Spring to Rights

Well I can scarce bring mysell to believe on it but mebbe tis nearing winters end. Folks do certainly have been acting strange as if the breeze has got between the ears. Twas only the other morning I be standing by the gate and Mrs E do come past. Well she turns round and says 'Be that a bat a landing on your table there?' I could a fallen down with shock, she couldna even see out table across the gate. Well so I turns round and says 'What table, what bat, what can e be meaning?' Turns out she thought a bat be landing on a bit of old wood leaning up out the back. I think to mysell, its not bats landing on our table you want to be worriting yoursell about, Mrs E, it be bats in the belfry. Tis way to early for the bats to be disporting themselves in the daylight. Still the time will soon be a coming in for the Untaping of the Door and the Bearing of the Charred Log away to the summer pit. Amos has already put the fox skull on the back ledge. Soon the time will come.

Wintering with Never an End

Still winter howling and March be near dead and gone. We done burn allus wood and leaves and be grappling for the last sticks and twigs in the copses with them next door. So this is why I canna get to the writing afore as the fingers be turning as black and blue as the crows in the eaves. The woodshed still be unbuilt despite us pleas to the Lord of the Estate. Nought but a heap of bricks facing us whenever us do venture past the back door. The front door still be taped up till the warmer times arrive. Amos said it be the shed of Lilith and he who seeks to rebuild the shed of Lilith will reap his own downfall in the dust and shards. Even nature itsell be giving up the mortal coils in despair. The frogs have all departed, though that be no dire hardship, the cursed creatures they be. There be dead foxes by the road, one with a white winding sheet across its sad remains. And when I go to do the springtide clean in the outside outhouse I nearly flummoxed meself into a collapse with the screaming nadgers as there be a drownded mouse in the pan.

A Cautionary Tale

Folks do say tis the season of merriment and revells so I durst treat mysell down the market. I fished the pond through and dragged out near enough coppers to give over for a batch of they new fangled cloots pegs. But they did splinter to dust in my fingers when I did try to hang the laundry on the barb wire. So I just go back to the old ways and drape the smocks on the thorn bushes.

The Good Old Days are Lost Forever and Gone for a Burton

Tis nearly time for the harvest festivities but we done already picked the tomato and made broth to see us through the winter months. I niver did see such a time for poor pickings, the apple be the size of a tomato and the tomato be scarcely bigger than a blackcurrant. Tis not like the old days when the lord used to come round arter the shooting and offer us all a pair o nice juicy rooks to set us right. I still can nearly smile when I do think about the time when he ask Ada how many rooks she did want and she turned round and said, None, Sire because I ain't got no garden. Foolish Ada she be such a townie that she did think of hanging the rooks up to scare the varmints away from the taters and coddles. Well the lord turned round and sent her straight off to Cook to learn her how to cook a fine rook pie. The gentry ain't what they used to be, and that's as true as a Starkadder mile.

A Lonesome Hound Appears

Well I been a toiling and a moiling all the long days of summer and now here we be with autumn upon us and nary a pippin or a scroggin to show for all that moiling and toiling in the heaving rains. Twill be a shabby harvest festival for sure. I be standing by the ole tree searching for signs of apples when the fox come leaping out the hedge like the old nick himsell was arter him. Then a lone hound come chasing him but there were no huntsman or shouts of tantivvy to be seen nor heard. Where do such a hound come from, all by itsell with no pack nor masters? Tis a worrisome portent when the hounds depart the pack. The damsons did all rot afore August was out and I dinna know how we can eat with no fruit on the vine.

A sign from above

We do have thunder and hail the size of cormorants eggs falling hard from the heavens so the fleece do be wet enough for us to discern the favour of God on our plan so here I be sending the slide of our gathering place, a humble edifice it be true but fit enow for poor Quivering folk such as we.

Well tis a long weary time since I be able to get mysell out to the posting box. I be afeard to put a foot outside the yard gate since the wild mob were howling in the dusk. But now I do find myself in a quandry. While I been shutting myself in I did wonder about sending a magic lantern slide of the humble abode of the Quivering Brethren. I be concerned about putting the graven images out as maybe folk would think such things were Papish idols and then the folk might attend the gatherings for impure reasons for the niceness and beauty of the building and then we would be in such danger, we may be starting a foot down the slope and afore we know what happens, we would be kissing the papal ring. I did ask the elder and he said he would lay it afore the Lord in prayer over the night and if the fleece be dewy in the dawn then we may send the slide. The mice are disporting in the corn sack and there be a dead fox stuffed inside the badger sett.