"Of course, it’s easy to say that it’s all coincidence"
everything co-incides (falls into place together), in synchronicity, happening at the same time, which is always the present moment. What if 'cause and effect' is a theoretical construct?
So many co incidents under so many humans' noses so oblivious and blind.
If only more of us would fall into place, as you are, with beautiful places and corvids.
I love reading about places which are part of my story too.
Thank you for your comments, Veronika, and yes, I agree. We have problems here on planet earth as humans: our time-scheme is almost always seen as linear.
Interested in your words about places that are 'part of my story too'?!
well, first Buckland Abbey/ Dartmoor (a very special place) I've lived in Devon for 3 years (in Totnes, the other side of Dartmoor) and later in Cornwall for 13 years (St. Ives Bay area) before moving to Portugal 17 years ago.
Ah well I lived near Tavistock for 20 years, and outside Totnes for the 15 before we came here to Brittany in 2022! My whole adult life was lived on or near Dartmoor - though my family comes from the St Ives/St Just area. (Perhaps you saw my long Dartmoor poem River Suite?)
Portugal – I guess you feel at home there after 17 years? Northern Portugal?
We're in Central Portugal, in the foothills of the Serra da Estrela. One thing we love about this area is that it reminds us of Cornwall (we're in granite country here too) but a little further away from the ocean, surrounded by olive groves, vineyards, and smallholdings
Yes exactly – some of my ancestors will have come here in the 4/5/6th centuries from Cornwall. My father spoke some Cornish and I recognise some of the words (we're in Finistère where some Breton is still spoken).
Your place sounds lovely. Guess you must be over the border from where my daughter lived - Caçeres?
River Suite: you can hear it under the Audio button on my Substack home page :-).
I am slowly catching up with reading after a rather tumultuous three day 'voyage scolaire' (read utter exhaustion into that) but couldn't help stopping here after walking my little dog this morning and recording not only the usual woodpecker, jay, nightingale and blackbird but jackdaw too on my bird ID app... I heard them in the distance, uncertain but delighted when verified! They are becoming an almost every day call here... I too have a great love for these intelligent birds, instilled since childhood when my father found and saved an injured youngster, who never really re-adapted to being wild again afterwards... he remained in our garden for 4 years.
A chack of jackdaws, I had forgotten that word entirely! x
Oh thank you Susie! - Do you know, I'm a bit of a twitcher but I've NEVER heard a nightingale? We don't get them in the southwest of Britain where I lived all my life before here, and we don't get them in Finistère either.
'Chack' – I made it up :-). I'm reliably told it should be 'clattering'! Rx
The nightingales arrived here about two weeks ago Roselle, I remember them from childhood days in Sussex although never as many as I hear in the hedgerows here, they are such a delight although when their singing goes on and on through the small hours of the night outside my bedroom window a little less so!
Just after I typed the last message I heard ‘a clattering’ of Jackdaw (even better) in the Ash tree just behind the house! xx
We have been having an ongoing ‘battle’ for months with some mice who have taken up residence in our downstairs ‘cloakroom’. Normally a few catches with the humane traps and we’re mice free till the following winter but this year we’ve basically got some very chonky mice (owing to the pizza crusts and peanut butter we’ve been ‘feeding’ them). Not sure how many, I keep saying I need to spray numbers on them so I can tell who are returnees. Anyway…..it had been a couple of weeks since our last catch and I finally felt confident to say to hubby that I do believe the nice weather has encouraged them not to return, then the next morning, lo and behold a new captive 🤦♀️. Honestly for days I’d said to myself don’t tempt fate and say they’ve gone, then as soon as I think it’s safe, they heard me 😂.
:-). We’ve had loads of mice here too; like yours, they usually seem to go out in spring, but not this year. I can’t use my usual humane traps as I can’t walk the minimum half mile to release them, given my broken foot, and my partner simply has far too much to do all the time since I’ve been immobile.
What has worked here (so far!) is wiping the edges of the tables that they jump on to with spirit vinegar and essential oils of garlic and/or peppermint. If they return I'll spray it in all the corners too. (V old house and numerous gaps!)
This is partly our problem, I’m now too unwell to walk them up the fields and I don’t like leaving them in the trap till hubby gets back from work, so end up letting them go in the garden most of the time now. I actually read that it is better to kill them than use humane traps as they apparently will struggle to survive in a strange area on their own, but I just can’t bring myself to not give them a chance. Luckily as they’re provided with a consistent banquet they have stayed under the under sink cupboard in the cloakroom so I don’t have to worry about tables, etc. Maybe I should try and use the scents you’ve used around the cupboard, though I worry they’d just relocate to another room 😬. I thought I had found their entry hole and meshed it but clearly not. I need to enlist hubby to have another good look round for me as it wore me out last time. It wouldn’t surprise me though if they came in when the doors to the garden are open.
