Until July 2017, documenting the seasons of coastal Dorset. I'm a complete amateur so don't trust I'm always right. If ever you see I'm wrong - whether with identifications or in anything else - do say! Meanwhile . . . I've now moved to Halifax in West Yorkshire. Click on the link below to collect the new URL. Don't forget to follow there!

Monday 9 February 2009

SUCH THINGS ARE LEFT WHERE OUR EYES CAN'T REACH

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I once saw a lady with a dustpan and brush, scraping lichen from her front wall with a knife and tidying it away.
Housekeeping can go berserk.
People will sweep anything.
The last bit of ice from a pavement.
Leaves.
Others have the opposite instinct - to leave things lying around, to place things where they shouldn't be. Sometimes, they seem to put a lot of effort into taking inappropriate things to inappropriate places and going away without them.
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A lot of this we don't see because such things are left where our eyes won't reach. But I send my phone where my eyes can't go - and it reports back.
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Here is a box.
I didn't know I was taking a picture of a box. I didn't know the box was there. I changed the exposure on the phone so it could look (on my behalf) through a blast of July sunshine at what I expected to be a sort of cave in the gorse. And there was the box.
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Another place our eyes won't go is inside trees.
14th September 2008
Here is a pool of water inside a hollow trunk - with little creatures showing up white, like stars.
(It's worth clicking on!)
Above it, insects have been busy eating the wood, boring holes, flaking it away - and there's somebody's grub up the top, on the left!
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And another something with antennae, also showing up white . . . and, in the water, cheerful, colourful and floating - rubbish.
7th February 2009
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Winter.
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It's all gone quiet. Less visibly busy. The insects are gone.
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But, still there in the sludge . . . cheerful and recognisable and intact - the same, durable, reliable, what-on-earth-is-it-doing-inside-a-tree? rubbish!
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9 comments:

Monica the Garden Faerie said...

A friend of mine is a model rocket enthusiast. He sometimes sends little cameras up in rockets and the views the snap are awesome! Also, I agree whole-heartedly that people spend a lot of time moving things around unnecessarily. I will say that I myself have swept up red pine needles from parking lots, but that's only because I wanted them as mulch in my own garden!! :)

Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax! said...

Monica - so many things in your comment.

How wonderful to be able to send cameras up in rockets!

How clever!

How does he retrieve them?

And gathering mulch from carparks seems sensible to me. I've been wondering whether I'd get in trouble if I took leaf mould from the woods for Esther's garden - probably!

But . . . aren't the pine needles a bit polluted, coming from a car park? . . . and that's interesting too because I'd thought pine needles had a deadening effect on the soil beneath them.

Lucy

BT said...

Hello there. My first visit to your blog and it's lovely. I came from The Weaver of Grass. I love your photos. I'm a big fan of photography myself. You were right about enlarging the water photo, so much to see and wonderful rainbow lights.

I'll be back!

Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax! said...

Hello BT.

I'm so glad you've found LOOSE AND LEAFY and that you like it. I look forward to hearing more from you.

Weaver of Grass - I love her gentle descriptions of the Yorkshire countryside.

Lucy

Catherine said...

It's such a shame when the lovely things that should be found in a place are scarred by the horrible things that shouldn't. I often take a bag and some long barbecue tongs with me when I walk my dog, just to pick up other people's rubbish, and always come back with the bag full to bursting. It's depressing that so many people couldn't care less about the mess they leave behind.

The pictures are beautiful Lucy, as always.

Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax! said...

Thanks Catherine.

About collecting rubbish - our council is very good about getting us to recycle things. We have separate collections for paper, tins and plastic bottles, garden waste, kitchen waste and 'residual' waste. The residual waste is collected once a fortnight and we don't have much spare space in the bin.

So . . . as soon as the council got organised . . . we had to stop collecting random stuff. If we have more rubbish than will fit in our bin - the dustmen simply leave it behind.

Lucy

Catherine said...

At the moment this isn't a problem here because as well as collecting all the recyclable stuff we have a weekly collection for the residual rubbish. But that might change soon as the Conservatives now control our local council and are saying it costs too much money. Not sure what I'll do then.

garden girl said...

I love the lighting in these photos Lucy. They look enchanted - I half expected to see fairies darting about in the tree trunk and admidst the grasses.

Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax! said...

Thanks Linda.

About inside the tree trunk - I am amazed to find the same bit of rubbish in there, all these months later. I would have expected it to have disintegrated or added to in that time!

I'm in half a mind to put something in there myself, on purpose and go back from time to time to see if it too is still there. What do you think?

Lucy