Saturday

Impatiens Glandilifera, or Himalayan Balsam or Policemen's helmet, it covers the river at the back for a mile, nothing else grows there apart from the giant gunnera, which can be just as thuggish.  Himalayan Balsam, is one of the three 'aliens' species not welcomed in this country, the other two are Japanese Knotweed and the Giant Hogweed. 

It is a bit scary, a pretty 'triffid' plant introduced in 1835, now romps along our rivers with artful ease, it is destructive of local plants and as it dies down in winter can cause the banks of the river to slide into the water.

Thursday

Horcum Hole

Coming back from Whitby today over the moors, and the vivid purple of the heather is at its best,  the underpinning of  the softer tones of fireweed flowers highlights it's colour. Cotton grass has gone over though I saw one pale patch, and the mists as we travelled down gave an ethereal feel to the 'canyon' that flows through the moor, with the dark line of the old railway track at its bottom.  Unfortunately I haven't taken my camera out these last few days, so no photos....

Yesterday, we went to Helmsley, a pretty, 'chocolate box' town reminding me of Lacock village.  It had the same honey-toned stone, lots of tea houses and tourist shops, we wandered around for half an hour, walked up to the castle, past a long fence of sweet peas of every colour.  This fronted a garden that grew vegetables and soft fruit in abundance.  We are going back soon, it is only 7 miles down the road, and 1 mile from Rievalaux  Abbey, so a day's outing probably.

It was a busy day yesterday, family called in to bring their sheets from the cottage, and then off we went to Kirkbymoorside, and then on to Helmsley.  Got back and the extra chicken run had arrived, so put it together and now the hens have extra space, though they would dearly love to be free ranging.  Three eggs arrive every day, so we are going to have a surplus soon, think I shall give them away..... 

Tuesday - Raining

Red sky at night 'Shepherds delight', this is not true it is absolutely p****** down this morning, I have covered the run for the hens, and we should have an extension run for it coming later today.

Life is busy, curtains to hang this morning, baking for LS, who seems to be eternally hungry in the evening, must be the fresh air.  All the wheat/barley (can't tell the difference) must be in, for the aroma of muck spreading, though faint is on the air, and I saw a large truckload go through yesterday evening.  It always reminds me of the town of Gruyere in Switzerland, that faint whiff of the stable yard, a smell actually I love, cheese being a great favourite and especially a good fondue, with its mix of emmenthal and gruyere.

Music plays constantly on the radio, I cannot believe the nonsense that is coming out of it as far as the labour party is concerned, talk about cutting ones own throat, and so publicly that is what is most distasteful!  We need a damn good revolution to clear the air of centre politics......

Gruyere - photos

The family last year

About 40 years ago

Hens

They have arrived! bought a local paper yesterday, brown POL hens £8, could not resist, so following instructions, up the hill, down the hill, straight bit of road, don't turn left to Wrelton, we arrive at a small sawmill, with grandpa sitting outside and the family in the open shed discussing wood, large sackfuls at a reasonable price for the log fire here as well.

I pick three out of a couple of dozen, asking if they have red mite, a bit of indignation there! Then I ask to hold one, quite heavy and that rather pretty brown and white mottling strikes me as attractive. We box them, and they are duly put in the hutch and run.  Already I see with these large hens they need more space, another run is already ordered, and we discuss fencing the area between the church wall and oil tank.

Dominance was already being displayed in the pen later on, she may go back!! (Think this one has been named by LS as Desdemona, the other two might be Hetty and Harriet if I go in for naming hens )But apparently 4 days on the 'naughty step' or being separately confined will probably do the trick and it is all a bit more stressful at the moment...

I had given up on bantams, though cousin Sue in Cornwall said she would find me some when they came down in September.  But today it is my family calling in on their way for another few days at the cottage.  The weather is going to be good this week I believe.  This started me worrying about getting in 'stores' for feeding people, for instance a 'roast', we rarely cook large pieces of meat. My family are like a pack of hungry mice devour all the packet of biscuits, and there is only a few shortbreads at the moment.  I had planned to bake a fruit cake this morning, eccles cakes yesterday but none of them will eat dried fruit in cakes, the 'likes' and 'dislikes' of a large family can be a nightmare when it comes to producing food.

Tom the eldest said at the age of three that he was allergic to cheese, and that was that, although his mum smuggled cheese into his food without any harmful affects.  Never touched it since, Ben is mostly vegetarian a bit like me, and as for the girls, it is a compromise......Well at least the hens are not fussy.

