Gleanings From The Field., Vol. 15
Old churches, agrarian writing, clone towns, springtime, and more.
Welcome to another Gleanings From the Field, an occasional newsletter of updates, recommended reading, and snippets of thought.
News From The Field
What a cold start to spring it has been! The temperature scarcely climbed above 12˚C for the whole of April, much to the displeasure of my tomato seedlings (I rather foolishly hardened them off too early at the first sign of warmth early in the month). However, the “tides in the skies” seems to have turned, the temperature has risen, the sun has come out and the flurry of new life that spring brings can continue to emerge en masse.
Early spring in the Turner household means one thing — an annual pilgrimage to one of the many bluebell woods that surround our home. Earlier in the month, on the first day that was really warm (and then the temperature took a nosedive), we went with some friends to Chalkney Woods near Halstead. This is a rather grand wood, featured in Oliver Rackham’s famous works. It contains a lovely lime-coppice avenue, flanked with bluebells and a preponderance of deadwood — convivial for an abundance of invertebrate life (and a few baby newts that I found sheltering under some logs).
Though the ground fauna was plentiful, the canopy of the wood, for such a sunny spring day, was eerily devoid of bird life. I have just written an essay on the virtues of natural silence. Well, this was a thoroughly depressing silence. Bird song should have been in full and glorious symphony — yet near total silence prevailed. An ominous sign, perhaps, that something may be deeply amiss in the countryside.
Earlier in the month, we took a trip to the North Kent coast — a stretch of coastline that I should be more familiar with than I am. It is a marvellous place. The estuary seems wider, flatter, and more expansive than what I am used to on the Essex coast. It is less congested with inlets, creeks, and islets, with the salt marsh giving way to mudflats much more readily resulting in a simpler, but perhaps more beautiful aesthetic.
When we were at Oare Marshes, the tide was fully out revealing a flat expanse of mud with a thin layer of water covering the surface. The grey sky was perfectly reflected on the expanse of the estuary — a surreal and beautiful sight where land and sky seem to merge as one. My trip to the marshes was perfected by a brief view of a male Garganey, my favourite species of duck (partly because of the preponderance of shades of brown — the best colour — that this dapper duck’s plumage contains). The Garganey is a rather rare species, favouring flood meadow marshland of which Oare has an abundance of, dotted, strangely enough, with the highest concentration of WWII Pillboxes anywhere I have seen.
On the way to Faversham, our next stop, we took a brief pause at the remarkable little church, St Peter’s Oare. A wonderful little building of flint stone and a small wooden steeple that had a pair of nesting Jackdaws making use of a hole in the wooden shingles. The church yard was one of the best kept yards I have come across (surely the work of a green fingered parishioner! who are usually old women: see this lovely video). The interior was simple, somewhat messy, but beautiful nevertheless, with some marvellous old wooden beams holding up this Norman-era church. A mural inside remembered the tragic munitions explosion that took place in the village in 1916 which cost the lives of many men.
Faversham itself is a remarkable market town, full to the brim of independent shops selling local foods and goods. The town hosts the oldest brewery in the country (there were so many pubs in the town!) and hops (of course!) adorned the brickwork of a grand pale blue house opposite the brewery. What impressed me the most was how almost all the independent shops had old-style painted signs/shop names and that they were all incredibly well decorated and presented. This is a town that takes pride in how it looks — my home city could learn a thing or two. Long may Faversham prosper!
Gleanings From The Field
Now onto some Substack recommendations from my recent reading:
This piece by
is superfluously good. At Paul Kingsnorth levels of quality, even. By far one of the best essays I have read. Period. It is difficult to stop lavishing praise on it (as I am doing now).It’s no surprise that heating with wood has come under attack in the last several years – it is one of the last vestiges of autonomy. We’ve outsourced our food, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, child and elder care, education, entertainment, and general ability to think deeply about complex topics, to “experts” who “know” more and more about less and less. This is the nature of hyper energized societies – they become hyper specialized. Until no one knows how the whole thing works or where stuff comes from. And that’s acceptable, I guess, for luxuries like phones, ice machines, and fine wines. But to paraphrase Wendell Berry, societies that outsources necessities are not only foolish – they are inviting ruin.
It is always a joy to find other agrarian writers here.
by Emma Troyer has been a delightful read of recent. In this piece, I especially enjoyed how Emma discusses how true nourishment demands something of us — our time and attention — but is a cost worth paying.I know that with the way food prices are now, my family is likely going to have to raise a lot of our own meat in order to eat the way we believe in and provide our children with good nourishment, but that’s okay. We are agrarians, and we take part joyfully in the art of nourishing ourselves, whether it be raising animals or planting seeds.
Nourishment doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does come at some cost. Maybe that’s just the cost of learning. I have spent hours and hours (mostly of reading) learning how to heal my allergies and mend the cycles and rhythms of my body.
Finally, if you enjoy receiving recommendations of things to read, there is no other resource on Substack that compares to
by Haley Baumeister. Every week, a carefully curated list of essays, podcasts, and books enters your inbox. It is the best way of finding new authors and new publications and there is always something enlightening to read from her rather substantial list!From The Barn
An essay from my archives
A bit of fun I had a while back with the whole debacle around the Bristol Airport “Multi faith” area (a monstrosity of a building). But the message is serious: beauty matters.
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