The Everyday Adventurer’s Handbook

Adventure 260 ~ Solve A Tree Mystery

/ intrepidjane

whitebeamEarlier in the Summer, I undertook a series of tree identification adventures and really enjoyed them. After those adventures, my tree radar was on high alert and I began to notice different types of trees in all sorts of places. I had a lot of fun identifying them and it felt good to know more about my natural surroundings.

One tree stumped me though. I noticed it in the summer when its blossom was white. Now it has red berries and large lobed leaves. And then a piece of the jigsaw dropped into place that would narrow down my search for its identity : I have seen this tree in parks, along streets and very occasionally in people’s gardens. Only twice have I noticed it in hedges .. so it seems that it is rare in the wild.

With my trusty tree book in hand, I visited one of the local mystery trees and I think I have solved the mystery : it’s a whitebeam!

It feels really exciting to have solved the mystery – and this adventure has reminded me how much I love working things out for myself (even thought it’s taken me months to work this one out, it’s been fun 🙂 )

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 259 ~ Write A Collection Of Haiku Poems [21]

/ intrepidjane

beech nuts and casingsFor today’s adventure, I returned to the copper beech tree! At the week-end I attempted to gather seeds from the tree for planting, but every seed failed the “float-sink” test (they all floated, and many sources say that this means that the seeds are infertile).

When I collected the seeds, the earth was covered in beech nuts and their open casings. The open casings looked like little hairy hands that had released their grip on the seeds. Looking up into the giant copper beech, many of these open hands were still on the tree. It made me think of a mother with thousands of children who was ready for Nature to take them off her hands 🙂 .

Further research suggested that not only might the float-sink test be invalid, but also that the first fall of seeds from a beech tree are often infertile. No-one is quite sure why this is, but some people think it’s a kind of decoy. The local predators go for the first fall and realise that the seeds are of no value, leaving later seed-falls to their own means.

So, it might be worth gathering some seeds now – and gathering some seeds later!

Anyway, back to the business of the day 😛 . Today’s adventure is a poetic one : I’ve written a haiku about the beech tree. You can read my poem here, and you can hear me recite it in today’s video-blog too.

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 258 ~ Create A Facebook Advert

/ intrepidjane

ribbon canva 2Today’s adventure was tough. Very tough. So tough, that I’m going to need a long lie down right after I’ve published this blog post.

I’ve never created a Facebook advert before. Once, I really pushed the boat out and “boosted” a post  (with little effect, might I add), but the territory of the Facebook advert with its snazzy new “Call-To-Action” buttons looked way out of my technological league.

Thing is, I’ve got an adventure coming up which would benefit from a little promotion : a storytelling webinar on the 25th September. So, I figured that it might be time to actually face my Facebook advert demons head-on!

My image-creation adventure helped me create an image for my advert. And then I clicked the link on Facebook entitled “Create Advert”. All good up to this point. But then it all seemed a little overwhelming ~ so many different types of advert to choose from!

I did manage to work out which would be best for my event, and I did muddle my way through. And, yes, I’ve created my very first Facebook advert (which is also my very first “dark post” ~ one that doesn’t appear on my page, just in the news feed), but it really isn’t what I’d hoped for.

Creating adverts in this way severely limits the amount of text you can use in the advert, and yet I’ve seen other adverts with comprehensive text accompanying the link. That’s what I was hoping for, but my muddling didn’t seem to arrive at that end-point.

On the upside, after I’d set my advert up, I did some more Googling and eventually found an article that explained why I hadn’t managed to create the advert I had hoped to – and it showed how to create an advert with unlimited text (you have to use Facebook’s Power Editor). On the downside, now I’ve created my advert, there doesn’t seem to be a way to stop it!

As with all my adventures, I’ve learned something. Today I faced another technological demon, and the next time I create an advert, that demon will be my ally. I’m not even trembling at the thought of “Power Editor”…. how cool is that?!

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 256 ~ Collect Beech Seeds For Planting

/ intrepidjane

beech nuts and casingsBeech nuts are now falling from the copper beech tree on our farm, so I thought it would be a good time to collect some of the seeds and plant them.

I read all about collecting and planting seeds in Tree Planting And Aftercare . I discovered that the guidelines for collecting and planting seeds is species-dependent. Luckily beech seeds seem quite straight forward : you collect them, test them for their fertility, and then you can plant them straight away (or wait for Spring).

The germination rate for beech seeds is about 60%. That’s a good rate when compared with seeds from other trees. To optimise my chances of tree-growing success, I decided that I would test the fertility of the seeds before planting. In my tree planting book, it told me that if the beech seeds float , then they are infertile* (and, therefore, not worth planting).

* After today’s adventure, I carried out some on-line research. Many people believe the “float-sink” rule to be a fallacy. So it may actually be worth planting floating seeds!

You can see how I got on in today’s video.

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 253 ~ Write A Collection Of Haiku Poems [18]

/ intrepidjane

Harvest Supermoon 2014 Northern IrelandYesterday’s attempted viewing of the Harvest Supermoon has inspired today’s haiku poem!

The haiku-writing process is orienting my attention towards nature, and it’s making me curious about it too. As I was looking up at the moon, the question arose “How does the moon shine like that?” So, today I got on the case and was as thrilled as a constant-why-asking 3-year old to discover the answer (which sounds familiar in a very hazy way .. like I may have actually been 3 when I asked my parents this very question!)

So, I hate the break the news to you : the moon does not shine. What we’re actually seeing is the reflected light from the sun bouncing off the moon. In other words, the moon is a mirror.

Oh, and when the moon is full, and especially when it’s a supermoon, its “shine” is bright enough to obscure other objects in the night sky. If you wondered where all the stars were on Monday night, they were still there, but they were being outshone by the moon.

