Week 23

Dog roses; the darkening woods; my mealworms bring all the birds to the yard

Hello!

I hope you have had a beautiful June week, and thank you all for your wonderful reactions to my cover reveal last week. I am so thrilled that you like it, and I know that lots of you pre-ordered it too, thank you! Also thanks for your kind words about Saffy. You will be pleased to hear she is out of her babygrow for the first time today and her sunburnt elbows are looking good (that will confuse any new readers!).

Before we begin, a quick word on the picture above. I may have mentioned this tree before here, and I certainly have on instagram, so excuse me if you’ve heard this before, but this is my oak tree, mine in my mind at least. It is a tree I had a hand in having planted when I was briefly on my local common’s ‘friends of’ committee about 15 years ago - an actual oak tree, planted in a park…I still can’t believe it. I like to take occasional pictures of how it looks in different seasons so this is all this is. My oak tree. In June. Much like that almanac cover… you will see it again...

And now to business. In this weekly post I talk about three things I have noticed that have felt particularly ‘this week’, and then you tell me yours. We begin with a round up of your comments from last week, which acts like a kind of prose poem capturing a moment in time and is perhaps my favourite thing about doing this substack. Please read it and put yourself in all of these Junes, just for a moment. Here’s your Week 22:

Shopping for new outfits for a friend’s summer wedding; garden-snipped herbs in at least two meals a day; finally seeing and hearing swifts; Pimms with mint; collecting shells and digging holes on the beach; art degree show season beginning; goslings and cygnets; an ever-growing collection of solar lights, creating mid-year magic and enchantment; tiny flower buds on tomato plants; fluffy balls of fledgling starlings and sparrows; the smell of freshly mown grass; a symphony of pink and white hawthorn and dog roses down the motorway; buying far more plants than you can plant; sat in a tent with books, reading as the sun goes down at Hay Festival; bluebells, daffodils, and narcissi (Shetland!); afternoon tea and jazz in a sublime garden in warm sunshine.

I love it all. Thank you.

Here’s my Week 23:

Dog roses

There is something so perfect about dog roses. I realise at least partly I love them because of Kit Williams’ illustrations for his book Masquerade, (which it seems you can now only buy second hand) where dog roses are a motif throughout. It is one of those touchstone books for me, which I loved in my childhood and I return to again and again, and I think he might be my ultimate, dream illustrator for The Almanac, a mixture of perfectly captured English countryside and something otherworldly and mystical. (I know that he only works extremely slowly on oil paintings integrated into their own beautiful frames which he also hand makes though, so I reckon that’s out...)

All of the illustrations are amazing, and every one of them depicts some aspect of perfect, idealised summer: a summer night with full moon lighting up the fields and casting deep shadows; a country town on a hot summer afternoon under a sky of little fluffy white clouds; a pink and yellow dusk beneath a crescent moon; a swim in a lake by a country house; a scramble of dog rose, dandelions, daisies and grasses. It’s a book I will gaze at through the year and think of that mystical, unreachable, surely imaginary thing called midsummer, so when I see them for real it’s a reminder to me that this is a very special moment.

The darkening woods

The woods I visit are in a little valley and they get darker and darker each week, as the canopy above closes over and the trees do their photosynthesising thing up there. I realise I have already switched from wandering around gazing at everything and being totally in love with the woods, to rushing through, eyes straight ahead. Honestly I know it sounds a bit daft but they spook me a little when they get like this, and I think I may be changing walks now for something altogether airier and brighter. So long, lovely woods. See you in autumn.

My mealworms bring all the birds to the yard

My friend, wildlife writer Kate Bradbury, has been raising the alarm on twitter about the ‘silent spring’ that many people are reporting - far fewer insects than usual, and a corresponding drop in the birds that feed on them, most likely the result of last summer’s drought. She suggested a very practical idea for filling the gap left by insects during this fledging time, by putting out soaked mealworms. Baby and fledgling birds need lots of protein, and this is a way to get it to them quickly while, hopefully, insect numbers recover.

WELL. I have been doing this for a few days and what can I say? My garden is FULL of life. Together with our bird feeder and bird bath we are just house-sparrow central these days, and also getting a bit of starling action as well as what we think are coal tits. I now have my mealworm-soaking rotation down pat. The above set up is a bit ridiculous but is to keep them above the level of dogs/cats and most importantly hedgehogs, who love mealworms with all their greedy hearts and will gorge on them but are only allowed a few, as too many do them harm.

Anyway we are definitely single handedly keeping several local nests going now and I wish we had done it sooner, it is a joy. Recommend.

That’s it from me. Tell me what you have noticed that has felt particularly ‘this week’ about this week for you.