I was a child when first introduced to hens, holidays on farms, or to be more precise being sent away in the school holidays because there was no one to look after us led me into the fascinating world of livestock. In Wales, not far from where BoveyBelle lives, a real Welsh smallholding, I remember going out to a neighbouring farm for a hen to eat.  The men caught one, wrung its neck and then offered it to me to take back to the car, grinning away.  Well we should all know why they were grinning, a chicken has automatic motion still in its body after death, believe it can run round headless... this one flapped its wings as I carried it to the car so I dropped it in sheer fright...

Killing a chicken for the table, was commonplace in those 'olden days', and at the farm in Rugeley I would see a fowl killed and then help pluck it, a first time introduction to red mite. Roast chicken, bread sauce, onion sauce, roast potatoes and a helping of vegetables, delicious.

Betony - Stachys Officilinalis

Betony or Stachy Offinalis, the first wild flower to strike the eye in Plantlife's PDF, intriguingly it has magic restorative powers against the elf-sickness according to Anglo-Saxon medicine and magic.  I 

had been looking for the Coronation Meadows, mentioned last week on Country file, and whether Yorkshire had one, well maybe not an official one but Lower Winskill Farm in Ribblesdale seems to fit the bill.

"Stachys officinalis3". Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - 

Well maybe I have not seen it around here but it's history stems from as early as Roman, and a prayer to this plant goes as follows;

"Betony, you who were discovered first by Aesculapius or by Chiron the centaur, hear my prayer, I implore you herb of strength, by him who ordered your creation and ordered that you might be useful for a multitude of remedies.  Kindly help in making these seven and forty remedies"

And then there is this medical poem from the 14th Century.....

At Betonye I wyll be-gynne

That many vertewys hath hym with-inne.

Even Culpeper sings its praises as to curing a whole host of ailments, but Grigson, my source for the above information says that it is a fraud with no outstanding virtue of any kind but that it does make a good imitation  Chinese green tea.

Of course 'stachys' in its name brings to mind the soft grey leaves of the stachys/rabbits ears plant in the garden, a calming plant that is good as an understorey to more vibrant coloured flowers. Apparently it comes from the Greek;  Greek word σταχυς (stachys), meaning "an ear of grain", and refers to the fact that the inflorescence is often a spike.
This Wiki entry goes on to refer to the generic plant's name as woundwort, which would give it added justification as a healing herb...

Friday and pigeons

Today it rains, early rising this morning and the pigeons sit mournfully on the church and one on the gravestones.  These pigeons are part of the backdrop to our lives, crashing through the trees, the hollow sound of their wings sweeping low as we drink our coffee in the garden.  They fight and mate on a daily basis, idiotic birds.

This one on a gravestone

The rest, dotted on the roofs.

A different god overlooks the scene

Breakfast scene and the warmth of a candle to chase away the grey and loneliness

When it is grey, patchworks have a wonderful way of brightening the mood, yesterday I got the new materials out and played around with them for the quilt, if you can't think big, think small I had read, so I made them up into squares. My workroom is also having colour attached.....

Curtains have been ordered, and I think we are just down to one window to choose some for.  A blessed relief.  One of the things I haven't mentioned is the kitchen.  I call it posh, a) because it has one of those eye level grills and ovens set separately, and b) because we have inherited a dishwasher. Never been used by us (£8 for those dishwasher balls says LS, cheaper to hand wash!) and for two it is hardly a chore.  This house once featured on 'Escape to the Country' obviously the people (a baker and his wife did not buy it), he said because of the kitchen.  Everyone wants somewhere to sit round the table in the kitchen on those programmes, the dining room to a degree has been obsolete for years now..... This kitchen has lots of cupboards, and extends into an 'L' shape utility which has more cupboards, the joy of being able to spread everything out is tempered by the fact of trying to find things!  But at least I can have cheese on toast on the grill, something I have lived without for 7 years..

I should get back to my history, but messing around with my sewing machine takes centre stage at the moment..

Market Day

Pickering: This long narrow passage way, leads to the Thirsk main road, my eye was caught by the weeds that grow from the top of the towers, you can't really see them in the photo though, in the chapel on the other side of the road.  Monday is market day, a cornucopia of cheap goods, vegetables, dog baskets, clothes and jams. We wandered around, I bought some wool to knit a jumper for LS and some lemon curd, I have a fancy for lemon meringue pie.  Also, joined the library and have come back with half a dozen books, very helpful people in the library, though rather small.....