Anyway, less about heavenly bodies and more about heavenly haikus 🙂 . Today’s haiku is called “Supermoon” and you can read it here. I also read the haiku out loud in today’s video-blog.

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 252 ~ See The Harvest Supermoon 2014 At Its Fullest

/ intrepidjane

At 02.38 this morning, 2014’s Harvest Moon reached the crest of its full phase. This was a special Harvest Moon because it was also a supermoon (a perigean full moon).

The Harvest Moon is the full moon that falls closest to the autumnal equinox (Monday 22nd September in 2014). A full moon is a supermoon when it turns full less than a day after reaching lunar perigee. Lunar perigee is when the moon is closest to the Earth during its monthly orbit, and it appears larger and brighter at this time because of its proximity to us.

I’ve never observed a Harvest Supermoon at the crest of its full phase, so I decided to get up just before 2.38 this morning in the hope of seeing it. Because I’d done a bit of research beforehand, and would understand what I was witnessing, it all felt very exciting!

Of course, seeing it would be dependent on weather conditions …..

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 250 ~ Write A Collection Of Haiku Poems [16]

/ intrepidjane

grassYesterday’s mushroom-hunting adventure was so exciting that I leapt out of bed this morning, keen to get to work on a fungus-based haiku. Only it seems that my imagination had other plans :P.

Returning from my early morning walk with my dog, I went into the kitchen and opened the blind to let in the light. The window looks out onto a patch of grass. The grass caught my eye : that patch of green stuff really looks like it’s doing exactly what it wants to, in spite of any gardener’s urges to control it or keep it in any kind of order.

I stood still, just gazing at the grass for a while, when a haiku just appeared  (that’s exactly how I experienced it, like a flash of inspiration!)

My research into haiku revealed that the traditional form was not only an attempt to capture the essence of something in the natural world, but was also a skillful way of drawing attention to an aspect of the human condition. In today’s haiku about grass, the words ring as true for grass as they do for any of us who have experienced the messier side of  human relationships.

It seems that this whole process of writing haiku poems is not only connecting me to nature, it’s also connecting me to my own nature. I’m beginning to see myself in nature. I’m beginning to really feel part of it. And because I’m beginning to feel part of it in such a real and alive way, it’s changing the way I feel about it. I’m in awe of it. I respect it. I think it’s clever, brilliant and beautiful. I think we should protect it, nurture it and nourish it. We should be in it more. I think it’s real. I think it could teach us a lot. I think it will help us to remember what we’ve forgotten.

You can read “Grass” here ; I also read my haiku out loud in today’s video-blog.

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

Adventure 249 ~ Go Mushroom Hunting

/ intrepidjane

Portglenone Forest was the setting for a fabulous impromptu adventure today! The forest was leaping with mushrooms large and small, and a walk that usually takes 30 minutes to complete with the dog, took almost an hour and a half today. It was really exciting to hunt for different types of fungi, even though I didn’t have a name for anything I saw.

I took pictures of all the different types I spotted. When I got home, I used the Wild Food UK website to help with identification. It was so much fun comparing my pictures with the images on the website and learning more about each one of them.

Here’s what I came up with!  If you click  on the name of each one, you’ll be able to see why I came to the conclusion I did. Do you think I identified them correctly? I’m not sure about the last one ~ I think it’s a type of bracket fungus though! (Do let me know if you know what it is 🙂 ).

 

 

Bracket Fungus

Bracket Fungus

 

 

 

 

 

I am just going outside and may be some time 🙂 .

JT

Adventure 247 ~ Get A Poetry Anthology Ready For Self-Publishing [1]

/ intrepidjane

"Seventeen" by Jane TalbotIn yesterday’s video-blog, I shared with you how my collection of poetry is an attempt to capture the change of the season. Today, I’ve taken a few more steps towards actually publishing the collection!

I’ve come up with a name for the anthology which I really like : Seventeen. I called it this because a haiku has seventeen syllables in it (5-7-5). The image for the cover is a photograph I took for one of my haiku poems : it’s wheat “on the turn”. It captures the essence of the whole collection.

In terms of the structure of the book, I’ve decided to put each poem on a separate page with an accompanying photograph. For me, a haiku and a photograph are almost identical : each tries to capture the essence of something. So, a photograph is like a visual haiku 🙂 .

On the page facing the haiku, I’ll write a little bit about the story behind that particular haiku.

Because I’ve gained so much from creating this collection (and I’ve still got a few more to write before the collection is done) , I’m going to include a section on the therapeutic benefits of writing haiku poems. The haiku adventures are conditioning a profound sense of connection and presence in me; I feel like the world is slowing down.

I’m also going to include a section on how to write haiku poems. Whilst I’ll include some very basic structural guidelines, my purpose here is rather to show people how to get connected to the essence of the thing they’re trying to describe.

And after all that, I’m going to have a go at the adventure of self-publishing :). I’ll keep you posted.

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT

 

Adventure 246 ~ Write A Collection Of Haiku Poems [14]

/ intrepidjane

poem about school uniformFor me, the things that really mark the changing of the season are the end of the summer holidays and the beginning of the school term. The first full day of school for my son was this monday and seeing him in his uniform again reminded me :

  • How quickly we, as humans, move through our own seasons
  • How tied I really am to my own heritage (I come from a family of school teachers)
  • How I can already see in my son’s Spring, the seeds of his Autumn (I think the leaves will be spectacular)

For today’s poetic adventure, I’ve written a haiku called “Back to school”. You can read it here , and I read it out loud in today’s video-blog too.

I am just going outside and may be some time.

JT