Fox and Hens

It’s odd how things work out. Since last year we have kept three Buff Orpington hens in our garden. They have a lovely chicken coop which sits snug inside a chicken run that I built for them, all safe and secure. Around the property I have a few anti-predator lights that work at night and also we have a couple of dogs that like to mark their territory in the yard too. We also like to let the chickens out to range freely over the property and they do a good job of clearing insects and, more importantly, those evil Lyme-disease carrying ticks that are prevalent in this area (that’s another story).

Anyhow, today we experienced a late season snowfall (hopefully the last) so we let the chickens out earlier that usual, before there was too much accumulation. We keep an eye on them periodically and by sure luck, happened to get up from breakfast and look out of the front window to see one of the hens running quickly in front of the window – closely followed by a fox!

We banged on the glass, hollered and ran to get out into the yard and the fox “legged it,” as we would say, across the property. Thankfully, a quick check of the hen revealed no harm done, and confirmed the others were safe and sound too.

It was a truly comical, yet simultaneously scary sight to see this fox chase in such a classic pose – a plump golden chicken being chased by a sly red fox! The fox was a beautiful specimen and I am guessing we must have disturbed it just before it got into full stride, as I cannot see how our hen could possibly outrun this determined hunter.

Unserendipitously (is there such a word?) the wildlife camera that I have had set up there wasn’t in place as I took it down for some building work, so we only have our memories of it, but for the three of us who were only a few feet away it was an amazing thing to see nature at work. I’m just glad it ended happily.

We have not had issues with foxes before so I wonder it if was because the coating of snow meant that our red hens contrasted with the white snow so much that the fox could easily target them and risk coming close to the house. We live in a wooded area and there’s usually a lot of leaf litter and other ground cover that may allow some sort of camouflage.

Anyway it was certainly an unusual way to start the day, and one I don’t want to repeat. It will certainly made me appreciate tomorrow’s breakfast eggs from “the girls” a little more than usual!

160409_Fox — NOT the aforementioned fox, but a similar beast…

~Richard

April 9, 2016 1

self help

~ self help ~

a surprise gift on my desk today:

a small paperback

with positive color and pointing arrows,

packed full of promises

of perfecting my personality;

meant to mold it

into another corporate citizen

who will nod and smile unquestioningly

at perfunctory platitudes

that stoke the share price,

and distract us from the realization

that we ourselves are but stock

in a world of cowering complicity,

from which I willingly help myself.

~Richard

April 8, 2016 3

6 sentence story – The camera never lies?

At first he was sure there had been a mistake. When he opened the pack of developed photographs fresh from the store his initial thought was that they had given him someone else’s film. But as he flipped through the prints he saw that they were, in fact the shots he had taken; or rather the compositions were the same. The actual subjects had changed though – the faces were different, the clothes dated. He thought that was all, but when he looked closer, even the background was wrong – trees smaller and a missing house. This must be some kind of joke, he thought, but if so it was an elaborate one, and who would do such a thing…?

160407_Gardening

~Richard

April 7, 2016 0

Haiku

~ h a i k u ~

concise lines of prose,

syllables: five-seven-five;

haiku is complete

160405_Haiku

April 6, 2016 0

52-week Challenge: week 14

WEEK 14: Landscape: Zoomed in – Most landscapes are wide sweeping images. Try an alternative and zoom in instead.

I admit that this seemed counter-intuitive to me. I always associate landscapes with sweeping vistas, and therefore using a relatively wide lens like my 20mm (that’s 40mm equivalent on a 35mm frame). But the assignment seemed clear so I attached my biggest glass, the 200mm (that’s a huge 400mm equivalent on a 35mm DSLR) and zoomed in on a woodland landscape near my home.

In order to make it more interesting I captured a little of the Spring grass and some spiky overwintering plants in the foreground, with the wooded landscaped valley behind.

160405_LandscapeZoom

~Richard

April 5, 2016 4

Dear Diary

Sometimes I miss my diary. I was never really one for detailing my daily activities and thoughts, but I started one for some reason on 13-Dec-2011 (131211 in UK date format) and kept it as a private blog online until the summer of 2015. I wrote an entry almost every day and often included photographs as well.

