Category: in the woods

countryside · general stuff · in the woods · spring · wildlife

In the bluebell woods

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)46 Comments

 

Hello again, hope you’re well. Sorry that I’ve not been around much lately. The children have had a lot of time off school recently because of an odd arrangement of the Easter holidays and although they went back on Monday I’ve spent most of this week deep in pattern writing mode. It’s going well but they’re not quite ready so I’ll post more about them when they’re finished.

Spending a week mostly at the computer has left me feeling a bit cabin-feverish so earlier today I packed myself a little picnic and took myself off for a walk in the woods. It was the perfect antidote to staring at a screen and I thought you might like to accompany me. I had walked there 2 weeks ago when the bluebells were just breaking bud but today they were really at their best, I just wish I could have shared the wonderful scent with you because the whole wood was perfumed …

This little oak apple (oak gall) fascinates me. It’s caused by a gall wasp laying an egg in the developing leaf bud and so changing how it develops. I’ll be paying it a visit throughout the year to see how it grows. It’s already changed a fair bit since I first saw it 2 weeks ago …

Well that’s it from me for today. I got home just in time as it’s raining heavily now so I’m going to go put my PJs on and snuggle with some knitting until dinner. Thanks for dropping by, I hope to be around here a little more once these patterns are finished and if you’ve emailed me recently and are still waiting for a reply I’m sorry, I hope to catch up with emails next week.

autumn · countryside · general stuff · in the woods · wildlife

Autumny things :: out & about

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)38 Comments

The woods in Autumn are one of my most favourite places to be. It’s such a sensory experience – a wonderful rich smell of damp earth; a rustling sigh as hundreds of leaves part company with the trees at the slightest breeze and a sparkling quality to the light as the low-angled sunlight is shimmered through all of the leaves still clinging fast. There are good things to eat too. I’m not confident enough to gather mushrooms but a handful of sweet chestnuts or blackberries instantly evokes childhood memories of autumn Sunday afternoons spent foraging in the woods with my Mum, Dad and brother. I do love being out in the woods on a bright autumn day.

Sadly though Toby seems to have gone off wood walks at the moment. He’s been getting rather agitated when I’ve shown him the PECs card for the woods and biting his hand a lot (you can see it’s badly calloused in the picture below). I did manage to coax him out with custard cream biscuits for one rather short stroll over this half term break but he was keen to get back to the car.

Amy walked with me on wednesday afternoon, both of us with our cameras in hand as she’s preparing her coursework for her photography GCSE. We took a lot of pictures because there’s lots going on in the autumn woods. We saw mini beasts; snails, butterflies and beetles, tiny fairy-tale porcelain fungus and toadstools and out on an open stretch a muntjac deer was crossing an autumn-sown field and stopping every now and then for a quick nibble of the fresh, green shoots. There was a fair bit of good-natured elbow barging between us over the best position to photograph from and lots of her shots came out better than mine. It was a memorable afternoon out with my lovely girl.

Back at home the late afternoon skies have been crossed with migrating flocks of birds. I love watching them heading south to keep ahead of the colder weather and wonder how far they are journeying.

Autumn is in full flow here and I hope to make it out to the woods lots more before the leaves are all on the ground. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep tempting Toby to come out with me and he’ll re-discover his woodland mojo.

Pictures taken at:

Amwell nature reserve, Hollywell Lake with the dragonfly meadows and Amwell walkway, September 26th

Bencroft wood, Hertfordshire, October 26th

Panshanger Park and Osprey lake, October 28th

 

autism · autumn · general stuff · in the woods

woodland wonderland

Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)67 Comments

The last couple of weeks have been a bit tough for Toby. He’s been having many more meltdowns, lots of anxiety and has been much more wakeful at night than his usual hour or two. The hardest thing is not knowing what the cause of this latest ‘spell’ might be – he has never developed speech and his communication via PECs is limited to him requesting items and activities so there is no way for us to explore what he might be feeling. He has been under the weather health-wise and there have been some changes in school but we’re really left to guess work, trial and error and a general feeling of despair at not being able to help him work through it.

Lack of sleep does funny things to your mind (which is probably why it is employed as an effective interrogation technique) and I find I’m a lot more prone to feeling down when we’re in these cycles with Toby. Knitting always helps of course but last week I felt the need to be out in the fresh air. The woods in autumn are a beautiful place to be and I do find them spiritually refreshing. I spent a very peaceful couple of hours wandering around alone with a complete absence of human noise and human demands. I saw lots of grey squirrels busy with their winter store, two muntjac deer and a multitude of different birds all too quick for my camera but I did enjoy taking pictures of the plant life.

All the mosses and fungi are particularly abundant at the moment since it’s been such a mild and damp autumn. It felt good to be alone in the woods, looking at the tiny small worlds that go on mostly unobserved and it definitely helps me get some perspective back when things are hard going. I count myself very lucky to have such a beautiful place on our doorstep and I’m getting to know its secret places well. Modern existence often separates us from nature but it’s to our detriment and I plan to keep heading wood-wards when things get a bit tough here.