Alien worlds

 

The forest was shrouded in mist again this morning, giving it an air of alien world. 

Autumn morn

 A radiant autumnal morning. What difference a day makes.

Misty morning

 

The forest has many faces.

Get it on

 

Get it on.

Gorse extravaganza

 

You may be able to find gorse (Ulex) flowering somewhere in the forest on any given day, though it's at this time of year that we're granted a gorse extravaganza. Even on a dull day like today the flowers radiated a sweet coconuty aroma; if you were wanting to make some gorse flower wine, we're now entering the best time to be gathering flowers. Gorse was a favourite of the wines we 'crafted'; we'd make the yearly pilgrimage to the Kimmeridge bowl where tradition had become we'd gather our flowers, enough for 5 gallons of wine usually. Always a clean crisp wine; we'd use a chablis or Chardonnay yeast as I remember. I fancy making wine again; after all home made wine/beer was big in the 70's, and as we're economically back in the 70's I think it's time for a resurgence.

Boss...da plane, da plane!

This morning the sky above Duck Hole Bottom had me wondering if I'd inadvertently stepped through a time portal into late summer 1940. No matter in which direction you looked the sky was criss crossed by vapour trails. It's not the Battle Britain though, it's a sign of our collective cognitive dissonance in a far more wide ranging battle for humanity's very survival. 

 

I don't know about you, but after being politically and environmentally conscious, and to a degree active, since my teens I find myself despairing of the empty narratives of both.  I have to agree with Thunburg's 'blah, blah, blah' comment at COP26, and I don't see it confined to government and corporate green-wash either. As far as I can see it's most everyone and everything. The whole carbon neutral narrative, plant based everything, growing 'green' economies, sustainability through technological innervations, all smoke and mirrors, comforting bullshit, a deception we're happy to be complicit in. Evangelical believers if truth were known, after all, it's our lifestyles on the line, and no matter our words our actions betray the truth. We wag our fingers at corporations and government demanding change, and then happily accept their green-washed platitudes as just enough to sooth our consciences and allow us continue our destructive habits. If Covid has taught us anything, it's that society lacks commonality and is reluctant to change it's hedonistic self serving habits, even as death stalks the streets people raged that a hiatus in their consuming had been foist upon them, and, as soon as was possible returned to the free market trough...imagine when the climate mitigation penny drops...#shitstorm! In my opinion consumption, or rather the excesses there of,  is the enormous elephant in the room, rarely acknowledged for fear of the backlash the truth of the scale of reduction required to save us will inevitably provoke.

 

Yeah, corporations and governments deserve the wagging fingers, though really this shit's on us. For many of us the only genuine power we have is how we spend our money, a power we rarely use to positive effect...and yeah, I'm guilty too...few aren't. Millions in the moneyed classes wring their hands and pontificate, although are unwilling to give up their luxury, the happiest cohort to embrace the fallacy of green tech salvation, happy to pay a little extra to show their virtue and assuage their guilt whilst continuing their consumption unabated. Even the Millennials and GenZs who champion the environmental cause so passionately and vociferously are voracious consumers of tainted goods, who'll be loathed, if honest, to relinquish their destructive 24/7 lifestyles; limited ethical/sustainable consumption is at odds with 24/7 unlimited labelled consumption. And of course, then there's the lived experience of millions of poor Britain's which renders proposed climate mitigations and associated costs at best inaccessible and at worst disenfranchising, the ethics of consumption merely another luxury they can't afford. I'll be honest I couldn't support any climate measures which exacerbate widening inequality, we can either move forward together or we can 'all' go down together. Is that wrong? Meh.

 

What I'm trying ham-fistedly to say is that there's no fucking honesty in any of our political or environmental dialogues, and without honesty around the genuine scale and scope of the radical societal change required, and the social consequences involved to halt the climate catastrophe (and societal collapse), partnered with a compelling and unifying combination of authentic messaging and policy......it's all just 'blah, blah, blah'.

