Woodland visitor

I walked right up to a moose once. Being ten years old, I didn't have the sense to be scared, only amazed at the size of his gargantuan head and horns. How did those spindly legs hold them up? A few days ago, that would be a couple of great strides into fall, I had another woodland encounter. Only this time he wasn't in a parking lot in Montana, he was right in my front yard.

He blends in so well to the earth, it took a moment for me to become aware of him. He stood so close, I expected him to rear up, and braced myself to react if he charged. But he just stared steadily at me. That thatch of fur between his ears is the prettiest brown I've ever seen.

I slowly walked away and went back upstairs for my camera. I wanted you to see him too.

See how nicely he posed?

After twenty minutes and lots of clicking he stood

turned

and sauntered away. Good-bye Mister Magnificent.

Update as promised .

Lots of woodland things. I bet you can guess why.

xx

julie

juliewhitmorepottery.etsy.com

passionate poet

I made this shadow box because I revere the poems of Gerald Manley Hopkins. Faith and doubt in God is what he's known for, but I've always seen almost a holy reverence for nature in his words. When you read him, you can almost hear him breathing in the room, winded from one of his lengthy trapses in the wood. This stanza is from 'Insvernaid' written about 1880.

What would the world be, once bereft of wildness and wet?
Let them be left, oh let them be left,
Wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

This outdoor loving woman is standing on a rock while the river rushes by her. A speckled trout has jumped into her arms. Birds fly overhead and water rats hold everything aloft.

Gerald, who suffered from depression, but fought it bravely died of typhoid fever in 1875. His last words "I am happy, so happy."

Song Thrush nest

The shearwater lays her egg in a bare hole dug in the peat; The kingfisher gradually ammases fish bones for a bed for a tiny fist sized cave in a riverbank; the song thrush builds its nest in a thick hedge or ivy growing against a wall, and it's as tightly woven as a teacup. My bird books list song thrush along with the wood thrush. One book even shows its song in musical notes! The eggs are beach rocks I've collected from Otter Cove. Bird eggs are full of promise, like Robert Louis Stevenson says
Younger than we are
Oh children and frailer;
Soon in blue air
They'll be singer and sailor.