Crow Feathers & Wild Flowers

The past’s proximity to the present is one of the reasons why I love this wasteland and why I return, over and over and over

Happy Friday!

And a warm welcome from that dried-up feeling you get after a sweaty day’s tramping out in the summer heat.

There’s probably a law against doing this sort of thing. (Standing on trig points, I mean. Not close-up selfies. Although…)

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor, cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel and soon-to-be Expeditions Manager at the British Exploring Society.

In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.

Sometimes I climb up and stand on things. (But still some way to go before I start calling myself a Stylite.)

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Crow Feathers & Wild Flowers

I’ve spent the last two days on Dartmoor, exploring its southern edges — something of a forgotten wilderness, according to the global heatmap on Strava.

It certainly felt that way as I whacked through from Shavercombe Head to Yealm Steps to discover a waterfall awash with foxgloves and bumble bees.

As well as providing a refreshing foot spa for the overheating hiker, these falls used to power the bellows for a couple of medieval tin smelting ‘blowing houses’.

I don’t pretend to know much more than the first thing about the archaeology of Dartmoor, but the past’s proximity to the present is one of the reasons why I love this wasteland and why I return, over and over and over.

In the last two days alone, I have explored ruined settlements and ageless monuments, standing stones, longstones (recumbent), stone crosses, cairns, burial chambers, barrows, long barrows, stone rows, stone circles, cairn circles, hut circles, abandoned quarries, abandoned farmsteads, enclosures, cists, boundary stones, boundary works and, of course, the enigmatic pillow mounds. 🐇

Longstone on Piles Hill (ouch)

These granite, almost geomorphic monuments have endured, but there is also a fleeting wonder to every walk on Dartmoor. Unnoticeable moments, but for the fact that they’ve been noticed.

The drooping bells of the cross-leaved heath, tiny to our eyes, but billboards for bees. Only this summer season.

A fungus pushing up from a heap of cow dung. Only this morning.

A feather fallen from a preening crow, found on Crow Tor. Only now.

I tucked this feather into my shoulder strap, soon joined by two more, and I hiked onward, senses tuned to what my next step might bring.

So many questions. What animal was this? How did it die? Where are the rest of its bones? How long did the fur and flesh take to decompose? Who or what bleached these jaw bones clean enough for me to pop them in my backpack and bring them home?

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100 Days of Adventure [🥾UPDATE]

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With the second week of my Wilderness Therapeutic Approaches training, my Gold National Navigation Award and my Hill & Moorland Leader assessment, I have another 12 Days of Adventure already booked in before the end of September.

As it stands, I’m on track to pass 100 Days of Adventure for the fourth year in a row.

For that to happen, I’ll still need to find 22 DOA in the last quarter of the year — a stiff challenge while juggling a full-time office job.

Welcome to the real world, Dave!

And this is my progress towards 1000 Hours Outside in 2024 (although I didn’t start logging until February)

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Delete The Internet [🚀UPDATE]

I still don’t have a browser on my phone. Nothing bad continues to happen.

It’s been 10 days since I deleted Whatsapp from my phone. It’s taken me much longer to get used to this shift than with the browser. No doubt.

There’s comfort in the feeling of being in constant communication with others.

Whatsapp is an umbilical cord or golden thread that we can tug at any time of day or night and so not feel alone in the Universe.

I still need to figure out how to call people who don’t have a UK phone number, but even so, despite my severance, nothing too bad has happened and the experiment continues…

Thank you for sharing your own stories of disconnection — I love ‘em! My inbox (or the comments section) is always open for your nuggets of inspiration. 🤗

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Three Tiny Big Things

1. Goosegrass Contains Caffeine

Cleavers AKA Goosegrass AKA Sticky Willy is a popular pranking plant in the same family as coffee, Rubiaceae, and can be used as a stimulant. WTF.

2. 330 Blackberry Species Growing Wild In The UK

Each with their own taste profile. 😲 If you want the sweetest, pick from the growing tip of the branch, as these will have had the highest exposure to sunlight.

3. Know Your Needles

• Firs have Flat needles and are (somewhat) Fire-resistant.

• Spruce have Single needles.

• Pine have Pairs of needles.

• Larch have Lots of needles and Lose Leaves in winter.

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Thank You

Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this story possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚

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As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.

Big love,
dc:

This was written by a messy human, not by AI