HURRYING SLOWLY Whilst nursing a cup of tea first thing, to wake up… …eight pigeons clapper-board in powerful flight, veering right to left. Blackbirds steer low and straight, either directly in line with my seat, head-on or, with an audible whoosh, coming in to sight from behind my head. A pair of blue tits check [...]
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Posts Tagged ‘blackbird’
12 February 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman HURRYING SLOWLY, SCHOOL LANE GILLINGHAM, JUST THINKING, THE PRACTICE OF GARDENING
Friday, February 12th, 201031 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman BIG GARDEN BIRD WATCH
Sunday, January 31st, 2010BIG GARDEN BIRD WATCH Have you noticed how many birds there are in the garden at the moment? During the cold weather after New Year we’ve been inundated with blackbirds and other thrushes, tits and finches. Bullfinches, stocky black and pink fellows who show a distinctive white rump when flying away, are as exciting to [...]
Read More »25 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman MATTOCK IN THE RASPBERRIES
Monday, January 25th, 2010MATTOCK IN THE RASPBERRIES Today I used a mattock on raspberries growing as weeds. It’s not a tool I own, but I found one in the shed where I was working, examined it and thought that the feel of it in my hands and shape of the business end kind of made sense. It did. I [...]
Read More »20 january 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman WEDNESDAY EARLY AFTERNOON
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010WEDNESDAY EARLY AFTERNOON Two robins with me on an L-shaped piece of freshly turned earth. One at each far corner while I fork and shake the weed roots free; across, return, slowly working backwards to complete the square. They seem quite at ease with my repetitive motion. A third redbreast drops by. Robbies One Two and [...]
Read More »17 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman HEAVEN
Sunday, January 17th, 2010HEAVEN If heaven is an allotment garden then this afternoon, I’ve been there. If the sound of heaven is the fluting of a blackbird, then yesterday I heard it fleetingly through cloudy rain and today, for longer magic spells. If the feel of heaven is warm sun on your back I’ve felt that today too. [...]
Read More »16 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman SIGNS OF SPRING
Saturday, January 16th, 2010SIGNS OF SPRING On the homeward leg of my daily constitutional, I swung left along a barbed wire fence below the slippage underneath fields adjacent to what was Church Farm. The ground was squelchy; stud-bottomed trainers sunk uncomfortably deep. Leg over an iron gate, across the Very Steep Hill, another gate and shimmy through a [...]
Read More »13 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman SHOOTERS LANE IN SNOW, RARE DELIGHT
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010SHOOTERS LANE IN SNOW Half-way betwixt the High Street and Leyton Lane. All you can hear is the gurgle of water in some underground drain, tweets and scolds of blackbird and great tit, and the pitter-patter of falling snow: not flakes, but fresh-fall melts in mini avalanches from the tunnel of twigs and branches. Stand [...]
Read More »11 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman CATS & REDWINGS
Monday, January 11th, 2010CATS & REDWINGS Life is tough outside for the birds. They’re pretty stupid now with hunger, dopey enough for an approach to be made dangerously close before they lift off to nearby branches. It’s this combination of cold and lack of food which brings them into such easy reach, and who can blame the neighbourhood [...]
Read More »7 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman ANARCHY IN THE U.K.
Thursday, January 7th, 2010ANARCHY IN THE U.K. Although I’ve had enough of the snow already and look forward to a thaw and emerging signs of spring, I do like the anarchic nature of this frozen beast and the way it brings so many things we take for granted to a grinding halt. In many cases we’ve no choice but [...]
Read More »4 January 2010 DIRTY NAILS’ BLOG by Joe Hashman JUBILEE STEPS AT TEN IN THE MORNING, (LACK OF) VISION
Monday, January 4th, 2010JUBILEE STEPS AT TEN IN THE MORNING 10am: a dozen or so blackbirds stripping berries from Jubilee Steps cotoneasters. With ground hoar-frosted and hard as iron, it’s a mercy for our feathered friends that such a heavy bounty is to be had. They scorn the scarlet berry clusters during autumn, as if saving themselves for [...]
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