We grab a sandwich from the Co-op and along with other people who do the same, eat them by the river and LS catches up on the messages on his mobile, the only place we can get it to work.  You must not feed the ducks, big fine otherwise, but I notice people do it surreptitiously.

We drive home through the lanes, the verges are thick with wild flowers still, and my mind takes in this voluptuous natural bounty.  On Sunday I filled in a form for a retired working 8 year old spaniel at a dog rescue centre in Thirsk, but sadly as she pointed out on the phone, he would probably take great delight in chasing my chickens round and killing them, so no Taz for us!

These last two photos are of the village before ours, it is neat and pretty, but these tidy cottages are very pristine, and perhaps reflect the problem of owning a car, there is nowhere to put one except on the road,  Notice how there are wide verges to the cottages, must have been a green in days gone by.

This is the river that runs through our village, I see the giant leaf plant is there, can it be Gunnera?

Marton village

Sunday

And to quote Mike Pitts in British Archaeology... Here Come The Celts.  I very rarely advertise anything on my blog, but hopefully will be able to find this magazine somewhere in Yorks.

"Some archaeologists will no doubt carp about the use of the word “Celt” in the British Museum’s “Celts: art and identity”, which moves to the National Museum of Scotland next March under the simple title of “Celts”. I’m looking forward to seeing the show, and will write about my impressions here (it opens on September 25). In the meantime, the first of three features in the new magazine offers an early insight: four of the people behind the exhibitions introduce their controversial idea of what Celtic arts mean. I think we may be leaving behind the old debates about whether or not there ever were such people as Celts, and taking a wider, more interesting view of the world. A good thing too. Continuing the new Celts theme, a third feature considers fine metal artefacts that were taken home from the British Isles by Norwegian Vikings."

Celts; Carping hardly covers the arguments that will storm onto the net when this word is used, you will even see me pussyfooting round the word because it has so many connotations.  But I am sure John Hooker (Past and Present Tensions) will be pleased to see this.  Use it in an art sense, it is perfectly understood, conjure up those magical Irish legends and try to mix it up with actual archaeology, and the pixies will come storming out of the woodwork!

To a different theme, yesterday evening we walked along to the field that is in the process of being cut.  The farmer was round baling the straw, the machine chewed it up, clattered quietly and then spat out a perfectly formed enormous round bale, the sort we see trundling past the windows of the house.  New to both of us and we watch fascinated, the farmer had a little yappy terrier in the cabin.

Met Mr. Gospel on the way home just going out to mow someone's lawn and he called in later in the evening and measured up the gate and fencing, we all decided fencing in the largish front garden would be the best answer, the gate is made at some wood mills down the road.  It will be larch, nice to know everything is local. He also has 10 springer spaniel puppies, but really don't want a lively pup.

I'll Find my Way Home;  1980s just on Radio2 so must record it just for the weird noises

All Change?

 

Choice
This caught my eye today, it is in The Tate Gallery , Liverpool. It sort of makes you giggle, the bare bum surrounded by a great heap of clothes.  Probably a statement on our terrible waste of clothes that ends up in charity shops.

The other picture that caught my eye this morning was the Guardian cartoon by Martin Watson....

I like the idea of having to work the picture out, Boris Johnson making a bid for being the leader of the conservatives, I just thought that Theresa May had sent him packing with his idea  (and buying) of water cannons to subdue the populace of London!  Yesterday I read The Times, today I read the Guardian, and of course it is all change in the Labour party as well, what interesting times we live in!!

But I shall return to planting the plants I bought yesterday, this garden will cost a bomb to stock with shrubs, fruit trees and new plants,  also of course the fencing and gate (where are you Mr.Gospel?) and hedging.

Though there is about a 100 foot of bed to fill, most of it has been filled with similar plants. Sedums at the back, two campanulas at the front then dianthus. The stone at the back hides an old pipe that comes from the pub.  The other day, LS was astonished to find that the gate to the passage between us and them had been bolted from their side! The land actually belongs to us and is needed for repair for the pub and our fencing, but he went round and visited our very young sweet pub licensee, Harriet, who said that someone else had done it and it would be remedied.

The cape daisy made it from Chelmswood and is now flowering happily.

Almost emptied of boxes, this room is to be another workroom, bed sofa for stray guests...

The end of the day

This is the colour of the countryside at the moment

LS calls me in to his study this evening to hear the owl, perhaps it is the barn owl we saw the other evening. Today has been sunny, sitting outside I captured the foolish wood pigeon lying on the ground, wings outstretched enjoying the sun, and the seed that was falling from the seed holder above his head. Lazy and greedy bird, he may look  dead but he isn't.  I now have a collared dove that comes regularly calling early morning for his breakfast.

