A Woods Walk (much tiny beauty)

Since I have been sick the whole month of june (with suspected parasites from my pond, still waiting for test results to come back) .... i haven't been able to really walk much in the forest. I have been resting my body alot. The anti parasite herbal remedies i took made me half better, so today i went for a walk to see what the forest floor would behold. Cause if you look real close, there is always something going on - no matter how tiny the patch of ground you choose.
I found wild red bee balm, and mannnnnny mushrooms pushing their way up from the dirt...
Mushrooms hold some kind of magic, and no i don't mean the hallucinating and poisoning your enemy kind.... i mean, the way they always look like something in a fairy tale. Always manage to be beautiful, mysterious, and a sign of nature at it's best.
I saw alot of these tiny white flowers, which hang like bells or rain drops... or a saddness that is stunning in it's beauty.

I always get supremely excited when i see these mushrooms that look like underwater coral! I love when sea and land are so similar.
Tiny red wildflower.... growing near the red bee balm, but is not bee balm. Just a disguise.
XoxOXOX

The Royal Standard of England

We had a lovely weekend with our guest and decided to finish it off with a trip out to a Country Pub this afternoon. On the recommendation of a good friend we visited The Royal Standard in Forty Green. It is the oldest freehouse in England.

We got there early, parked the car and took an ambling walk through the Chilterns. Taking in the beginning of Spring popping up in the fields while working up quite an appetite, before we headed to the Pub. You could not have asked for a nicer day. The sun was shining, there was a breeze softly blowing about and the delicious smell of earth was in the air.

The food at the Pub was heavenly. I had a Yorkshire Pudding that I think was as big as my head, with creamy mashed potatoes, steamed veggies and roast beef. Others at the table had the Sunday Roast as well and Mr. Michie got the Sausage and Mash, which was delectable. I know, because I stole a bite.

And, this little fellow watched over us as we ate, which made me smile! A wonderful end to an enjoyable weekend.

(All images by Mr. & Mrs. Michie)

Rain Walk: Things Me and Mah' DOnkee Liked

Me and all my animals (chickens, a donkey and one cat) have all been cooped up (so to speak) for the last few days with the constant fall rains. Even though it was still overcast and a drizzle came down on my hooded head I invited JuJu the donkey to go for a walk with me...
She totally wanted to come. On with the halter and out the gate, we ventured not too far from our home but far enough to feel freedom from the gloomy confinement.

JuJu is one of the most alert, consistent, and reliable guard animals I have ever seen - she hears things from farther away then I can even imagine them and is always right on target. She knows when they are just something to notice or if they are a true threat (which a donkey will kill or injure), she always shows me whats far ahead when she stops short of walking, flares her nostrils, and takes on the stiff, high eared pose she has in the pic above.

A lil' further up, I saw what she heard over some hills and hundreds of feet away...

wild turkeys!!! (See them in the pic below, making a run down a nook in the meadow...)

Along the road we also came upon something that is fairly new... someone set up a wood stove for outside cooking! I happen to love this idea, because I have a really old not serviceable wood stove on my porch and have been dreaming of using it as an outside fire/cook stove for Spring, Summer and Fall when it's too warm to fire up the one inside the house.

The wood stove I have is missing a front door, and I thought it could be turned into a Cob Oven! (Read HERE how to build your own cheap outside oven.)

Remember the 'pink trailer' I (didn't) trespass at a few months ago...

JuJu has a thing for the retro trailer too. Everytime we pass it she wants to walk all around it, look in the windows, nibble on some charcoal in a burn pile out front, and just generally chill out there...

I am so glad she doesn't look in the windows of my neighbors who are actually home! ha.

The same someone who must have set up the wood stove, placed two animal skulls side by side on a mossy log. Then I found the plastic daisy. I like old plastic flowers in a weird way, even though I am not sure I should....

The thing me and JuJu like the most though, is the forest in general. The bigger picture, the adventure, the all encompassing balance of it, the safety & the dangers, the sounds, the peace, the tall trees, the wet bark, the weather, the wild plants-

the feeling that things are completely right.

