Fear is the Mind Killer

Fear is the Mind Killer

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Bene Gesserit litany against fear.
From Frank Herbert’s “Dune“.

Interesting how your mind recalls things from your past when you see pictures or read things – almost as if there are hidden triggers in every experience that you push into your memory banks and once those triggers are activated the memories come back without a conscious effort to recall them.  ‘Dune’ was such a popular book at the time that some may be familiar with it and the phrase “Fear is the Mind Killer”.  A powerful phrase.

Alan Lomax

For those into folk, traditional, ‘ethnic’ (whatever that is) music you may be interested in this on-line resource – which is a collection of Alan Lomax’s recordings.  The website explains better than I can.  (It may be well known already but I only heard about it the other day.)

http://research.culturalequity.org/home-audio.jsp 

Anyone for Badders?

You just never know what you’ll see do you?

This young Crow grabbed a shuttlecock that had been left out by my neighbours young lad.  It dropped it, then flew down to pick it up, but because it dropped it one side when it flew back up to it’s chosen perch it was facing the other way and of course when it dropped the shuttlecock again, it fell the other side.  It must have repeated it a dozen times – very comical. I’ve heard that people play themselves at chess – but badmington??

As with all these things is was a bit of dilemma – do I watch or grab my camera, knowing 9 times out of 10 going for the camera would mean whatever it was I was watching would stop or disappear. (you know how it is). This time I was lucky but a camcorder might have been a better tool!

——Stephen—-

Blue Tit Box

Following my post of a couple of days ago – I’ve now repaired the nest box by fitting it with a  new roof.  The old one was watertight but I don’t think it would have got through another winter.  In the process I cleared out all the old nest material, so if any more birds want to use the box for a second brood this year they will have to start from scratch.  I’m thinking about moving the box because I’ve trimmed some branches off the tree it’s attached to give some more light to part of my garden, which in the process removes some of the box’s shelter from the prevailing wind.  I’ll see how it goes.

—–Stephen—–

No Blue Tits This Year

A real shame. A pair of Blue Tits attempted to rear some young in the nest box nailed to a tree – and I’m sure they had at least one little ‘un judging by the very faint ‘tweetering’ I heard from the box. But as I hadn’t seen anything of the parents for a couple of days or more I decided to check inside the box …  nothing, except the glimpse of a few yellow feathers in the bottom of the box.

I have to say I hadn’t been too confident pair would be successful, judging from the number of visits to the nest. I don’t think there has been the wild food they normally eat around this year.

I’m going to fit a new lid to the box, as the existing one is starting to fall to pieces, though I don’t think that was a contributory factor in the failure of the nest.  Repairs should be complete tomorrow.

In past years I’ve been quite successful in raising broods and have some nice pictures of Blue Tits – especially ‘Scruffy’ a particularly untidy looking bird.  I may post them some time.

——–Stephen——-