Best Portable Solar Panels for Any Neo Nomad
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Like some child of Zeus, the modern day human carries lightning in their pocket.
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Life That Even Vegans Forget About
/Respect for trees is slightly higher than it was in the 1970’s; so, our oxygen supply is still shit out of luck, and soon bottled air will be as abundant in the shops as bottled water.
Respect for animals meanwhile is… tricky. Not eating meat, despite ample other completely natural things to eat, is considered an extremist political view, and eating vegetables is viewed as a difficult dietary choice.
But respect of the life INSIDE, UNDER, and on TOP of a tree?
Even the vegans have a long way to grow.
Each branch of every tree that makes up the forest canopy is a new nebula, wrapped tip to trunk in layers of life, teeming on magnitudes of size unimaginable to our minds - in which we inhabit a narrow strip of scale that our human eyes dictate, harshly segregating the resulting ‘macroscopic’ and ‘microscopic’ universes.
We and the tree are macroscopic; yet, only one of us is born ignorant of the microscopic universe layered over our own as an almost uninterrupted blanket of insects, bacteria, and fungus.
Starting on the ‘sodding small’ end of the spectrum, you’ll find cellular life, all the way up to still-microscopic insects inhabiting a whole different world to us; in which we are the ‘hecking enourmous’ celestial bodies that eclipse their skies.
Every growing - and even decaying - branch on every tree in your garden, is a rolled up lasagne of life, soaked in life, sprinkled with more life.
Literally dripping all over the floor, with life.
Just the actual tree itself is a wonder, so the stuff you can see with the naked eye up close is incredible. The microscopic life though? It’s a whole new universe that begins out of range of our sight and ends at a scale that our brains can’t fathom.
Humans, similarly, host literal trillions of microbes, coated inside and out with bacteria.
The 97% of us that isn’t bacteria is just like the tree, a growing superorganism that is layered inside and out with a calculator-crashing number of diverse lifeforms who also play their part in our own survival - as a superorganism, they are us.
Then there’s the mysterious internet of interconnected roots, which probe a whole other underground network of mycelium, sending future-science-only-knows what type of information across miles of soilscape.
Fungus, the original ‘Deep Web’.
So, a superorganism that’s home to not just bacteria; but fungus, bugs, birds, small creatures - and big creatures sometimes (goats being the most hilarious) - constantly rebuilding families, tribes, homes, colonies, and entire new species, all among the tree canopy.
Forests are crammed with animals no more hidden than anything else that hides from noisy predators; animals have ample time to spend, waiting for whatever made that noise to get bored, hopefully with the assumption that there’s no life here to find.
As a result, people who have only brief interactions with trees see nature as a dull gradient of green, dotted with a dozen bug nests, scattered with some smelly cattle, and lots of generic grass - lacking, at the very least, a good place to park.
Realistically, what few animals the majority of people see are the huge ones: cows, sheep, pigs, dogs, butchered by someone else far away, portioned out in plastic, labelled something euphemistic and fancy sounding, and then sold in the frozen section of the shop, alongside a picture of a single cow on a patch of grass by a couple of isolated trees.
So, if maintaining a respect for common animals seems hard enough for most people, how can respect of nocturnal, hidden, and microscopic life be possible, when our only interactions with animals are treating them as lesser?
Where do the tree super-organisms, that make all the oxygen for this complicated ethical debate to happen, rank on your own personal hierarchy?
For many people, trees don’t even rate.
But damn do I love a tree canopy.
Hamlet Hounded by Adorable Avalanche
/Hamlet, ‘Hammy boy ham yams’ to friends, enjoys napping on any flat surface between trips outside; where his heavy curtain-pole of a tail corkscrews wildly behind his blundering bottom.
This lack of appendage control has landed Hamlet with the responsibilities of a reluctant father with nowhere to run.
Cornered, sleepy, exhausted after literally minutes of being awake, Hamlet is finally caught and pounced upon by his children: Molly, Bella, Amber, Sproglet, and Avalanche
Pictured: Hamlet, Bella, Avalanche
More pictures of the whole family to come…
Autumn Over Gaunts Estate
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Autumn hit as hard as summer had and so pushed the canopy to oranges and reds so fast it felt like it arrived overnight.
You can picture it happening.
Another burning orange sunset, sat on a black horizon, yet today’s more distant than yesterday, the space between them just great enough to change the timing of the sunset, at just the right angle; resulting in redder sunsets that last longer.
Before this, the greens had been yellowing slowly.
Some had reached orange by now, but even some of the greenest leaves had shed to red overnight.
Once this red autumn curtain falls and becomes a red carpet for winter, branches and tree trunks will steal our hearts for a season and a half.
Prophet Olympuss
/Prophet Olympuss accurately predicts when his bowl will refill with food.
Often meowing for up to ten minutes before hand.
He is never wrong.
Wandering the Colours of Gaunts Common with a Spaniel
/We walk Gaunts Common's Fitness Trail daily. Always with a black spaniel named Inky, and sometimes her friends.
We all come to Gaunt's to see nature change. In both woodland and field. To watch the effects of agriculture and animal; listen to pheasants, owls, and bats; watch buzzards circle half a-mile high, drifting 2000 acres on a lazy breeze above the hilly landscape.
