I heard the bells on Christmas day, their old, familiar, carols play, And wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth, good will to all mankind. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Wishing all my dear friends, family and followers a very happy and joyful Christmas, and a healthy and blessed New Year!
And a winter time filled with pleasurable winter celebrations.
Travelling through the Caha mountains during winter I find that there is plenty of interest to see and get excited about even just along the way. While some of my drives are taken in bad weather conditions, heavy mist, rain and or wind, most of the time I’ve experienced dry and also regularly sunny weather.
Most of all, this winter I find the skies fascinating. The colours, subtle, in pastel pink, light blue, ashen grey or radiant white, and even as if with a magic brush, diffused streaks of periwinkle purple. I’ve seen it all in skies over the Bantry Bay, over the Caha mountains and over the Glengarriff valeys. Ever changing skies with light of a beautiful quality. It certainly holds the attention of the traveller. These days I drive home when the sun is setting, adding another marvel of light, the setting sun, often spectacular!
Looking down into the valley there is a whole palette of different browns, beiges and forest greens. A true feast for the eyes. As can be seen in the photo below Glengarriff National Forest has a lot of birch trees growing, and apart from their stark white trunks, their branches are particularly beautiful at the moment. Every time I pass clusters of them I try to think how to name their colour, a type of maroon, or a vintage wine, or does it look more like an English lavender, burgundy, gothic mulberry or umbral umber. It is hard to pinpoint exactly the colour of those branches, and it also depends how the light shines on them and how the rain brightens them.
A variety of other branches, among them the deep red of the dogwoods is always very nice in a landscape, and so is the drama of the bleached grasses, rushes and sedges covering whole stretches of hillsides with cream blonde colours or even rusty browns.
Darkness falls early these days, painting the landscape mainly in moss green, dark brown or black, though the mountains in the distance do give us some mauve. The landscape changes constantly, it is very noticeably when driving higher up, clouds throwing huge shadows over the valleys interspersed with stretches of sunlight. As I said there is a lot of interest even in winter on my journey. Probably much more to discover yet and that leaves me with a feeling of ever more excitement.
I came across two photos of winter foliage recently, these are paintings of the Danish painter Peder Mork Monsted, (1859-1941) from his ‘Winter’ series. I thought it shows the colouring of the birch trees beautifully and rather well. I think his work very nice. (Referenced from Gallery of Art) with thanks.
An evening sun comes shining in our livingroom, illuminating the grass green wall. A last burst before darkness descends. Late October feelings.
These days I enjoy a weekly journey through the Caha mountains on my way to see my husband Ian in Kenmare. It is a most beautiful journey, not only along the Bantry Bay towards sub-tropic Glengarriff where at the moment the rhododendrons are still in full flower, but following the N71 up to and through the tunnel separating county Cork and county Kerry.
It is such a lovely journey. I do it once a week. My dear husband Ian is now resident in a nursing home in Kenmare. It’s about 74km from here. It’s a different way of life for us both, but we are adjusting and making the best of what life offers.
In our wild garden, and wild it is at the moment, I’m finding that everything is green, beautiful shades of green, but yet there are some colours to be seen too. I haven’t had much time, and less inclination to garden in the past few months and now everything has overgrown. But it’s beautiful, and there has been a lovely crop of very yellow buttercups in what is now a small meadow rather than a small lawn, I’ve really enjoyed that sight. The Californian lilac has also flowered in a pale blue. And the wild foxgloves that self-seed every year are in full bloom, a beautiful shade of pink.
I like the garden to be lush, and to have secluded spaces where I can sit on the old bench, or totally in the back under the oak tree and surrounded by nettles and foliage of montbretia foliage not yet flowering, protected by the sheds from the cooling wind. I often pick this spot for breakfast on fine days, the sun is only just hitting that spot then and it’s a lovely light. The old bench under the hawthorn tree is another one of my favourites, but I have to watch it as it is the domain of the sparrows and there are often droppings from above, not so nice in my tea.
I am not seeing many pollinators in the garden this year yet, probably because the weather has been rather unpredictable, I’m hoping they’ll come soon. I’ve seldom seen the garden so lush, or else my memory is failing me (which I doubt}. The month of May is of course the most beautiful month in Ireland, and often one of the warmest, not so this May, in fact I’ve had to light the stove today. Probably June will be better.
I’ll let you have a stroll through our garden for now. Enjoy!
Bright beauty of buttercups (Ranunculus)
Foxgloves (digitalis purpurea)
Californian lilac (Ceanonthus)
I hope to be back to my regular blog contributions, there is a lot of material which I can develop and plenty of photos to go with it. As I get used to the changes in my life I’ll get inspired again to share some of the beauty of Ireland, and of my past and future travels. And I look forward to interacting again with the blogs of all my friends and followers.
All is calm in our little town on this Christmas Eve, the only sounds in our street are the wind howling and the odd car passing. It seems that people are all heading towards home, the shops are slowly closing and town is emptying. There is always a nice buzz in Skibbereen around this time of year. Traditionally young people who would have emigrated to America or the UK would try and get home for the festivities, these days it is students and those that made it overseas that return, it’s always a great time for rejoicing and that is palpable in the streets and shops as old friends and families gather. People seem cheerful. Nice!
