Flying Machines

The Grand Canyon jigsaw is complete.  The next challenge is a toy biplane.  I shake the bits out onto a tray, count and itemise them.  Going from two dimensions to three is easier than it looks, even for fingers that could never get the hang of playing the piano.  What emotions linked the mountains of Arizona to my little plane?
I am reminded of flying eastwards once, above the Rockies, as an electric storm began to light up the clouds.  Suddenly I felt the onset of turbulence that is signalled when the bell sounds and the passengers return to fasten their seatbelts.  Invisible turbulence can come at any time out of a clear blue sky.  All the reasoning in the world is of no avail at that moment.  The pilot, detouring, took us around the storm, high, higher than Everest where the jetstream winds blow almost continually.  I had the thrill of fear, of falling out of the sky, like Icarus in Joni Mitchell's tribute song to Amelia Earhart, ' ascending on beautiful foolish arms.'

How crazy it is, feet on the ground at less than 100 feet above sea level, to relive this panic.  As my not very dextrous fingers screw the tiny plates and bolts together I repeat Psalm 119:73 Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.'

Lonesome Pine

I saw it on the way to the shops, a little Christmas tree that had been discarded along the track behind the garages used by dog-walkers.  Potbound, dropping its needles, but with little green points of growth and the scent of resin weeping in tiny drops from its trunk. 
Rescued, it has now been taken down to the allotment and put in a sheltered spot by the hedge.  Strong winds dry out conifers.  I pushed my two thumbs into the rootball to loosen the fibrous roots that had grown to the shape of the pot. 

It was a mild day and rain followed us home. 

Strata: the Remaking - Arizona Mountain Jigsaw

Some helpful hints for readers who have not opened a new jigsaw box since childhood.

• If the manufacturer says there are 500 pieces this is correct.  Trust them.
• Put in the frame first.  Those blue bits are sky. 
• Pieces cannot float - they have to connect to each other.
• When pieces connect they fit snugly together.  Pieces that are too loose or jammed in were probably not intended to connect.
• You may have to turn a piece around many times before you can see where it fits.  This is not a problem, it is all part of the puzzle.
• Stop when you are tired.  Put all the disconnected bits back in the box and wait for another day.
• The big picture is there to help you.  So look at it.
• Persevere - it begins to get easier as more pieces fall into place.
• Appreciate the final result. Psalm 139:15 My frame was not hidden from thee, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.

Plastic

We are continuing to tidy up the allotments.  The skip has gone and so has the rubbish which overflowed its sides.  The next task was to push into undergrowth by the side of a communal path to clear bags, bottles, sweet papers and other garish pieces of litter blown on to the site.

Plastic stands out against soil and branches.  Plastic tangles in briars and blackthorn trees.  Plastic bottles, plastic netting, plastic bags.  The bright colours say buy me, eat me, drink me and throw me away.  But let's not become too judgemental - my sturdy blue plastic jacket protects me from the thorns that rasp on my sleeves as I go backwards into the bushes to protect my eyes.

Two robins fly down to see what I have unearthed during my litter pick.  They are cleaning up after me, heads cocked, on the look out for bugs and beasties.  See them, eat them and fly away.

Winter Birds

The fieldfares have disappeared, but they have not gone very far.  They stripped all the pyrecantha bushes around the allotment boundaries and then flew up the hill to find some more prickly shrubs.  Happy little flock - red berries in beak. 

The parakeets who fill the cemetery with their noise are silent.  But I am sure they are there feeding on the apples which hang, unpicked on the trees bordering the site.  These are not my apples.  Peck away, you hardy and glamourous exotics. 

The heron flew over my head on the way back from the shops.  Neck tucked in, big wings flapping slowly, heading out to the melting ice of some domestic pond.  Koi on the menu today?

And those darn pigeons.  I tell you, if there was a way to trampoline on black netting and peck at our curly kale they would find it.

A robin sings on the tree outside our window.  The sweetest winter song.

'Love Pigeons'

'Love pigeons' was the sobriquet given to us once by a friend whose second language is English.  I do not love pigeons, as readers will know, but I was amused to stand still and watch a pair of wood pigeons, on a snowy wall in the sunshine, engrossed in the preliminaries of courtship - much preening, ducking of heads under wings and literal 'billing and cooing'.  I passed on before it all reached its consummation. 

This crazy courting couple have evidently not heard of the traditional saying that every bird should take its mate on St Valentine's Day, as Chaucer tells us in his Parliament of Fowls.  If you can find his poem in translation it is well worth a read.

And right at the end of Chaucer's stanzas, listing all the birds he saw gathered before Nature, comes 'The throstil old; the frosty feldefare'.  How accurate Chaucer is in his observation.  On our allotments, among the blackbirds and throstles (thrushes) the fieldfares are gathered in loose flocks like the birds that illustrate this blog.   They have come down from the north, compelled by the snowy weather to seek their sustenance here.

I think we have lost some of the wonder and delight in the natural world that Chaucer knew and relished.  I think also that many of the Twenty First Century no longer believe, as he did that Nature is 'the vicaire of the almyghty Lord'.  I am still considering what this meant this poet of the Fourteenth.  Meantime, let the birds sing happily at the poem's close:

"Now welcome, somer, with thy sonne softe
That hast this wintres wedres overshake,
And driven away the longe nyghtes blake!"

Cold snaps

Cold snaps the switches on our fruit trees.  Without this frosted blanket of snow they would not blossom and bear fruit.  However much I sigh for the spring and long for the blossom, this period of dormancy is vital and necessary.  There will be plenty of time, I tell myself.  They are pruned (lightly) and mulched with good compost.  They are waiting for the warm winds from across the sea to blow on them.

Some verses from Psalm 147:16-18

He gives snow like wool;
he scatters hoarfrost like ashes.
He casts forth his ice like morsels;
who can stand before his cold?
He sends forth his word and melts them;
he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.

And a prayer. 

Lord, help me to see that the wintry days are as necessary to my trees as the warmth of spring.  Send out your word and your wind at the right season.  Amen