Xoxoxox

Round the Buses

We take the bus into school most mornings and pretty much every evening, unless we miss it and then we walk home breathing in all the goodness of fall (tonight I smelt my first fire of the season, the air was crispy and the woody mossy smell of logs crackling, was dancing through the air as we waited at our stop).

As we stand at our stop in the morning, our breath clinging in puffs before us, it is quiet, tranquil. Everyone around us still seems to be asleep just running on auto-pilot.  The bus driver turns up, and as we are stepping on board he has our tickets printed already a few cheery "Good Mornings" and we take our seats.

You see the same people, a little nod and smile to some, others don't care to be bothered. The bus is quiet, there is no talking, everyone appears to be mentally preparing themselves for the day ahead.

This, however, is not the case on the afternoon bus. Our bus driver is not a happy camper by any means, I greet her with a friendly "Hello!" and get either grunts or no acknowledgement in reply. She usually has a terse word with someone over nothing and she drives like a maniac.

It is like being on a rollercoaster ride, today my stomach was doing flips by the time we got home, from all the twisting and turning and short stopping and almost hitting people, animals, cars. I just hold my breath.

We have been back at school for two weeks now and she has not changed, her attitude seems to be stuck to her like glue, but I refuse to bend! I will continue to be as cheery as always and continue to tell her "Hello!" whether she likes it or not!

As Anne of Green Gables said, "I refuse to be poisoned by your bitterness!" and I think that can also go for being jaded. I refuse to be jaded by someone because they have a sour disposition about the world. I have my own thoughts, beliefs, dreams and I refuse to let them be destroyed by someone who has no imagination. Because to have no imagination must be the most unhappiest of existences I could dream of!

Whew! Ok, hold on...I am stepping down now and putting my soapbox away...

Leaves

The weather is changing now, as if Mother Nature knows everyone has gone back to school. Summer is slowly but surely dipping into Fall.  We went on a walk over the weekend and the crunch, crunch, crunch of leaves under our feet made a happy sound before it melted into the sludge of wet ones buried underneath on the wooded path. 

The evenings are getting darker sooner, the mornings are taking longer to light and there is a cozyness in that, we are moving into hot chocolate weather! I miss not being home this time of year. I grew up near the prettiest mountains on the face of the earth and I got to watch them evolve with the seasons.

This is the time for hay bales and pumpkins, Indian corn hung on your door in fat bunches, apples dipped in warm ooey gooey melty caramel and harvest moons. The leaves are beginning to crunch under our feet, I feel that it will soon be Fall.

1,2,3

Today is beautiful and sunny here in our little London burb. The air is slightly warm but there is still a chill in it. It is the perfect day to throw on a hat and light scarf, grab a coffee and go sit by the pond. We might just do that!

It would be a wonderful picnic day, those perfect days when you feel the seasons slipping into the next. There is always a magic in the air at this time. Maybe a cupcake will jump into my hands while I pick up my coffee.

These Martha Stewart ladybug cupcakes would be perfect to bring with us, and have a "ladybug picnic"! However, I know I won't be able to find these in my town today, I will just have to face the hardship of settling for a decadently rich chocolate cupcake with a rocky-road topping, or maybe a vanilla cupcake filled with raspberry jam and a swirl of raspberry buttercream and tiny hearts on top. It will be difficult to bring myself to have to eat one of these instead, but I will suffer through and do my best! (he he he)

Wish you were here, you could enjoy a cupcake with me too!

(Ladybug Cupcake image copyright Martha Stewart-click on the image to get her recipe for these cute cakes)

Going on A Twig Hunt!

This past weekend we went on our annual twig hunt for the Easter Egg tree. Normally we come back with a selection of different sized branches, but this year we actually found a fallen branch that looked more like a little German Christmas tree. So, home it came with us to be decorated.

The woods are very slowly starting to come to life. Daffodils are peaking their crowned heads up, polka dotting everywhere with sunshine yellow. We came across 2 muntjacs who were making their way down to the pond to drink, they saw us and leaped and bounded in the other direction. The smaller one, however, stopped behind a tree and just watched us for a little while as we watched him.

It was cold on Sunday, so even though we were bundled up we didn't last long in the woods the damp just oozed in to your pores. But the smell of fresh earth and clean air was so nice after a winter of not being able to walk in the woods, it wasn't too long though before we headed home to decorate our tree.




