Some of you reading Notes from Near and Far may remember that Julia and I have been working in the hills high above the Prespa Lakes monitoring birds as part of an environmental assessment for a proposed wind farm. It is there that I had the good fortune to meet Stavros, an Albanian shepherd who plays the flute … Continue reading The Karst Country
Tag: Prespa
A Time of Turning
While the days edge tentatively into new territory, the nights hold fast to winter's side. The resplendent black sky splashed with stars is clear, and startlingly cold. A seam of smoke from our chimney floats over the dark like a ship at sea. For a week or so I've heard the wheel of time shifting forward: ice … Continue reading A Time of Turning
Sticks and Stones
The trajectory of a tree's life is as unforeseeable as our own, determined as much by circumstance as intention. Like any living organism, it has its phases and difficult ages. It's subject to environmental shifts and storms, to changing patterns of land use and arbitrary rains. A tree might be shaped by strict winds, the intimate attentions of … Continue reading Sticks and Stones
Glimpsed, In Passing
As the year wanes I'd like to mark its end with a few photographs. While place can be dense with the layers of our living, with the accumulated histories of wild creatures, cultures and faiths, the tightly knit webs of ecosystems or urban architecture, sometimes we're afforded merely a glimpse of it. These images are such glances. Photographs remind me of … Continue reading Glimpsed, In Passing
A Way Within
A few days ago our winter warmth arrived. Eight tons of beech were unloaded at the foot of the garden, having been hauled from the mountain forests behind our home. It's now been bandsawed by the woodcutters who do the rounds of the village with a tractor-mounted blade, the rising metallic whine starting with the light each day. They worked on into the dark, sawing their … Continue reading A Way Within
Julian Hoffman 