Mostly we visit to look up and watch the cloudscape and catch a few views of the farmed land on the horizon. Sometimes, with a tractor in sight, being followed by a cloud of squawking crows feasting on turned up worms or seeds.
If your visits are frequent, you'll recognise families of rabbits, foxes, owls; spot populations of deer and the signs of life they leave behind; and you'll see the forest grow and die a different way each season - where new paths unlock depending on the month.
There's always more to see, and it'll all have changed by next week, no matter where your footsteps take your when you're exploring Gaunt's Estate, there's forever more life to meet and learn about.
There's a history in the land, and vestiges of ancient woodland with a magic to it. With yew and rohan, hazel and walnut, tree's everywhere is what I'm saying - interesting ones, in abundance.
And interesting skies in abundance, too, every day a new dramatic cloudscape.
Knowlton Church is Protected by Ancient Corpses
/Melting for four millennia, these dollops of human-made earthworks sink under the trendier religions, whose walls of flint and stone may be materials of a different kind, but it’s all sand in an hourglass to a patient future.
Knowlton Church Earthworks
"Church Henge" at Knowlton
I Watched a Dorset Horizon Burn to Charcoal in Seconds
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Sunset Stanbridge, Hinton Parva
Another blushing sunrise, like hot red jam tipped on an already baking landscape; sweet scenery, caramelising into a black horizon, with a final ball of melting yellow shrinking under a cooling orange blanket, turning darker shades of purple until deep blue and unseen ultraviolet spectrums.
Beneath a Purple Stanbridge Blanket
/And all at once, the still blue blanket that was the twilight sky, was beaten by a silent hoofbeat which shook crows from bending treetops like black fruits dropping, or seeds sent high on a sudden gust of wind, which caught under each crow's wing and lifted the entire murder upwards, like shadow puppets yanked by unseen strings.
Following was a falling pause of sideways gliding, between trees and open field, waiting for more wind that came stampeding from the west, where a sunset falls asleep beneath a purple blanket, behind the silhouettes of trees on the horizon.
Stanbridge, Dorset
Wildfires Above Dorset
/3400 years is how long it would take to walk to the Sun. Which is the same distance it takes light just 8 minutes to cover. After each light photon first wriggles its way from the core of the source of all life on Earth.
When those photons burst yellow through a widening aperture in the clouds which then opens to a rift of orange, it's a vision of a burning rupture.
A violent looking cataclysm you can feel the real heat of against your own face and it all unfolds in the space of a few minutes.
In this case, these clouds bled sunlight through two punctures. "God rays". More accurately, "crepuscular rays". But here I think "Satan Beams" would be more accurate.
Another theory, which was offered by the Ancient Greeks, is that sunbeams pulled water up into the sky, to explain evaporation.
Some silver lining had clearly kindled and caught fire. Appearing burnt by the sun like paper under a candle.
A Batman shaped hole forms as two terrifying omens merge into a single wound.
The cherry red sun slips from under the black blanket of thick clouds, leaving streaks that glow hot against silhouetted foreground like torn curtains in the windows of a burning tower.
Finally, a glowing yolk evades the pursuing shroud of night time to burn lighter, free from everything but the mist and an imminent horizon.
Pictures of Colourfest 2018 (at Gaunts House in Wimborne, Dorset)
/As these pictures of Colourfest 2018 show, Gaunts House in Wimborne was full of vivid signs of rejuvenation, relaxation, and chillness, so we went and ate a lot of very good veggie food.
Honestly, the offerings at the four day long festival are incredible. And everyone is just so happy. Doing yoga in the sunshine together, or dancing in the shadows of ancient trees, else they're relaxing under the sky and laughing.
The gardens of Gaunts House and the landscape of the Common alone are full of enough history and wild nature to fill weeks of adventure, so Colourfest was the perfect oasis to feed our souls and fuel our bellies between exploration.
This Thistle Has Four Legs and One Hobby: Eating
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Thistle is a bit special.
She's the neighbour's dog and Inky's sister who eats everything edible and otherwise, especially socks and rocks, which seems to keep her sprinting from spot to spot while pooping and weeing on basically everything.
But she's a cutie, so, it's hard to not love that face.
I can't imagine a world that can sustain the amount of frogs growing in my pool
/Warning, billions of frogs are on their way, once the supercolony of tadpoles in my swimming pool finish transforming into their final forms.
It came in early spring. Goo. Ejected up the sides of the pool, frogspawn, fittingly in the kids end - and then goo became bubbles which became black eyeballs that now wiggle about with tails.
Newts and tadpoles living in a somewhat fragile harmony
Adorable, until one morning, when we see something while passing the stone edge of the pool. On the inner rim of the pool from the top of the murky water to the darkness below, a black rectangle.
The straight edges of it wiggled with a thousand little tails. Once your eyes adjusted, the whole rectangle vibrated. In a fleshy way, while barely reflecting any light, and even more distorted by the water refraction.
And then we saw two more rectangles of future frogs, wiggling away, munching the algae on the side of the pool. Probably avoiding the newts, though they're too big to fit inside a newt now.
