Patagonia Baby Snow-daze Bibs - Toddler Boy's Prussian Blue, 5T

If he's cold and miserable when he learns to ski, he's going only going to see skiing as cold and miserable. Make sure his first year in the snow is warm and funbundle him up in the Patagonia Toddler Boy's Baby Snow-daze Bibs. These high-tech bibs block out cold, and stormy weather so he'll be toasty and happy whether he's on skis for his first time or making his maiden voyage on the sledding hill.

Product Features
Material: polyester; [membrane/laminate] H2No
Fabric Waterproof Rating:
Fabric Breathability Rating:
Insulation: 100g Thermogreen (polyester, 90% recycled)
Fit: regular
Venting:
Side Zips:
Gaiters: yes
Seams:
Waist:
Pockets: 1 front
RECCO: no
Weight:
Recommended Use: skiing, snowboarding, snow sports, winter wear
Manufacturer Warranty: lifetime

Wall painting in the chancel of Compton Beauchamp church.

HIRUNDINES
A poem dedicated to the
memory of Gilbert White

Giles Watson
2004

Author’s Note:

I am indebted not only to Gilbert White for his Natural History of Selborne (1788), but also to Richard Mabey for his article on White and the hirundines in B.B.C. Wildlife, Volume 21, Number 6, June 2003, p. 17, which first alerted me to the allegorical nature of the eighteenth century clergyman’s writings on these birds. Mabey points out that whilst White’s letters were read as scientific papers before the Royal Society, their subtext is concerned with “some of the great themes of life”, especially the life of a middle-aged bachelor”. This poem depends to a great degree on Mabey’s interpretation of the allegorical meaning of White’s hirundines: “The house martin is a story of livelihood, of a proper balance between work and play… The swallow’s tale is of family life, the thing White never had… The sand martin… hints at the otherness and mystery of nature… [and the Swift is an allegory of] the wildness of nature, and the freedom White missed at Selborne, lacking like-minded neighbours and cursed by coachsickness.”

For the purposes of this poem, as for White, the hirundines (or hirondelles, as Mabey calls them) are a disparate family of birds united by similar characteristics, and once thought to be related. Amongst them, the swift is now regarded as belonging to quite another category. Taxonomic purists are therefore asked to suspend their incredulity for Gilbert White’s sake. Likewise, Gilbert White’s belief that hirundines must hibernate during the winter months, which has been long disproved, has been accepted here because of its historical—as opposed to scientific—accuracy.

Section 2 of this poem was written in the field, using a notebook much as an artist uses a sketchbook, in the course of a blissful day-trip to Selborne with my partner Jeannie. The later sections of the poem deal with the hirundines in turn. In keeping with the spirit of the parson-naturalist, for whom priesthood must primarily have represented an opportunity for indulgence in natural history, and for whom the doctrines (and perhaps, in White’s case, the morals as well) of Christianity so often assumed secondary importance, but whose lives were necessarily punctuated by the daily offices and the communion service, I have felt free to take certain liberties with texts from the Book of Common Prayer.


G. Watson, Isles of Scilly, 26th June 2004.




1

Shall we take the old road,
where the green helleborine
nestles among ferns, where
ladies fear to go, for fear
of ghosts, and gentry shall not go
in snow? Shall we weave
through lime-slab gripping
roots of weathered oaks,
and beeches holding flints
within their grips? Where
dew drips three hours after dawn,
and snakes go not, for fear
of torpor? Shall we go,
bypass the house, and the museums,
and come, at last,
to the Long Lythe, where
the ground dips to the stream
from Gilbert’s grave?

Sit here, and watch
his hirundines wheel
where human dreams
have failed.

2

Beech woods fringed
with milk-spilt elder;
jackdaws chack and clatter,
rooks utter blackness,
eggshells spill from nests,
cracked and bloodied,
the life writhed from them.

The world widens, from
the twice-five petalled campion,
the sulphured ranunculus,
the spiked sedge, over
Oakhanger Stream, by way
of ash and birch, through
flags in forests of spiked green,
half encased in folding sepals.

Fringed by ragged robins
spanned by spiders’ webs,
and primeval equisetum,
sun-bleached lady’s smocks -
measured infinitessimally
by spindled skaters, tadpoles
and toadlets, writhing in clumps,
bug-eyed waterboatmen,
waterspiders with silvered bellies -
ponds mirror open sky,
where hirundines wheel,
and seem to swim, inverted,
under water.

But the hirundines
are not as they would have been:
devil’s birds, bills clapping
on swarms of insects undescribed,
gulping uncatalogued midges
like whales sifting krill. Let us
recreate them, while we can:

3

Whether it be, he wrote, as sport,
A treat to take away the toil
Of long migration, (or, and well
May a man, middle aged
And grown rheumatic, favour this:
To warm the blood, grown cold
From long benumbing),
House martins like to play
Before they turn to mansion building.

“Aerobatics before architecture,”
Their twitter seems to say,
Like grasshoppers chiding ants
For toiling all the day.

But then they set to mud daubing,
Their bills turned spatulas,
Deft and minute, testing consistency,
Flitting untwittering to the eaves
Each with a bib of gathered mud
Primed for plastering. Then clinging
With legs feathered to the toes,
Begin the building, layer on layer,
Lump on lump - but not for too long,
For houses built in haste
Must fall, when they are made
From clay. Paste a little, let it
Harden every day. Keep the rest
To seek the sun, and play.

Twelve days to construct a hemisphere:
Rustic work, no finished

Little Backy walks around the parking lot, unaware that the Pontiac behind him is wearing a set of Buick portholes (he would notice this in a couple years)

It's bad enough that I look like a little monkey wearing that thing, but did I really need a bib?

These mini-me insulated ski bibs are made from durable 2-layer polyester shell fabric with a waterproof/breathable H2No barrier for storm protection. With these warm, weather-shedding bibs, cold, sloppy weather feels like a splendid reason to get outside. The Snow-Daze Bibs feature a waterproof/breathable H2No barrier for absolute storm level protection and a soft layer of warm 100-g Thermogreen insulation (90% recycled). The supple 2-layer shell has fully-taped seams and is treated with a moisture-shedding Deluge DWR (durable water repellent) finish. Adjustable suspenders and an elasticized waist customize the fit, a front zipper allows for easy on/off, internal leg gaiters seal out cold air; and our "grow-fit" feature in the legs add an extra 1? for extended wear. With a zippered pocket to stash finds and a hand-me-down ID label inside. Material 2-layer H2No shell fabrics are completely waterproof, windproof and breathable. They utilize an internal mesh or a wicking, hanging fabric liner to protect the waterproof barrier making them very comfortable and warm, even against the skin. 2-layer shell fabrics are versatile alternatives when you don't need the lightest or most durable shell available. Technology H2No Barrier is Patagonia's standard for 100% waterproof and breathable protection in our shell garments. H2No is created by adding a waterproof and breathable laminate or coating to a high performance protective fabric. This fabric package blocks wind and water on the outside while allowing water vapor generated by your body to escape – keeping you warm, dry and comfortable.