Steve Dongle's top 100 trees.- No 1 The European Larch

The European Larch  Options
 photo taken from 'On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine' by O.Hardy and S. Laurel - Acorn Press 1910.
 (with kind permission of the Ted Trellis Foundation)

Oh noble fir, friend of Goshawk and Cross-bill, how can we repay your sacrifice in providing the raw materials  for rustic garden benches and Monet's turpentine?

Steve Dongle; Eco-warrior, environmental activist and compiler of the Waveney Gazette's Top 100 Trees, prepares to go off road!

Trees by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

 Credits: Wikipedia, Joyce Kilmer  and the Ted Trellis Foundation

Sunset at Froggatt Edge

At the end of a lovely day in the Derbyshire Peak District with our friends Phil and Jean, Toot and I stopped the car at Froggatt Edge to watch the sunset.

Gin and the amateur astronomer

The Summer Moon through my binoculars

The weather this week has been strange to say the least; one minute sunny and hot, the next grey and overcast, the next torrential rain. What with the changeable weather and the sky remaining light until the early hours of the morning, I decided to give astrophotography a break and  left my telescope shut in its box.

Yesterday evening was so nice that Toot and I decided to eat our supper in the garden.  Toot, ably assisted by our mutual friend Herr Lidl, provided a magnificent meal which was washed down with some Pinot Grigio and a glass or two of Mr Gordon's finest gin.

Toot's Fritto Misto fishy loveliness

Repleat and laying  back in my garden chair I noticed the crescent moon shining wan against an azure blue sky.

"What a wonderful photo-opportunity?" slurred I.

Alcohol and astrophotography are not easy bedfellows, so the above image of the moon owes more to luck than skill.

In my over tonicked state I decided the best methodology would involve pointing my rather expensive binoculars at the moon and taking a photo by holding my compact camera at the eyepiece.  All good and well but at this stage I went a bit off road by deciding not to bother with a tripod.  Instead, I would rock back on my chair, put my feet on our garden table and balance my binoculars on my knees.  I reckon Galileo might have approved, though I'm not so sure about my orthopaedic surgeon.

Anyway, it all turned out for the best, I managed to get my photograph, I didn't drop anything expensive and after we washed up the crockery, Toot and I sat down to watch an episode of Wallander on the TV. It's nice to finish off the day with a bit of bleak Swedish noir.  For heaven's sake cheer up Henning!

The philosophy of sheds and other lightweight prefabricated buildings.

Portal to shed paradise

I have expended considerable effort in letting the whole world know what I get up to in my shed. Now I'm looking to my readers across the world to inform me of their own use and abuse of the domestic shed.

Please leave me your comments. No filthy language or racey photographs of tongued and grooved boarding.  I'm happily married and not that kind of blogger!

I have many unanswered questions:

• Is the shed a predominantly male institution?
• Is ownership of at least one shed an essential requirement for the maintenance of well-being?
• Is shed usage addictive?
• Can sheds only exist within democratic states?
• Is there a spiritual aspect to a shed?
• Could my blog be described as a virtual shed in cyberspace?
• Can two sheds occupy the same ground state?
• Would playing the banjo in a shed constitute a Statutory Nusiance under the Environment Act 1995?

I am particularly keen to hear from my readers in the United States of America: for example, does the 'man-cave' provide the same recreational opportunites as the 'shed'?  If so, does the female American have access to a 'woman cave'? 

The great philosophers were no strangers to the meaning of life and the humble shed:

“The unexamined shed is not worth living in” – Socrates

"The greatest wealth is to live content with a little shed." - Plato

"What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing in a shed." - Aristotle

 "Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from his shed, he is the worst of all." - Aristotle

"I think, therefore I am in my shed." - Descartes

“If a shed falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” - George Berkeley

“We live in the best of all possible sheds.” - Leibniz

 "Sheds without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through the union between man and shed can knowledge arise." - Kant

"We are thinking beings, and we cannot exclude the shed from participating in any of our functions." - William James

"Test every shed by the question, 'What sensible difference to anybody will this shed make?'" - William James

"The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved in sheds."  - Bertrand Russell

" Look at me. Judge my shed by its size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the shed". - Yoda