STONEHENGE in the (Rare) Snow // Part 1
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Two moments of worship at Stonehenge: druidic song and dance within the ring of ancient stones and quiet solitude outside of them. I danced during both.
Overall, 'rarity' was the theme of the day for me and the few people there, and even the ancient stones themselves. They're blue y'know, I didn't make them look like that. Blue when wet, like when moistened by the rare British snow.
AN absolute hero who kindly shared his mead with us
Imogen being cold
It was one of the very few annual events when you're able to cross the fields and walk among the stones; touch them, lick them if you like, I saw it happen. I even saw a strange man's nipples; no licking involved there.
Yet, the clear sky was rare enough; the snow, rarer. Even just walking among Stonehenge is a very rare opportunity. But all of them together? With a purple sky at dawn and almost no tourists thanks to exaggerated weather alerts? R a r e.
I did all the things you do at Stonehenge, which is description enough. Most of all, we all summoned Spring in, and wished everyone - especially you - the very best in life. Feel free to order this framed print as thanks. Just do it before the snow comes back because I'm not a very good wizard. I do try though.
It's Imogen! (burntgingerrose on Instagram)
Snow in Gaunts, Winter in Wimborne, and "Snowsomnia" in Stanbridge
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Fallen Snow on Fallen Branch / Gaunts Common
My body clock is all messed up and has almost reversed since sleeping so damn much this winter. I've been waking up to morning walks that were actually sunsets with my morning coffee, which was really an evening brew. But today, I've been up all night, and real morning leaves me feeling way too tired. I might go to sleep. It's morning for everyone else but the evening for me. Good night morning people.
Stick in the Snow / Gaunts Common
Once a Path / Gaunts Common
Ashton Pool in Winter / Gaunts Common
Insectile Tree / Gaunts Common
The windows of this four-century-old farmhouse break themselves at night
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Everything around this house is evergreen, including these blood-red berries. Inside, the walls have seen four hundred years and there's parts that have weathered longer.
Now, the foundations are moving and pulling parts of the house in different directions. Things don't so much go bump in the night as they groan like the wooden hull of an old sailing vessel. Windows break themselves, mostly at night.
The cracks in the walls appear so slowly they become part of the decoration and some rooms feel higher than others. In some places your sense of balance tells you you're on a slope but nothing looks different.
I wish it wasn't breaking but I love that it is and I wish they wouldn't fix the cracks but I'm glad that they will.
Those pyracantha berries will stay red for a long time to come. But I do miss summer, when they blossom white. But I'd settle for spring.
Does anyone actually like January?
I've been tripping (kinda)
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I look up so much at the tree canopy that I don't watch my feet and usually trip. Right over.
I've never broke a camera but I've broken bits of other things. Never a bone. Never a camera. Almost always my phone but it made it through almost a year of being dropped until it cracked and went dark for the last time.
But it was full of a lot of colour. A lot of moments before I tripped over.
Anyone else accident prone?
I've seen pictures on the internet of shattered cameras and expensive equipment laid out like the a half-made jigsaw puzzle but I've not been that unlucky yet.
Check out Fine Cocks in This "Beautiful Chickens" Book
/I'm no Chicken Fancier but get ready for the pedigree cocks and red-breasted chicks provided by this "Beautiful Chickens" book which I found for £2 in an Oxfam today. Because chickens are fun.
Impressive poultry fill the pages of Beautiful Chickens: Portraits of Champion Breeds such as the beautiful the Plymouth Rock Cock and Frizzle Hen.
That sure is a beautiful chicken
Some are clearly chickens, other's look like their tyrannosaur ancestors. A few look like feather dusters with feet but all of them are caught in a pose filled with character.
I've never raised chickens and I couldn't name a single breed, but this book leapt off the shelf at me between stacks of dusty second-hand books.
Poland Hen / Original photo: Andrew Perris
I decided to add it to my photobook collection the moment I saw the words "Beautiful Chickens". Sold. Nuff' said as far as I'm concerned.
A book of the finest cocks for my coffee table.
Belgian Barbu D'anvers Cock / Original photo: Andrew Perris
The photography of these champion breeds by Andrew Perris has the hurried look of a probably frustrating photoshoot yet it still captures the spark of life in the eyes of these funny animals.
I cannot imagine that chicken portraits are easy. I hope they're not drugged. Let's not think about it. The photography is great and each characteristic detail is brought out so that every idiosyncrasy is highlighted.
Cochin Cock / Original photo: Andrew Perris
Most importantly, the silliness of these jester-like birds is present in every picture.
Love it.
I'm Quite Keen for The Year Twenty Eighteen
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You either loved 2017 or you read the news. Sure, nuclear war is in the news constantly and global warming is giving the British even stranger weather to talk about, but hey, we had a nice summer right?
I told myself I'd carry on that summer motivation into winter but that did not happen. I pictured walking the frozen forests with tripod in hand and a satchel or snacks to keep me fuelled. But no.
It's okay to be lazy in the cold weather, right? I think it's built into us humans to hide away for a chunk of the chilly year.
Are you hiding away?