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The Trumpeters are Back...

19/10/2016

.Are things starting early or is it me that's getting old? The whooper swans arrived on Wednesday on a 3pm flight from Iceland, as winter there begins to take hold. The sheep are keen to greet them, leaping as they run, but the poor old swans are tired from flying and only want to be left alone. Two hours sleep from the sheep was granted in the grassy fields beneath the ancient tombs, but bleats soon warned of trouble, sighting a patrolling quad on its daily tour. The whooper swans take flight across the mound of Newgrange to seek sanctuary beyond the hill of Slane. Duck hunting will kick off shortly, and such sights will be but short glimmers through the winter's veil of darkness, or the echos of retreating trumpeters when the dampness of dawn begins to take its first airy breath.
The moon has not yet turned its back, before the giggling otters are out splashing in the river and chasing one another over the arched bridge of the canal. No seals about for the past while, perhaps there is enough food at the entrance of the river.
Our Wednesday evenings are still all about currachs, trying to tweek oarlocks for newly planned oars. The trailer seems harder on the boats than anything else but as Mark calmly remarks...'Its all about tender loving kindness'.

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7 Shades of Brown.....

15/10/2016

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Well the leaves have finally relented after being brandished by the first bite of a newly empowered autumn, eager now to impress its dominance as we watch the summer’s sun retreat beyond the yellow horizon. Like an encroaching army of hungry ants, it breaks and leaves the landscape of green arteries and veins exposed to a hailing sky of pins and needles. The first frost briefly cloaks the valley and not unlike an owl’s talon, it comes out of nowhere, once the moon makes his decision to light up the night sky. Speckled patterns of yellow and orange suddenly appear only to highlight the seven shades of brown already appearing from beneath the undergrowth. The brookish dull river, swollen with rain, hastens on it pilgrimage now to see off safely the whittling eels, destined on their journey to

reach across the Atlantic to the Saragossa Sea. The river rushes have begun to twist and fall into waterlogged bundles, silhouetted only by the intensity of the green king nettles that still dominate the higher portion of land above. The yellow flowered Iris has withdrawn into the earth’s fertile margins withholding all her energy until next spring, so as to be the first to reclaim the most scenic locations, before intruding grasses or saplings even get a look in at the liquid pools filled with lilies beneath. The white tomb of Newgrange dominates the horizon above, occasionally dethroned by a fleeting rainbow or an occasional blood red moon or the arrival of the much anticipated sound of the trumpeting whooper swans. Our 5,000 year old monument….. How will it be seen 5,000 years from now? (Long after we’ve left for planet 9, which is soon to be found, they say, by the wise men, it seems, who plan future outposts like this mound once was, long before the time of metal came into being) The ploughing of dark brown furrows contrast harshly with the fallow corn stubs and cylindrical circular shapes of straw left behind for a quieter moment, when this frantic time in the farmer’s diary begins to wane. The brown back of the little grebe can only be seen when the water, shed from its diving back, joins the disturbed meandering of the river where it plays. A sudden bursting cloud of brown ducks leaving barley filled ponds spook a field of diligent curlews who shriek and cry with annoyance at a juvenile’s antics on a quad. Dare you taste the last blackberry of the season beneath, the by now, yellow leaves of ash, heavily strewn with waiting flocks of brown seeds for the favoured westerly Atlantic winds to release its offspring into the promised land of its birth. The dull swollen red berries of the whitethorn tree are last to give up their fruit, and but for the startling white breast of the dippers retreat, to remind you of but the purest little lilies by the lock gates this summer, you could almost forget what the meaning of real colour truly meant. My brown oak bark leathern currach looks so at home here, tucked between the two hazel trees that shaded it from the summer sun. I will sneak another trip or two before we must finally retreat to the dryness of the wood shed, But not before i gather the remaining hazel nuts from the trees still sheltered by the stately oaks that guard the entrance to Glenmore. The shades of brown are upon us now, the wind and rain are to look forward to, while cooling the by now exhausted raggy horned stags and just in time, before it’s Jack Frost’s turn to kick off the new season’s games of courtship and we are all off to the starting line again.

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The Trumpeters are Back...

7 Shades of Brown.....

Claidhbh Ó Gibne

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