s by David Dodds, I looked it up. I haven’t been able to find a recording of his version.
My Garden and other nature
A new male owl moved into the garden and started a territorial hoo off with the resident garden tawny, as if having one owl hooting all night isn’t enough. So now there’s a back garden and a front garden owl. As of tonight, the back garden owl seems to be further way, still in the back but not in the garden, so I guess he lost. Front garden owl remains in place.
My son found a dead shrew at school and returns amazed that his classmates cannot identify a shrew, and not only that, but mistakenly believe it might be a rat. This means, he says, they don’t even know what a rat looks like, a concept unfathomable to him, like not knowing the shriek of a fox in the night is nothing to be worried about. It’s weird how disconnected we’ve become from nature; one time he came home in a state of distress because someone mistook a goldfinch for a parrot in the end of term quiz.
I enjoyed reading all your observations and ideas very much! Thank you. I love owls and hear them so rarely.