It Is One More Word Uttered By Nature

“For some people, perhaps especially for Englishmen and Russians, what we call “the love of nature” is a permanent and serious sentiment. I mean here that love of nature which cannot be adequately classified as simply an instance of our love for beauty. Of course, many natural objects – trees, flowers, and animals – are beautiful. But the nature lovers whom I have in mind are not very much concerned with individual beautiful objects of that sort. The man who is distracts them. An enthusiastic botanist is for them a dreadful companion on a ramble. He is always stopping to draw their attention to particulars. Nor are they looking for “views” or landscapes. Wordsworth, their spokesman, strongly deprecates this. It leads to “a comparison of scene with scene,” makes you “pamper” yourself with “meager novelties of color and proportion.” While you are busying yourself with this critical and discriminating activity, you lose what really matters – the “moods of time and season,” the “spirit” of the place. And, of course, Wordsworth is right. That is why, if you love nature in his fashion, a landscape painter is (out of doors) an even worse companion than a botanist.

It is the “moods” or the “spirit” that matter. Nature lovers want to receive as fully as possible whatever nature, at each particular time and place, is, so to speak, saying. The obvious richness, grace, and harmony of some scenes are no more precious to them than the grimness, bleakness, terror, monotony, or “visionary dreariness” of others. The featureless itself gets from them a willing response. It is one more word uttered by nature. They lay themselves bare to the sheer quality of every countryside, every hour of the day. They want to absorb it into themselves, to be colored through and through by it.”

CS Lewis

Hat tip to Wandering Owl who found this.

Off to the milds of East Sussex in search of Roe Bucks and Muntjac (don't you wish you had our interlocking deer seasons?)
More soon
SBW

BER-DOING!!!! Pt2 The Re-Write Of Spring

Fish eggs, fallen from the sky, a pair of them on the roof of a car,

at a wedding, in suburban Leeds no less.

I always wondered how lonely Tarns in the highland hills got to have fish in them. Well now I know, sometimes things just fall from the sky, in that way that leaves me wondering about the elusive pattern that we call serendipity, where one random impulsive act can change the course of events, give us a new lease on life, and even provide a doorway back to when we we're young and weren't so stupid as to believe we've seen it all before. Last night I was suddenly and without warning 15 years old again - felt better the second time around.

SBW

BER-DOING!!!!

This afternoon as I was standing in a suburban garden wondering if there was any hope of getting the Runner Beans off the windowsill and into their beds I noticed, at my feet, the rite of spring was, if not sprung already, certainly about to be.

That we should be all so lucky this weekend
your pal
The Bushwacker

Esplorazione For Beginners Pt3

Here's the terrace outside the kitchen door which is the largest terrace on the farm. Not very big!

I found myself thinking of Pablo, as I tried my hand at a little wildlife photography. Not as easy as he makes it look.

More of the tale in the next few days.

Your Pal

The Bushwacker.

Metsakaamera Or Wild Pig TV

This one may prove fruitful for any other armchair nature watchers. It's a game camera in Estonia that's becoming a bit of an internet phenomenon 75,000 people A DAY have logged on!

See what's happening NOW

The main site is linked here and they have several other cameras featured. I would tell you more about it, but to be honest I've already neglected my homework quite long enough.

Enjoy

your pal 

The Bushwacker.