
Seasoned logs for sale
September 27, 2024
Man or moss?
November 5, 2024Soon, 6pm will mean darkness, oppressive when you sit indoors and majestic when you brave the cold and head out for a walk. It’s as if the lid is taken off our little world, that lack of sunlight will open up the heavens and, away from the bright city lights, we’ll see Orion make his triumphant return in the South West of the sky. The three stars of Alnilam, Mintaka and Alnitak alerting us to his presence.
But I am getting ahead of myself, it’s not the lack of the light in the cemetery that caught my eye this month but the changing of the light. The earths stroll around the sun has reached that point where less of the light hits the Northern hemisphere and the sun is lower in the sky. This physical distance changes the quality of light. It can seem like a long time before the spring sun dapples through the first ash leaves of the year.
I sit content, bathed in the autumn glow and I find a spot beneath an old oak tree where I sip from my flask of tea. I sit for long enough to notice that a shaft of light, is shining through the canopy. Like an accidental Stonehenge, the beam of light, as bright and as direct as the beam from a car headlight allows me to see a branch that I’ve never noticed before. Never having been under this oak, at this time of day and at this time of year.
Which is why I’ve never seen the small hollow no bigger than my fist some twenty feet or more above my head. Too far to climb but near enough to notice the intense activity of the honey bees who have made a hive in this luxurious residence. Between the roar of the traffic and the buzz of the chainsaw I can now hear the gentle hum of their buzzing wings too. They are setting themselves up for the coming winter, with honey made from the last of the wild flowers around the site.

This will help to maintain their next generation, forward planning built into their DNA. In some respects I’m doing the same as I sit here beneath the great branches I soak up the last of the sun’s rays, topping up on vitamin, lowering my blood pressure and reducing my heart rate. It feels like absorbing something could this wild forest that long ago started to feel like home.
Over the next few months it will become my home office as I set about to work here eschewing my office on all but the wettest of days and working with a pen and notepad. It’s my hope that I’ll find more little secrets like the bees and to share them with you. Until then I hope the sun will illuminate something utterly unique and special for you, something that will lift your heart in the same way that this place lifts mine.
Andy Hamilton – Author. Forager. Nice chap
https://www.theotherandyhamilton.com
Author & Forager
The Other Andy Hamilton
NEW BOOK – NEW WILD ORDER, how answering the call of the wild might just save your life
The First Time Forager (NT /Harper Collins), Booze for Free, Eden Project, The Perfect Pint, Fermenting Everything.
My Substack – Fortnightly musings, poems, videos
Proud member of the Association of Foragers