Mike usually takes his after-lunch constitutional just walking out from our house. He felt like a change, so drove to Finstown and walked through Binscarth Woods – which he described as being like a rain-forest at the moment – a lot of rain in the river and a lot of green in the woods.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The first field he came to had cows & calves in it, so he was cautious as cows can easily get worried for their young and….well….chase people. And I don’t blame them, at all!
Through the first gate into the wood and, looking to his right, a sweet little curved bridge which he’d not noticed before
Then turning off the main track through a gate to his left, he walked up through the wood appreciating the shades and types of greenery
There are big clumps of Wild Raspberries
Someone’s been having fun
Which brought to mind this poem by Esther Teunissen
“They caught the wild children and put them in zoos,
They made them do sums and wear sensible shoes.
They put them to bed at the wrong time of day,
And made them sit still when they wanted to play.
They scrubbed them with soap and they made them eat peas.
They made them behave and say pardon and please.
They took all their wisdom and wildness away.
That’s why there are none in the forests today.”
But there are…in Binscarth!
Looking up through the canopy
A soft moss garden round a tree-trunk
At the top of wood, through the wall and turning left, briefly back onto the main woodland track, then a wider almost-road
Then turning left onto a narrow path to the Loch of Wasdale, where there are fruiting Wild Raspberries
Looking from the track to the Loch, across a field of ripening Barley to the Hoy Hills
The gate to the track by the Loch had been left open
so, as requested, Mike closed it!
Ground Elder is a pest in the garden, but delicately pretty when out in the wild
Back down the main path by the side of the wood
noticing Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage growing in rock crevices
And a fine Bracket fungus on a fallen log
A decidedly Autumnal day.