I wanted to keep one just as a reminder of how things were going during my middle ages. It served not only as a journal of activities but also provided some form of cathartic outlet, although I admit that, because I chose for it to be in an electronic format, rather than the traditional leather-bound tome, it certainly contained more censoring that a true “stream of consciousness” diary would. Perhaps it was because of this requirement to sit in front of the laptop each evening that it suddenly seemed to become more of a chore to keep it up that to maintain it. Maybe I subconsciously considered it to be a futile exercise. Or, more optimistically, possibly it had served its purpose. Anyhow, for whatever reason the entries became staccato and in the end I stopped maintaining it in the summer before I hit the big five-oh.

Well, it’s now been about half a year without even visiting my diary and I think I may start up another one. This time though I am considering using the traditional pen-and-ink version, foregoing the convenience of electronic editing for the tactile experience of putting down works on real paper.

It’s going to be a hard slog though, as I really have got out of practice of using simple pen and ink, with its unforgiving nature. I am so used to an electronic format for just about all writing these days, whether at home or at the office, with spell checker and the ability to rewrite a phrase with no trace of the original underneath.

On the other hand it does give me an excuse to select a nice heavy volume perhaps and indulge in a more spontaneous type of writing which is arguably missing from my electronic world. Methinks a nice pocket diary beckons…

160404_Diary

Plus, I’ll always have this blog as a supplement too 🙂

~Richard

April 4, 2016 0

Richard III Redux

~ richard III redux ~

Lusting for power
he foments revolution
but brings the house down

~Richard

April 3, 2016 1

More Dementor than Black Dog

Winnie’s black dog
crept upon him
during moments of stillness.
No lumbering Labrador;
this stealthy lupine,
like the Black Dog of old lore,
would hide in his shadows.
An artful defense
of paint, prose or construction
would keep the beast at bay,
at least for a time.

J.K gets much closer.
Her apparition:
a billowing cloak
that settles quietly,
leaden on your shoulders,
and clings, with a quiet cry to be fed.
Music works for a spell
but choose charms wisely.
For Dementors can consume these too
and cause a spiral of despair.

I heed Winnie’s advice
And take out a pen…

April 2, 2016 1

Will we all wake up as “April Fish?”

Today is the first of April, traditionally a time when we are allowed to play jokes on people and generally test their gullibility. When I was child we used to think this was great fun and even used to buy tricks from the joke store sometimes to use. It wasn’t always a great success for the prankster though and I do recall overstepping the mark by embedding some sort of tiny combustible device in one of my father’s cigarettes designed to make it sputter, and him not being best pleased with the outcome.

April Fools’ Day (or All Fools’ Day) has a mysterious origin, although it has been celebrated for centuries as some form of collective “release” as Spring opens up.

One line of speculation is that this tradition of fooling one’s friends seems to originate in 1582 when Catholic France switched from the old Julian calendar to the modern (and more accurate) Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the papal bull Inter gravissimas. This involved a reset of the days to catch up but also changed the way that the new year was celebrated, being moved to January 1st from the older “start of Spring” on April 1st. Back in those pre-internet (or electricity, or any other form of rapid non-word of mouth communication) there were delays in this message being spread across the nation and so, the story goes, some people maintained “the old ways” and were subsequently rewarded by their more enlightened friends by having fun poked at them, having paper fish attached to their backs and being called April fish (“poisson d’Avril”).

Others speculate that April Fool’s activities are tied to the Roman Spring festival of Hilaria (from the same root as the term hilarious), which legitimized a sort of “anything goes” celebration for a day, including dressing up in masks, playing tricks and, by the sound of it, having a right raucous time with little to no consequences to one’s actions!

Now, all this being said, I cannot but think with recent events playing out in the US media over the last few months, that we must be coming to a head with one of the most prolonged running jokes of all time: the Donald as a serious contender to be president for the United States of America.

Surely today will be the day when he opens a press conference by shouting “April Fools!” in his inimitable manner?

~Richard

160401_AprilFool — Restored and modified illustration from Puck magazine, 1912

April 1, 2016 1

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Month: April 2016

Fox and Hens

self help

~ self help ~

6 sentence story – The camera never lies?

Haiku

~ h a i k u ~

52-week Challenge: week 14

Dear Diary

Richard III Redux

More Dementor than Black Dog

©Richard Reeve, 2016

Will we all wake up as “April Fish?”

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