Author Archives: @julforres

The Glen is a place of Alders whose shapes populate the valley, darkly red against the doming grey-greens of Willow. Right now the male flowers of the Alders are dangling from all branches and strewn across the ground after the winds; these catkins, named from the dutch word for kitten. Alders produce male and femaleContinue reading “Alder….Saturday 9.04.2022”

The weather has been good for the last few days with blue skies and warm sun. We had a site visit for Gleann na Phúca today (Saturday 26) a pair of buzzards watch over us winging high and silent in the blue, making their elegant circles in the air. It’s good to see them inContinue reading “birds of prey, burnings and blue skies 16 -26 March”

They have been man- i-curing the Glen – they on machines leaving tyre tracks, heavy in the mud, pointing to the places of decimation where limbs of branches pile up or lay strewn across the undergrowth, mashed up and ground down. There will be no more bird callings from the bare branched elms, the lumberContinue reading “manicuring the Glen – culling the elms – adieu adieu 1-16.03.2022”

It’s a greyish morning early as I stroll down Sunview East into the park. I am appreciating the bareness before the promise of Spring growth, it’s the first week of hedgrow protections and from now until September is the official time of respect for nesting birds and animal life. On the way to the FleischmannsContinue reading “Findings and leavings in the first week of hedgerow protection Monday 7.03.2022”

Dudley was only whispering as he passed overhead but Eunice reached us howling, bringing down trees and gusty Franklin buffeted in her trail, all shape shifting their ways through the Glen and beyond. This morning we have snow, the warm earth kisses away the cold white touch as blue skies open and close letting inContinue reading “After the storms…14-24.02.2022”

My walks in February have been sporadic yet each one yields a new drama… and in between there have been postings about the brown waters running through the Glen despite the lack of rain. on Saturday the fifth I was one of a booted group of water warriors/worriers looking on as Simon from UCC demonstratedContinue reading “onto the 13th day of February – pink skies, brown waters and the appearance of strange quiver like objects 13.02.2022”

The weather has been dry and perfect for kicking up a leaf storm. There is one of those futile piles of leaves still in evidence – I go into the pile – Dusk is drawing in as i circle the ponds and as I arrive at the zig zag I see the sllhouettes of aContinue reading “Last week of January 28.01.2022”

The Glen is on the turn, hardly a winter, a handful of frosts since Samhain and sensing the fingers of spring already, trees barely bare and their leaves litter the ground a fallen ivy burning its flame red veins and golden among the deep tannin browns, their leafy edges still precise. There was a sweeperContinue reading “third week of 2022 15 – 24 January 2022”

There is an abandoned jumper at the hatch, it is has been there a while, and I find it today laid out white on the mossing conglommerate, that place for the belly connection with the river, as it rushes over the mill race below. There are a scattering of crusts which animate the arm intoContinue reading “Second week of 2022 10- 14.01.2022”