I made it!
A whole year wild!
I enjoyed taking part in 30 Days Wild last year so much that I actually didn’t stop and so today I have completed 366 Days Wild - a whole year of wild! It was partly realising how easy it was to make time to go outdoors each day and partly how much I enjoyed those outdoors moments - moments I know I’d not have experienced were I not taking part in 30 Days Wild - that encouraged me to carry it on for a whole year. I did have to relax my rules a little in order to achieve it though. Straight away I decided that the 30 minutes outside rule I had for last June wouldn’t work for a whole year and I knew the winter months, those days when I leave home in the morning when it’s dark and then get home after dark, would be difficult. I also thought about how I might keep my daily wild time going if I was ill or if life got really busy, as it sometimes does, so my minimum criteria was that I had to spend a minute or two outdoors every day and take a photo of something in nature every day. That meant I’d have a picture to share on my Wild Blog every day and I tied in 366 Days Wild with Project 365 (a daily photo project) which I’ve been doing since 2012. Looking at my 365 project photos also encouraged me to go ahead with 366 Days Wild as I realised that the majority of my photos there were nature based anyway!
There have most certainly been days over the past year when I’ve found 366 Days Wild difficult, days when I’ve wondered how I’m going to squeeze in my wild time or struggled to find something to take a photo of. There have been days I’ve worried that I wasn't being wild enough, or was too repetitive or too boring, and yet here I am, at the end of the year, with at least a photo for each day and many, many days where I’ve had some great outdoor adventures. Even on the hardest days, I’ve never regretted committing to 366 Days Wild.
It's half term this week so if I'd given it a bit of forethought, I could have done something great to end my wild year and had a really wild day, but life has been somewhat stressful these last few weeks and a third party is currently in control of how my immediate future pans out so I really didn't know what this week would bring and expected it to be very different, and rather busier, than it is. Never mind. I'm just so pleased I've made it through a whole year!
Today's wild time was simply heading for Home and spending a little time amongst the cotton grass and surrounded by the calls of curlews. I only had about half an hour (I wish I could have had longer) but it was great to be near where I grew up and spend time enjoying two of my favourite things at this time of year, the curlews and the cotton grass...
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| curlew flying by |
It wasn't easy to get an in focus photo of the cotton grass as it was so windy!
The curlews weren't very obliging this time either - these are today's two best photos of them, haha! Still, I always love to hear their calls and see them flying over the beautiful landscapes around Home.
As it's the end of my Wild Year, I've made a video to capture the year in three minutes! One photo from each of my 366 Days Wild...
On I go into 30 Days Wild 2016 now!
Who else is taking part?!
Well done! :-D
ReplyDeleteI struggled with the 30 days last year, mainly due to spending almost 2 hours every weekday driving to and from work. Managed it in the end but don't think I could have kept going for a whole year!
Signed up again this year, still not sure what I want to do yet though.
I'd have struggled too if I worked full time and never would have made it through a whole year without being a part timer and having school holidays! I've had very few planned days, I wake up most days without a plan and make it up as I go!
DeleteCongratulations on a brilliant achievement, your photos are fabulous and you have opened my eyes to all sorts of things in nature I would never have noticed.
ReplyDeleteWell done, a real achievement. I only found your blog fairly recently so it was lovely watching your video to catch up with all you have seen. I love cotton grass, would you believe I first saw it in Iceland, not the UK. Loved your shot of long tailed tits. I love those little birds, we sometimes get them in our garden and I fondly call them budgie tits!
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that the cotton grass is a little out of focus is beautiful and quite serene.
ReplyDelete