'let everything come out' (the eclipse and re-emergence of the animal and vegetable kingdoms)

so horsemouth will miss the vegetable sermon for the year - an annually preached (27th may) sermon on the benefits of horticulture. hunter gatherers and their anthropologists may object to it but on the whole horsemouth views horticulture as an excellent thing. (on the other hand horsemouth is not a fan of keeping animals - he believes in the separation of humans and animals even if it means the end of cheese rolling).

the flood waters receded the new world became visible. the vegetable kingdom put forth new shoots and takes back the mere earth with magical speed. horsemouth walked across a round field (presumably the site of an old waterworks) and found a field of buttercups. this is the image horsemouth found interesting in noah - it is an attempt once again to re-enter the garden of eden. please give the song a listen and let horsemouth know what you think. he's proud of it, he's proud of the big kosmiche delayed guitar swirl of it (musicians of bremen the stadium rock years)

horsemouth has been reading elizabeth west's hovel in the hills (from howard - which he compares favourably to deep country). he supposes rather than a desire for the solitary off-grid existence hovel is motivated by a desire to get away from alienated labour (if only as far as is possible). horsemouth likes the failure of the locals to mention that the cottage floods, he likes their willful refusal to discuss their problems with condensation and the mold that all the local cottages suffer from, he likes the cycle of bodged repairs (bed springs in the hedges) typical of agricultural areas before they are gentrified.

he's within a page of finishing it. it ends with lists of wild food eaten, birds spotted, and gives you their garden plan, 'the simple life on a pittance' . faced by the interminable political defeat it is tempting to go off to the hills and grow potatoes and eat more wild salad. this was broadly horsemouth's grandparent's plan after the second world war - except they moved to devon (which is considerably warmer and drier) and horsemouth's grandfather had been working as an agricultural labourer for a while.

conversely today is the anniversary of the founding of st. petersberg which (like venice) just goes to prove anything can be done. saturday is the anniversary of the birth of harry smith.