It was bigger than we thought! The scale of the woods made our little branch look "little". It wasn't until we got home and tried to get it  through the door we realized we had a problem!

After some laughing and cutting down the longer branches and trimming away some of the bottom we finally got it up. It is my first bit of Easter and there will be more to come this week. If the sunshine won't be outside, I can at least bring it inside!

My husband loves to hang the eggs on the tree. The first year we were married I found a German Easter Egg kit to dye eggs with. We searched and searched for white eggs since the grocery stores here only carry brown. Eventually, we found some lighter colored ones and after carefully blowing them out we spent an afternoon dyeing them.

He had never dyed an egg before, as this is not a British Easter tradition and it was such a delight to watch his sweet face light up as he hovered over his little pile of eggs making sure they changed to just the hue he wanted. That is how it should be, the simple things should never cease to please us!

Shhh! There be Smugglers About, Matey!

We have been off on the smuggler's trail over the last few days. Yesterday, we drove to Bodmin and visited Jamaica Inn, a complete tourist trap, but I got to see Daphne du Maurier's writing desk and typewriter in their little museum and that made me smile. Driving along the moors we saw scraggy coated wild horses walking along the rocks and munching away on grass.

The weather changed by the time we got to the Inn, the temperature dropped and it began to rain. It painted quite a picture. You could envision the smugglers carrying their loads in from one of the Looe routes on a dark frosty night the air thick with mist, driving their horse led carriage hard through the moors to the Inn where they hoped to have a drink, do some business and catch a little respite.

We wandered down to the town on Sunday afternoon for lunch and ate at the Smugglers Cott, we had the most deliciously cozy traditional British Sunday roast. The atmosphere inside was charming.
The beams belonged to a ship from the Spanish Armada and the inside of the pub was filled with vintage bottles and ship related paraphernalia. After lunch we took a stroll around the harbour and watched the boats come in and out. There was still some men in the fish market, finishing up cleaning their day's catch. There existed in the air a heady smell of the salty sea and warm fish guts.We walked down into town today along the coastal path and it was the very first day I got to wear my wellies. They were broken in along the sandy beach with the waves crashing against my feet as I hunted for sea glass.

We discovered the most adorable bakery and got the most heavenly cupcakes, Halloween of course! We devoured them like greedy little monsters as we continued to explore the twisty little streets of Looe.

Everything here is adorably decorated for Halloween with pumpkins and paper lanterns hung in windows, mixed with the leaves changing here, you feel truly Autumnal.

We ate fresh fish & chips, burning the roof of our mouths as we munched away on hot salty chips (no vinegar for me) and watched the crowds go by, it was a perfect day, just being.

We will be saddened to leave here at the end of the week. What a magical place Cornwall is.


A Pixie village we passed on our walk down the coast.

I Spy With My Little Eye....

While taking a morning stroll this week through the woods, camera in one hand, cup of coffee in the other we ended up playing more of an “I spy” game than having a relaxing stroll. Taking pictures of what I could, I attempted to record our findings.

Just like the day we watched the little toads bubbling out through the woods(see post: Taking Time to Breath, 6/30/2009), there are so many things happening around you, if you just stop and look. We met a little brown mouse, walking along an old fallen tree. He kept going underneath and coming out to sit on top of a limb, but he wouldn’t sit still long enough for us to get a photograph.

Moving along we went to see if the baby coots were up yet and while sitting on a bench, watching the former evening’s raindrops glisten on the lily pads in the bright sun, I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Ever so slowly, I moved my head to see a muntjac walking along the water grass in a side pool of the pond and getting something to drink.

He didn’t seem to mind our presence. He looked our way once and seemed to simply nod at us and then carried on drinking. After quenching his thirst he turned and slowly sauntered up the little hill and through the woods. To see that was a morning gift from God.

Cutting through a different path, my husband noticed something in the woods. What fabulous hawk eyes he has! We found an old “Pilot” clothes wringer, just lying there. The handle was very rusty and the rubber wringers were filled with little rotting creases, but the writing was very clear. Where had it come from? Why was it there? For how long had it been there? So many questions, but alas it is not able to speak and tell us.