Was thinking of you yesterday evening when old Ned the giant crow once again successfully drove away winter on the prom amidst much raucous noise and merriment! Unfortunately I can’t attach a photo here but I guess you will know what I’m talking about ~ May Horns? x
So true about the inter connectedness! Frogs, birch trees, pilgrimages, all of these have been coming together from different people and places for me...and now through a post by @Susie Mawhinney, I found your Substack! And I see @Jan Elisabeth reads you too! We definitely do 'live in an interconnected universe'.
Sad thing about jackdaws though, apparently in Québec, Canada, around 1984, there were jackdaws who were thought to have arrived on a ship from Europe, but for some crazy reason the Fish and Game Department decided to kill them all. So sad and mindless!
Happy I found you,( I write poetry, too!). I shall go back and read more of your posts!
Lovely response, Jeannine, and thank you for it. I must check out your poetry. Birch trees and pilgrimages are def part of my background and ever-present too: I lead a writing retreat on the Isle of Iona in a spirit of pilgrimage, and my most recent book was in great part about the so-called Celtic Tree Alphabet. Birch happens to be one of my very favourite trees :-).
We have magpies near us. I like them a little better since you wrote they’re mischievous. They also have habits I don’t like. Survival can be violent. I try not to judge. Bearing in mind my own habits.
That's wise, Marg. We all have 'habits', and the sum of human ones are so much worse in terms of destroying our planet than most animals' put together. Survival is indeed violent, or can be.
Thanks for commenting. Foot improving a bit but am so frustrated at all the garden work I'm not doing! - It's been good to be able to just be, and listen, and watch, and dream and think and write and read though...! xx
"Of course, it’s easy to say that it’s all coincidence"
everything co-incides (falls into place together), in synchronicity, happening at the same time, which is always the present moment. What if 'cause and effect' is a theoretical construct?
So many co incidents under so many humans' noses so oblivious and blind.
If only more of us would fall into place, as you are, with beautiful places and corvids.
I love reading about places which are part of my story too.
and those fascinating corvids
Thank you for your comments, Veronika, and yes, I agree. We have problems here on planet earth as humans: our time-scheme is almost always seen as linear.
Interested in your words about places that are 'part of my story too'?!
well, first Buckland Abbey/ Dartmoor (a very special place) I've lived in Devon for 3 years (in Totnes, the other side of Dartmoor) and later in Cornwall for 13 years (St. Ives Bay area) before moving to Portugal 17 years ago.
Hello again!
Ah well I lived near Tavistock for 20 years, and outside Totnes for the 15 before we came here to Brittany in 2022! My whole adult life was lived on or near Dartmoor - though my family comes from the St Ives/St Just area. (Perhaps you saw my long Dartmoor poem River Suite?)
Portugal – I guess you feel at home there after 17 years? Northern Portugal?
Well, Brittany, 'the other side of Cornwall'. 😉
We're in Central Portugal, in the foothills of the Serra da Estrela. One thing we love about this area is that it reminds us of Cornwall (we're in granite country here too) but a little further away from the ocean, surrounded by olive groves, vineyards, and smallholdings
I love Dartmoor! Will check out that poem!!
Yes exactly – some of my ancestors will have come here in the 4/5/6th centuries from Cornwall. My father spoke some Cornish and I recognise some of the words (we're in Finistère where some Breton is still spoken).
Your place sounds lovely. Guess you must be over the border from where my daughter lived - Caçeres?
River Suite: you can hear it under the Audio button on my Substack home page :-).
I am slowly catching up with reading after a rather tumultuous three day 'voyage scolaire' (read utter exhaustion into that) but couldn't help stopping here after walking my little dog this morning and recording not only the usual woodpecker, jay, nightingale and blackbird but jackdaw too on my bird ID app... I heard them in the distance, uncertain but delighted when verified! They are becoming an almost every day call here... I too have a great love for these intelligent birds, instilled since childhood when my father found and saved an injured youngster, who never really re-adapted to being wild again afterwards... he remained in our garden for 4 years.
A chack of jackdaws, I had forgotten that word entirely! x
Oh thank you Susie! - Do you know, I'm a bit of a twitcher but I've NEVER heard a nightingale? We don't get them in the southwest of Britain where I lived all my life before here, and we don't get them in Finistère either.
