I'm a ground watcher. The long view is enforced when I'm navigating by compass, but my natural state is to notice what's just a few feet away. You'd think with this short-sighted preference that I'd be a great gardener. Mostly, I seem to excel at growing slugs.
Your prompts for this week
Monday
What's below your feet? How does it fare as the weather turns toward winter? Is it slippery, yet? What is it made of? What is its texture?
Tuesday
What sound does the ground make? What sound do your feet make?
Wednesday
What can you make from what's beneath your feet? Perhaps it's mud that you can paint into your notebook, or cement or cobblestones that you can capture the texture of with frottage. Take a pencil, or a crayon, or charcoal with you today. Place a sheet of paper on the ground, and draw over the paper to capture the texture of what's below it. If it's already too wet or snowy where you are, can you capture something upright instead?
Thursday
How many puddles are on your walk today? How much water is needed for it to be a puddle? When is a puddle so big that it is no longer appropriate to call it a puddle?
Friday
When was the last time you got properly soaked? (Maybe it's today!) Do you take advantage of the puddles beneath your feet? A little intentional splashing always makes me happier. Be a disruptor and do some splashing!
Saturday
What evidence is there on the ground of non-human and more-than-human beings? Are these the same thing?
Sunday
"What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?" asked Rachel Carson in The Sense of Wonder. Today, these are your questions.
Observations for the week
Slugs have an external breathing hole on the right side of their body (when looking from above). This hole, called a pneumostome, leads into a cavity, which acts as a lung. Snails have them too, but they're harder to see. You can read more about this hole on Wikipedia. Yes, if you gently tickle the hole with a blade of grass, the slug will close it in response. I tried it once. For science.
The second time around
I enjoy being nose-to-the-ground. It suits my slower walking pace and, to be blunt, there's more variety when looking nearby on Dartmoor. The horizons can stretch forever into a sea of sameness, but within the confines of a few metres, I can often easily spot multiples of species.
The reflection of the day in nearby puddles also entertains me, as the colour shifts from sky to clear on approach. (You can't sneak up on a reflection in a puddle. Try it!) Just now, I searched the internet for why this is. I was entirely dissatisfied with the initial answer presented. With a little cajoling, though, my search engine of choice eventually found me a new word, puddleography. I'm smitten, and have renewed enthusiasm for this week's prompts.
It took me rather more time than it should have to realise the light blue lichen in the photo at top was actually a bridleway paint marker. I was so excited to have found something unusual and rare, that I momentarily (okay, much longer than a moment) suspended logic and spend a rather enjoyable amount of time poring through lichen references. It still makes me chuckle when I'm out for a walk and come across ageing bright blue paint and forget, for an instant, what put it there.
Things you might like to read
The Sense of Wonder by Rachel Carson.
My second reading suggestion is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. My aunt recommended the book to me when it was first published. I carried a copy through several house moves, but it wasn't until I moved to Dartmoor and started walking on my own that I finished reading it as an audiobook. While listening to the book (in summer) I excitedly discovered there is also a sweet grass that grows on Dartmoor. At the right time of year, the base of the grass tastes like cantaloupe or melon.