You spread your arms
And reach out
Touching other trees.
Bark and moss
Cracks and splits
But you stand strong
Encompassing the land
Shading the ground
Leaf and branch.
Happy nature.
Tree with wide arms
Tag: Nature
Coots and chicks
A joy of Coots
Baby chicks
Cheeping and calling
Rushing across a pool
Blue footed parents
White shield on their heads
Dark chicks
Scattered yellow feathers
Round their heads
And red beaks.
How do they morph
From chick to Coot?
Westport lake today
I walked around Westport Lake today, the leaves are almost fully out on the trees and the birds are either on the nest or are swimming around with chicks.
The green of nature and the blue of the sky are so calming. Cheering me up, settling me down. Letting me relax. I love going there…
Done!
Two days of hard work to tie up all the loose ends of this semesters college work. I only hope it all makes sense. I tried fitting imges on a word document, they came out tiny on the PDF. I tried using PowerPoint, it played up, and the images are huge! Ah well, computers are not my speciality.
At least now I can think about life outside of college for a couple of weeks till the start of the next semester. I can try and catch up with life.
Tree
Trees are huge, yet delicate. Branches, stems, twigs. So much to see, so hard to draw. Mature trees are suffering damage all the time now. Gales blow down limbs, rain undermines their roots. Fungi and bacteria, so small, can lay a tree low. Sudden Oak Death, Ash die back, so many trees are disappearing from the country. Once it was Dutch Elm disease, now it could be any number of infections and lesions.
We are seeing the effect of the anthropocine, the effect of humans on the natural world. We need to change for the good of nature.
Colours
So colours represent specific emotions? Maybe? But who sets them. Is it a historical thing? Some countries have black as their colour of mourning. But others use white, and who knows what else might be favoured elsewhere. Red is hot, fast, speed, fast cars are often red. But what about red for danger. Traffic lights, live wires and of course blood? But red can be sweet like fruit too.
Green has been found to be calming, and maybe blue too. Linked with the colours of growing plants. Green indoor plants can calm workers. Now green walls of plants are fashionable.
Pink for girls, blue for boys. But a couple of hundred years ago it was the other way round. Perhaps our use of colours to represent emotions is just fashion and fad!
A # a day…
Today’s #bandofsketchers challenge was to draw nature. I looked out of my window. There was the tangle of trees and vegitation out there plus bright blue sky and white rooves covered in snow. The ivy is scrambling up the trees and the buddliea bushes need cutting back….
Watercolour sketch.
Bee trouble
Now the UK has left the European Union it looks like our government may allow the use of nicotinoid pesticides again.
Worrying that the government has ‘taken back control’ and can now do what the hell it likes.
We are not in a position where we should be killing insects. Certainly not killing Bees. They are tied into the pollination of food crops, of flowers, of fruit. Why would we want them killed? Madness….
Moss on a wall
Moss klinging to the church wall. That wall is blackened by years of coal smoke pollution that was burnt on house hearths and to fire up the bottle ovens that fired the pottery made in old factories. In those days I doubt that moss would have grown on the church wall even in Penkhull village which stands on a hill above most of the city. The city has transformed over the years and is now much cleaner.
You can see photos of the hundreds f bottle ovens that crowded the city. The smoke belched out of them. Look up the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery and Gladstone Pottery Museum on the net for more information.
Swan and Cygnet
I remember
When you were an egg
I sat on you for weeks.
Then a fluffy brown chick emerged.
You were a handful,
with your siblings.
Sampling duck weed,
Chasing stickleback,
Bobbing up and down
While pike examined
your feet.
You could have been snapped up
By a fox or a stray dog.
But you grew
And grew
Fed by people
as well as your parents.
Your down is disappearing,
Soon you will be serene
White feathers sailing
Over the lake…..
Mallaband-Brown 