Today

Our walk this morning started like this and 7 miles later finished like that. The transformation in-between times was striking. What a wonderful world.

Duck Hole

 

Fingers of boggy wetland fill the hollows and shallow valleys of the forest, fed by springs and a filigree of rivulets, and helped massively by the regions underlying geology heavy with clays, they're the life blood of the landscape. Frequently  hidden, neglected, avoided by walkers in favour of easier terrain, they're strange eerie places, often very quite and unusually still, chains of dark peat stained pools, fringed in places with wiry carr wood. Our ancestors believed these places spiritually significant, a boundary between worlds maybe, or a source life and renewal, to them powerful magic and/or deities dwelt here. Maybe they still do.

 

Duck Hole

Heading towards Duck Hole Bog this morning, and to paraphrase Eric Olthwaite, ''Forest's wet today Mother, aye, very wet, even the dry bits are wet'', the forest is that wet. Still, it was glorious walking though, and a treat to walk under (nearly) blue skies.

Nature / nurture

As I've mentioned previously, the landscape we see and enjoy in the New Forest, like the landscape of much of these isles, is far from the natural environment we imagine. The hand of humans agency has been at play for thousands of years since before the first farmers settled. Many of the landscape types we're used to, such as chalk grassland or here in the forest, both woodland and heathland, are the direct consequence of human intervention and subsequent continuous management. Looking around the Duck Hole landscape this morning it was clear to see that left to her own devices nature will quickly return to her natural form. Every year, for the last few years, more and more saplings have become established over the heathland, predominantly conifers there are also numerous birch and fruiting shrubs, and in the wetter hollows willow too. I wonder how long it'll be before the forestry will clear them, or whether they will actually clear them, or just let them be. It's interesting to think that a reduction in EU funding may impact on the forest appearance, people really didn't understand what the EU 'did for us'. Further on our walk, now crossing Ober Water near Rhinefield, evidence of the forests current management programs is clear. Along the bank of Ober Water the thicket of willow, hawthorn and blackthorn has been cleared, opening up the stream-side woodland...purely cosmetic, to keep the 'nature' of the New Forest picturesque scenes. It's as if we don't like nature in her natural forms.

The New Forest

When people think of the New Forest I'm sure it's of expansive woodlands, of which there are some 230 sq mi of broadleaved woodlands and enclosed mixed plantation, although there are also 59 sq mi of open grassland, heathland and wetland. The photo above is representative of much of the forests heathland, a mixture of dry heathland with pockets of wetland heath, wetland and carr woodland filling hollows in the undulating landscape. Many of the wetland heath areas are impassible, especially through the wet seasons, punctuated as they are by wetland proper, you'll often find yourself following the contours of the land, making a 5 minute walk as the crow flies, a 20 walk.  This view is of the lower reaches of Duck Hole and Duck Hole Bog taken from one of the Bronze Age Round Barrows which border Ferny Knap enclosure (one of the smaller enclosures 21 acres, enclosed 1843. Lovely morning.

Rainbow Road

Rainbow Road? I looked and looked, not a Mario Cart in sight!

Equilibrate blessings

The sun rose over a mist veiled forest this morning to bring us a moment of equilibrium, for tomorrow we step over the threshold and into the shorter days of dark's dominion. That's not as bad as it sounds, all's as it should be, if we're lucky the longer days will return, as will light's dominion. Man, the forest is so still, so quiet, as if everything's holding its breath in honour of the moment. It's stunning out here, though as with so much at the moment, there's a bitter-sweetness to this mornings seasonal observance, it's a long time since I welcomed the sun alone. Walking back I make the same resolution I've made 8 times a year for nearly 3 decades, to get up early to greet the sun more often. Of course I doubt I will, though I always mean to and that must count for something. It's also the period of second harvest, the fruit and nut harvest. It's another opportunity to take stock of the year, have the seeds (both physical and metaphorical) you planted in spring flourished or failed?  I hope your barn is full to bursting. Equinox blessings y'all.