Someone else enjoying the warm stone of the house.

Thursday

Just a few photos today, we went out to my favourite place, not peaceful on an August holiday, so we ate our sandwiches and moved on.  The funny thing is we had to go through Newton-on-Radcliffe, where we had looked at a cottage, and been invited to a meal by the owners.  Well as we did not buy there is a certain amount of guilt as we drove through;  many reasons for not buying and we don't regret it....

Over the moors stopping at the Roman Road, and I wandered along taking photos, some bright wit told me to watch out for the chariots.  On to the beck, now there is a niggly complaint here, a family rolled up and then proceeded to haul out the whole gubbins for a picnic, this included 4 chairs, a large windbreak, and a tent.  We moved to a quieter spot, when another family got out, bright red hair on two of them and pale purple on the other two.  You can tell it is the school holidays but each to their own.  So I wandered along the forestry footpath and took photos of the sheep, sure one was calling me a 'mare' so what;)

What I find so extraordinary about this road, is that the stone has never been 'robbed' either for building a cottage or road, due probably to its remoteness.

This is the start of the Roman road from the modern road

The other side, no road shows here, but probably under heather making its way to Cawthorn Roman Camps.

Pretty flower that has 'escaped' into the wild, it was part of the planting round the old building

Old Wive''s Well

Some thoughts

Well just a few absent minded thoughts on immigration and the killing of named lions.  Is there anything that joins them up, yes its the news. Idiotic killers of wild life, deserve prison is my only view on Cecil's killer,  luckily the dentist killed a high profile animal and now lies in hiding, justice waiting to be meted out.  The airlines are beginning to stop transporting trophy heads and hides, and the death of Cecil did at least bring that about.  I have seen on my F/B account pictures of exceptionally stupid women crouched beside various dead animals, including giraffes, so it is not just a male trait. And that is all I will say about the cruel sport of killing animals.

Immigration is another matter, and the word that sprang to mind was compassion for all those people stranded in no man's land at Calais.  This of course is what is happening, they are fed, clothed by charities and anyone who has seen these people will understand the desperation of their plights.  It is a plight that has been echoed down the centuries, it is not new, we  all probably have 'alien' blood in our veins from early ancestors.  Whether our ancestors came over with the Romans, Saxons or the Vikings, these things happen, people move from one country to another for many reasons.  

A Scottish comedian is angry in the Guardian, From this I gather  we have to temper our irrationality, remember the descriptive language we use when we describe other equal human beings.  It is a 'nuisance' for the lorry drivers and holiday makers to stay stuck in traffic jams for hours on end but it is a calamity to set off into an unknown future with very little on your back and the knowledge that should you be evicted as an 'illegal immigrant' you will have to go back to a war torn country.  So I have no answers to the problem, new towns in Africa maybe, but the Arab holocaust is something else, which funnily enough we do not get much news on, is Syria still a desperately divided country with its civilians fleeing the warring sides, what about Iraq?

So in the end I shall go back to reading a long PDF on the Prehistoric and Roman history of North-East Yorkshire, because I can't do anything in the end, but perhaps be very grateful that I live in a country where peace reigns!

And to add a rider, also tolerance.......

And then there is also other news;  The Die the Struck Britain's First Coin

Monday

August

Scruffling

Cutting and carting bracken

Thatching hay cocks

Mowing thistles

Harvesting

This is the work for the farming year in the early 20th century in Normanby, I think scruffling should be scuffling, but it was the method I believe of hoeing the weeds between the crops.  The crops are ready for bringing in it seems to me, the weather will dictate the time, wheat apparently likes this slightly cold summer, it is a cool plant.  Thistles are of course a bit like dandelions, their fluffy seed heads travel far and wide.  This was a walk up the hill to the farm at the top, I notice that on the long ridge into the village you have farms spaced equi-distance.  From the top of the hill you can look round on the landscape, mostly farmland, the York moors can be seen in the far distance. 

How much history has travelled through that short 100 years of history, human labour and horses were used for bringing in the wheat, then two world wars intervened, horses sadly disappeared and the great combine harvesters of today do the job in hours rather than days.

This is the farm seen from the south.  

And wasn't it sad to see these beautiful Yorkshire Fell horses auctioned off to place like America last night on Countryfile.  Seemed to have arrived in the country with the Romans, their manes flowing beautifully.....