kilvert is off visiting mad people (on this day in 1871).
thoreau is off botanising.
'half an hour before sunset I was at tupelo cliff, when, looking up from my botanising (I had been examining the ranunculus filiformis, the sium latifolium (??), and the obtuse galium on the muddy shore), I saw the seal of evening on the river. there was a quiet beauty in the landscape at that hour which my senses were prepared to appreciate. the sun going down on the west side, that hand being already in shadow for the most part, but his rays lighting up the water and the willows and the pads even more than before. his rays then fell at right angles on their stems... the trivialness of the day is passed. the greater stillness, the serenity of the air...'
- journal, h.d.thoreau, august 31st 1851.
ranunculus filiformis - aka. creeping crowfoot 'a wetland plant of pools, shores and muddy areas, is native both to north america and eurasia. there are two distinct subspecies in new england, but they are less distinct elsewhere in north america'.
sium latifolium or great water parsnip.
galium obtusum or bluntleaf bedstraw.
saturday afternoon zoom beers with howard
two beers (for horsemouth that's a session). topics? politics (the crapness of labour, of starmer, the continued freefall of the tories, the middle classness of politicsJOE and novara media, the one man bandness of reform, the genius of 'I am literally a communist you idiot'.)
later horsemouth watched dark hearts an elite french special forces team struggle to recover one of their members from ISIS. it is (of course) depressing as sin - iraq is a blasted ruin. as usual the lesson horsemouth learns from this is don't let them turn your country into a warzone. the military is as much about surveilling things and filming them as blowing them up.
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