Coming back to the main path we were greeted by a not to happy giant neon green emperor dragonfly that literally chased us down the path. We decided it was time to go to the other side of the woods and walk through the ferns. It is like something from Jurassic park with all the ferns around you, some taller than us. A lot of little birds seem to live amongst the ferns, flitting in and out, along with the butterflies.

We weren’t there for very long when we heard the pitter-patter of rain overhead. Protected by the canopy of trees we made our way to a main path and then out to the open common. By that time the rain had passed and I was able to photograph the “Pilgrim’s House” that sits on the edge of the common. The chimneys are such outstanding pieces of craftsmanship. I love there embossed tile work. I snapped quickly, since the clouds were beginning to pool overhead again. Scurrying home we made it in the door just before the heavens opened.

Taking Time to Breathe

My husband and I went for a walk on Sunday. Freshly homemade ice-cream cones in hand, melting so fast in the sun it was dribbling down our chins. We headed for the common to stroll down to the pond. We haven’t been to our little hidden oasis yet this year with the hustle and bustle of everything. When we stepped through the undercover of the trees it was just as magical as ever.

The lily pads were open and sparkling in the sun, the baby ducks were paddling around being a bit brave as they explored the pond with their Mama not far behind. It is a very “Wind in the Willows” cove. Kenneth Grahame lived in Buckinghamshire and wrote about Ratty, Badger, Mole and most unforgettably, Toad. All living along the banks of the Thames. I know that this little place is one they would have visited on an adventure, "simply messing about in boats", or at least enjoying a lovely summer picnic prepared by Ratty.

We stopped to watch the Mama ducks chatter to each other and after finishing our cones we headed back down to a main path. After walking only a few short steps I paused, the ground was crawling underneath me. I bent down to look around and the forest floor was covered with baby toads. They were everywhere, some heading to the pond, some crossing over the path into the woods. They were amazing to watch. Another couple was heading toward us, they looked at us crouching down over the earth like we were crazy and just kept walking. Here they were, walking down a sunlight-dappled wooded path on a dreamlike summer day and they didn’t even stop to take in what was around them.

Life is always hectic, but I endeavour to make sure I take time to breathe; we should all try to do that. Here was a little miracle happening right in front of us, all these minute baby toads making there way out into the world, hopping along on instinct. Will I ever see something like that again? I don’t know, but I do know if I didn’t stop to breathe I would have walked right on down the path just like the couple that passed us. Taking detours every now and then when they present themselves are well worth it.

The Magic of Ordinary Days

Yesterday I cut through the wooded path on the Common to meet some friends arriving that morning, who are going to spend their summer travelling around Europe.

As I walked through the woods I turned my iPod down so Vivaldi was no longer drowning out the cars but was instead enhancing the sunlight dappled path marked by chirping birds heralding from every direction. A friendly robin hopped off of his singing branch to walk a few steps with me, biding me farewell before he flew away.

It is these days that you see the magic in the ordinary; drinking it in and letting it wash over you. Things here suddenly seem to change overnight. One day it is damp and rainy and then the next everything is green and vibrant and lush. My little garden has suddenly come to life almost over night, with yellows and pinks and white rainbows of color popping out everywhere.

The Common is a little oasis in the middle of town. Walking down the path you are suddenly surrounded by the arms of the trees. The forest envelops you and you no longer think you are in a village. There is a magic to these woods. A place you would have pretended to be Robin Hood in as a child, brandishing your bow to a quivering tree. You can imagine the highwaymen hiding in the thick of the bushes, waiting for the coaches headed to Oxford or coming to London.

There are two ponds on the Common; one is more enchanting than the other. It is hidden away and only slightly visible from the road. A very entertaining family of ducks live there and if you are quiet enough you might be lucky to have a Muntjac cross your path in the coolness of the forest. The Common asks only one thing in return of you, to stick to the “countryside code”, leave nothing behind but your footprints. In a time where people seem more and more to have a need for instant gratification, leaving only our footprints is something to strive for. What would your footprints say about you?

As Robert Louis Stevenson said, “the best things in life are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you”. These are the simple things, the magic of ordinary days.