And one Golden Promise.
On Tuesday – October 17, 2017 – I stopped what I was doing – which was laying the fire ready for lighting – to read an eye-catching article in the Daily Mail. It wasn’t my newspaper but my brother’s – that he passes on to me for fire starting. As ever – whilst on my knees – I scanned the pages in an unhurried start to get the fire started – before screwing them up into loose bundles. One page caught my eye though – so I put it back for some late night reading… 
A fascinating article by Peter Fiennes – about acorns – and why for some unknown reason Oak trees and some other native trees such as Beech and Chestnut – produce more nuts or ‘masts’ – every five to ten years. Thank god – this bountiful boom known as a ‘mast year’ – is one of Nature’s eternal mysteries; it’s a nut that even the clever scientists haven’t conclusively cracked!
Conjecture tells us that the cause of this cyclic glut is Mother Nature’s way of ensuring self-preservation for trees – and therein, our preservation too. In generating a periodical surplus of nuts over and above the appetites of the many ravenous foragers and feeders that feast on them – ensures that all of us get to enjoy the renewed promise of lovely, seasonal greenness year in year out – as new saplings burst forth from each surplus golden casket.
To my mind – a tree’s outwardness is my inwardness; trees to me, are the tangible embodiment of the air I breathe – and yes I’m a tree-hugger! I can’t quite square this with needing newspaper and firewood for lighting my fire – or the effect that burning either has on the environment – but the nights are drawing in – and this draughty, non-centrally heated house ain’t gettin warmer! 
Moving swiftly on and in-between but still on the same thread – are these wondrous teeny-weenies…
Wonders of Nature. They looked like little black dragons seated in the palm of my hand…
I found them struggling across a hard road with a long way ahead of them to get to the other side. As is my wont – I gently picked-up the waddling, tummy-scraping pair and gave them a lift in the direction that they were heading…
…wriggling and chasing each other’s tails en route to safety.
For one small animal – I was sadly too late to lend a helping hand…
On Sunday – October 15, 2017 – I found a beautiful grey squirrel – unbloodied and still warm laying at the side of the road – he looked for all the World like he was fast asleep. Apart that is, for one darkened, unblinking eye. 
The thing that really struck me – was the poignancy of the abandoned acorn that lay close-at-paw, and the promise it held for the Squirrel before the wheel of a moving car – snuffed it all out.
I transferred the dreamless Squirrel to the hedgerow – before picking up his abandoned ‘larder’…
With an idea already planted in my mind for one hundred years – or twenty ‘mast years’ hence….
One other foundling from my Autumn ramble – a little piece of gravel found in the middle of an otherwise gravel-less road. I like to think it was caught in a horse’s shoe – and dropped out as the horse went clippity-clop on it’s way – a lucky stone.
To plant the mast in the hope that it will seed – and mature – in everlasting memory of its once bright-eyed hunter-gatherer…
RIP my bushy-tailed friend. X
“Of all man’s works of art, a cathedral is greatest. A vast and majestic tree is greater than that.” Henry Ward Beecher.
I agree. A majestic Beech – that I see on my journeys to and from work…
– through the seasons – through the years…
The sight of it high on the hill never fails to uplift me.
And as a magical gift from my new friend called, Yulia – an amazing artist and poet who lives over the horizon – in Ottawa. X
It’s those invisible shifting green ribbons that connect all of us through Light – Time and Space – or as my Yaffle friend calls them – ‘Vibrations’ – we just have to learn to tune into them!
‘Vibrations’ interpreted as a light display on the Ashmolean floor – Oxford. From the Yaffles’ Summer that was.