Nicola Pitchford
@npitchford.bsky.social
Immigrant. Winner of the inaugural Nature Chronicles Prize (2022). She/her. In Northern California on unceded Coast Miwok land.
Last night; this morning. I’m not adapting well yet to the light’s new timing. One of those small but elusive acts of discipline required to change my own work habits in alignment with the outdoor world to which I like to think I’m so attuned. By writing it here, I am committing to it.
That personal seasonal landmark, sandals away—boots back.
Very different weather this morning out by the coast from yesterday‘s glowing golden sun. A dense silence, scraps of wren song & human voices carrying up the canyon; a hawk screams once & swoops between the redwoods at the top. The last belladonna lilies under pine trees in the Divide Meadow.
#overheard Woman backpacker to her male companion as they set out on the trail: “Just know that if I cry, it’s not because I’m not having fun.” 👀
This looks amazing. If I get the chance to be in DC this year, I’ll be there. (Nice one, @profkfh.bsky.social)
‘Shakespeare was a Black woman’: the playwright’s under-recognized connection to Black culture
A new Washington DC exhibition examines how Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou and more used the Bard’s work to help tell their own stories
theguardian.com
Look how handsome. Go ahead & eat my heart, wild beast.
Went up on the hills & down to the slow green creek, where fish were surfacing to feed on insects whose wings the sun caught, golden. Saw coyote, blacktail buck, rabbits. Real life, slow life—pushing everything else to a mere film on the surface.
Been an utter bastard of a week. Yet what makes me instantly happy, bathed in light, waits a short distance away. So how do I change my life to make it this, not that?
Perhaps in honour of this day I’ll actually send him the fangirl letter I wrote some time ago. Or just start knitting the Owl Service sweater for which I have a pattern.
Simon Spanton@simonguy.bsky.social · 3d agoWishing Alan Garner a very, very happy 92nd birthday.
All you Libby users borrowing digital books and audiobooks through your library cards, you can set your preferences to human authors and artists ONLY. Click the middle button at the bottom, then "Content Controls" under Settings. You'll find "AI Contributions" there. Click in to it to make changes.
No we are not tired of it, as a matter of fact. It’s everything else we are tired of. #ImaginaryJapans
The needed softness of this morning. And a redtailed hawk checking me out in the silence. I salute the god in it.
In a still dawn like this after one of those interseason days with a temperature swing of 45 Fahrenheit, there are delightful, surprising pockets of warm & cool air as you wind your way up the hill trail. Speaking of currents & patterns, habits of air & breeze & damp, that we know not of.
As I drove up the winding hill road at dawn, I had one of those sudden sixth sense convictions that there’d be an animal in the road. Sure enough, I came around a blind curve to find a young doe running ahead. All safe.
I’m lying here listening to the Great Horned Owl pair, so I think we need a closeup.
Nicola Pitchford@npitchford.bsky.social · 5d agoOriginal mosaic at local Mexican 'dive' restaurant (i.e., delicious, no frills, immigrant-centric), celebrating our mountain, the moon on our Bay, our owl & egret populations. I just love it. (And if that's Francis Drake in the ship, he can f— right off again & leave the Miwok people alone.)
The owls are back to calling to one another outside our bedroom—& that at least is a Good Thing.
Original mosaic at local Mexican 'dive' restaurant (i.e., delicious, no frills, immigrant-centric), celebrating our mountain, the moon on our Bay, our owl & egret populations. I just love it. (And if that's Francis Drake in the ship, he can f— right off again & leave the Miwok people alone.)
Greenham Common, 1980s UK, 1st peace camp, women-only, active for 19 yrs protesting nuclear weapons. Embrace the Base event-30,000 women held hands around the US airbase fence housing Cruise Missiles, a 14-mile human chain #WomensArt
Missed the 100th birthday of the first Winnie-the-Pooh book yesterday—but here’s a double-signed limited edition of The House at Pooh Corner that I got to hold (gloved) a couple of years ago. And a pic of my mum & aunty, great Pooh readers both, outside the NYPL, where we visited the original Pooh.
Two different coyotes (I think) today on the desert camera. One with a lean & hungry look, the other looking comfortably like a well-kept German Shepherd.
Pausing to celebrate the great & mysterious phrase, “sickening for something”—which I haven’t heard in years (maybe bc I’m mostly in the US now?) & associate always with my gentle lady forebears. One version of my childhood can be summarised, “Hurry up, Nicola.” “Are you sickening for something?”
Isabellettriste@minxmarple.bsky.social · 6d agoAnd sickening
A moment outside at dawn; a moment outside at sunset. Some days, that’s what you get. I’m greedy though for more.
Seeing that I still have 9 hours yet to go on Compelling, Bloody & Extremely Dark audiobook, I’ve just placed a library hold on ‘The Diary of a Provincial Lady’ (again) as future antidote.
Really not managing to get outside on weekday mornings just now, although I know I need it—but here’s the small/enormous wonder of Jupiter, Mars, & Pollux on a telephone screen from my front door.
I have a soft spot for this hasty bandit, scurrying past our water dish on Friday night. Raccoons always look to me a bit like they’ve been caught with no trousers on.
