Field Note No. 20
Date: 9 October 2026
Status: Watching, for now
Heavy rain has fallen, and the grounds have changed with it.
After weather like this, the groundsman walks the paths and the tree line. He’s checking for fallen branches and standing water, and for anything the rain has loosened.
Most of the time that’s all it is. A check, and then back to work.
Lately, though, he’s been stopping more often.
At the foot of an old tree, a pale, frilled mass, folded like cauliflower.
On a fallen log, a fan of bands in grey and brown, each one catching the light differently.
And on a beech stem, a hard dark bracket, rough as bark, growing out of a wound in the wood.
None of it was hidden. It had simply been waiting for someone to look down.
Wet weather brings things up. It also asks us to slow down enough to notice them.