'Chack' – I made it up :-). I'm reliably told it should be 'clattering'! Rx
The nightingales arrived here about two weeks ago Roselle, I remember them from childhood days in Sussex although never as many as I hear in the hedgerows here, they are such a delight although when their singing goes on and on through the small hours of the night outside my bedroom window a little less so!
Just after I typed the last message I heard ‘a clattering’ of Jackdaw (even better) in the Ash tree just behind the house! xx
We have been having an ongoing ‘battle’ for months with some mice who have taken up residence in our downstairs ‘cloakroom’. Normally a few catches with the humane traps and we’re mice free till the following winter but this year we’ve basically got some very chonky mice (owing to the pizza crusts and peanut butter we’ve been ‘feeding’ them). Not sure how many, I keep saying I need to spray numbers on them so I can tell who are returnees. Anyway…..it had been a couple of weeks since our last catch and I finally felt confident to say to hubby that I do believe the nice weather has encouraged them not to return, then the next morning, lo and behold a new captive 🤦♀️. Honestly for days I’d said to myself don’t tempt fate and say they’ve gone, then as soon as I think it’s safe, they heard me 😂.
:-). We’ve had loads of mice here too; like yours, they usually seem to go out in spring, but not this year. I can’t use my usual humane traps as I can’t walk the minimum half mile to release them, given my broken foot, and my partner simply has far too much to do all the time since I’ve been immobile.
What has worked here (so far!) is wiping the edges of the tables that they jump on to with spirit vinegar and essential oils of garlic and/or peppermint. If they return I'll spray it in all the corners too. (V old house and numerous gaps!)
This is partly our problem, I’m now too unwell to walk them up the fields and I don’t like leaving them in the trap till hubby gets back from work, so end up letting them go in the garden most of the time now. I actually read that it is better to kill them than use humane traps as they apparently will struggle to survive in a strange area on their own, but I just can’t bring myself to not give them a chance. Luckily as they’re provided with a consistent banquet they have stayed under the under sink cupboard in the cloakroom so I don’t have to worry about tables, etc. Maybe I should try and use the scents you’ve used around the cupboard, though I worry they’d just relocate to another room 😬. I thought I had found their entry hole and meshed it but clearly not. I need to enlist hubby to have another good look round for me as it wore me out last time. It wouldn’t surprise me though if they came in when the doors to the garden are open.
Was thinking of you yesterday evening when old Ned the giant crow once again successfully drove away winter on the prom amidst much raucous noise and merriment! Unfortunately I can’t attach a photo here but I guess you will know what I’m talking about ~ May Horns? x
OH YES! Nice to be reminded! Thank you! x
A chack of jackdaws .... I love it! Ah - but what is their message to you? Why are they there? xx
Hello dear Pat! - But of course I've been thinking about that too ;-), and have decided it's about playfulness, a bit short in our lives here... xx
So true about the inter connectedness! Frogs, birch trees, pilgrimages, all of these have been coming together from different people and places for me...and now through a post by @Susie Mawhinney, I found your Substack! And I see @Jan Elisabeth reads you too! We definitely do 'live in an interconnected universe'.
Sad thing about jackdaws though, apparently in Québec, Canada, around 1984, there were jackdaws who were thought to have arrived on a ship from Europe, but for some crazy reason the Fish and Game Department decided to kill them all. So sad and mindless!
Happy I found you,( I write poetry, too!). I shall go back and read more of your posts!
Lovely response, Jeannine, and thank you for it. I must check out your poetry. Birch trees and pilgrimages are def part of my background and ever-present too: I lead a writing retreat on the Isle of Iona in a spirit of pilgrimage, and my most recent book was in great part about the so-called Celtic Tree Alphabet. Birch happens to be one of my very favourite trees :-).
Glad to have 'met' you!
I will be looking forward to reading your past and future posts! Nice meeting you too!
What a marvelous synchronicity! The universe is always listening, isn't it?
Isn't it just, Laura? We forget that at our peril. Thanks for commenting x
We have magpies near us. I like them a little better since you wrote they’re mischievous. They also have habits I don’t like. Survival can be violent. I try not to judge. Bearing in mind my own habits.
I hope your ankle is healing. Xx
That's wise, Marg. We all have 'habits', and the sum of human ones are so much worse in terms of destroying our planet than most animals' put together. Survival is indeed violent, or can be.
Thanks for commenting. Foot improving a bit but am so frustrated at all the garden work I'm not doing! - It's been good to be able to just be, and listen, and watch, and dream and think and write and read though...! xx
love the connections of this :) x
Thank you, Jan xx
Oh how wonderful that they found you! We have regular conversations with the rooks round here 😊
Thanks Lynne. Where do they nest these days in B M?