The changing skies.

Migration and houseplant tips, hooray.

Here I am again, fourth week in a row, asking the big questions, like why do I pay for Spotify when I could just buy Cosmo Sheldrake’s The Much Much How How and I and listen to it repeatedly for almost free?*

One of the benefits of this time of year is the sun rises at a reasonable hour, and I can admire it from the kitchen window, which reminds me to finish a print of that view I abandoned in March.

Sunrise over current field view. It’s a bit different to the print at the moment

The view is entirely corn these days. The corn gets harvested late, so there will be no turnips, and therefore no sheep to keep me company this winter. We like the corn though; I once took my child to the millets farm maize maze and he flat out refused to pay £8 per head when he can get lost in a field of corn for free.

I stopped working on this print because I realised I had to recut some of the flocks because I’d made the birds to big. If someone wanted to make a really good resource for artists, it should be a bird comparison site. How big is a lapwing compared to a redwing? A fox? Oh no, that fox is going to have to go because I want the lapwings to be visibly lapwings and if that fox is fox sized then I’ve made the lapwings the size of pterodactyls and that’s not good. Also, I didn’t feel like working on it because the flocks of pterodactyls had broken up for the breeding season by the time I’d carved the first block.

Summer leaves with the swallows and cold winds bring in new comers, while native birds gather up into flocks and hunker down in winter quarters. The skies seem bigger in winter, bruised with storms and full of echos and birds, layers of birds; starlings in the distance, redwings in the middle distance, lapwings in the foreground, combinations of flocks wheeling and turning. It’s such a magical experience for me I feel it must be possible to read the changing skies; humans have always thought of birds as omens.

You’re not going to see this print in the shop soon because I’m doing a multi layer reduction print for the sky that will take about three months to complete and may very well go wrong and get consigned to the bin and never mentioned again. Please feel free to buy something else from the shop though, or leave a comment or heart in support, I like those too.

Three layers in and to be honest, I have no idea what I’m doing and I’m regretting my life choices a bit.

One of the biggest migrations of winter is the moving of houseplants, an epic task that makes me regret number I own, which is a lot**. Even when you think room is bright, it’s dark, because it’s inside. If a plant wants bright light, it wants to be IN (not under) south or west facing window. If it likes shade, it wants to be close to the window. If you think a spot is shady, don’t put a plant there, it’s too dark; it might not die, but no good will come of it. In the winter everywhere is too dark, and I move all the plants nearer windows. I was feeling pleased with the aesthetics until I remembered I’d forgotten to bring in the greenhouse plants, which includes a Tamarillo seedling with is now objectively a tree that no longer fits in the bathroom.

Orange blossom. Almost worth the pain. This is one of the trees that haven’t defoliated due to excessive rain, or drought, and doesn’t currently pests or nutrient deficiency . Basically they hate leaves

I used to over winter the citrus in the green house, kumquats*** are quite hardy, but last year it was very, very cold and one died, as well as a small lemon tree that had, in fairness, been trying to shuffle off this mortal coil for the best part of a decade.  I replaced it with a lime. Then I bought another lime because I found it in B&Q and it was only tiny and needed me. Then I went to the garden centre for my birthday to get a replacement lemon tree but they didn’t have the variety I wanted, and instead of going home and ordering one on the internet like a normal person, I impulsively bought a clementine. Then I ordered the Meyer lemon, and this is why I own ten citrus trees.

My windowledges are becoming problematic. My husband requests  I switch my obsession to trees more suited to our climate as I drown in the sweet, sweet scent of orange blossom but I can’t quit oranges.

Screenprint of an orange tree. A small fox is posing as an orange.

I have printed orange trees before, and I would like to do so again. I would like to revisit quite a few if my screen prints bececase I have the means to do a much better job, but I’m not sure if it’s good or regressive to return to subjects repeatedly. I’m keen to explore new territories too, a dilemma to discuss another day, I think.

I’m trying to invest more time in Substack but still haven’t got round to important things, like finding blogs to read and working out what the difference between a note, a thread and a post is.  I’m sorry, the whole social media thing is exhausting now I have 53 microblogging sites instead of just twitter, which I’m avoiding; I’ll try and be a better community member. As ever, this Substack is free for all, feel free to  recommend it.

*I like repetition. That’s why I’m a printmaker. That, and it’s easier to get a lot of people to buy a cheap thing that one person to buy one expensive thing.

** you are not imagining enough.  Every year I buy some seeds and as a consequence I currently own about a million cacti alone, and it STILL doesn’t stop me getting excited when I see a lophophora williamsii for sale for £5 at a charity plant sale, so it’s a million and one now.

***I had the normal amount of kumquat trees; three.