But I did not mean to write about this. For me Christmas or Solstice time is special too but in other ways. I feel myself pulled deeper into nature, my wish is to go for a long walk and take note of all that is happening, and so much is happening underneath all the rest that nature is supposed to be taking at this time. Around me I not only see daffodils shooting up, but all sort of buds are getting bigger by the day. A myriad of small young plants are covering the ground where there are patches not covered by fallen leaves.
A fine Irish mist is making everything wet and glistening, as a result the colours of the tree trunks in our garden are not dull, they are bright and beautiful. This time of year is special, I read the old stories of animals being able to converse with each other in language on Christmas Eve, that somehow always stuck with me! These are the darkest days, midwinter, we celebrate the solstice and look forward to the light returning, the brighter and longer days, new life and renewed energy in nature and in humans. Christmas too is about new life, the birth of Christus, bringing light into the world. It is a beautiful time, hopefully a time of peace for all.
Here in our little house, Ian is working on writing his book, we just had lunch and some real Flemish marzipan that my sister Josephine sent us from Lier. Everything is peaceful, I’m listening to baroque music on rtbf Musiq3. Work is done, our garden birds are fed, and I’m enjoying writing my blog post and wondering how all my WordPress friends and followers are celebrating this time of year. Soon it will be 2024 and I hope that it will be a year full of blessing for you all.
Sending love and wishing peace to everyone.
‘Every gardener know that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle, a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream’ B.Winkler
‘What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness’ John Steinbeck
‘Don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous’ RUMI
Lacework of the hydrangea flowers.
‘In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy’ WILLIAN BLAKE
Totally enjoying a beautiful winter, the sky, the plants, seedheads, and all the little miracles that manifest during this time of year are a joy to behold. Winter is a time for reflection and restoration in nature and in ourselves.
Wishing everyone a peaceful and beautiful Christmas and mid-winter time, may peaceful blessings be upon you all.
This summer is moving along nicely, after a rather cold spring with lots of icy eastern winds. Today I’m sitting under our hawthorn tree thinking of writing another blog post which I feel is long overdue. I want to write about where I am at this moment, what is inspiring me and how I’m filling my days.
Right at the beginning of spring I felt the desire to work with a greenhouse in order to grow more and better plants in this unpredictable climate, and soon after longing for it I started looking at different designs, and ordered our present tunnel, Ian treated me to it. It is a small tunnel but then we have a small garden. I’ve never looked back.
I’m growing more vegetables this year, I’m not leaving things up to my intuition like I usually do or did, this year I’m actually reading up in gardening books and on the web what are the best ways to grow certain crops, and most important, how can I improve my soil, or at least help it to keep fertile. Up to now I’ve always collected my garden waste and thrown it into a corner at the end of the garden, but not anymore. I realise that I need to put nutrients back into the soil. Ok if there are some wild plants among them that I don’t want to regrow necessarily, if they are in seed, then they go into the compost barrel, but all other green waste stays on the soil where it grew, it’s a good mulch and it kept the soil moist during the driest weeks earlier in the summer. I’m also keeping a good garden journal this year, noting everything I sow and grow and how it is doing and other notes on how I can improve their growth in future years. It’s useful!
My interest in gardening lies not alone in beautifying my surroundings, or in growing vegetables, I also like to experiment, not only with growth but also with the soil, with the sort of pollinators that are visiting, and with the changes to our trees and other long standing growth, such as what type of wild plants keep germinating and growing to maturity, as that changes over time. For a few years I had Evening Primrose and Mullein growing and self-seeding, now they are gone. But the pale Hedge Woundwort has been a loyal wild flower all over the garden for decades, as has the Herb Robin. I practise polyculture.
Now and then I take test of the soil to see if there is anything lacking and usually there is. I have tried to rectify this over the years with seaweed fertilizer. I garden totally organic! I find this testing immensely interesting and am learning more every day. Listening to podcasts or webinars that discuss the important of soil building and organic growing and so on keeps me fired up.
At this time there is also the produce collecting, the use or storing of same. Delicious dishes are being produced in my kitchen, I enjoy all the cooking of the fresh produce. There is the herb collecting and drying, I grow a huge collection of different herbs, many of which I dry for winter use. Teas also, like Hawthorn, Lemon Balm and Lemon Vervain, Mint etc… Collecting seeds for future use or for swapping and sharing will be the next step as the summer moves along.
The big experiment this season is growing my own potatoes. Early in the year I bought Mirabella seed potato in one of our local garden centres. These seeds are blight resistant and organic. So I dug up all the grasses from a patch at the back of the garden and after chitting the seed potatoes, planted them out. They grew fantastically well. I had 22 plants! Only to discover that they were early potatoes that do not store well, my idea was to have potatoes over the winter as we are not big potato eaters. I’ve dug up some to date and they are nice, but they will probably be gone by the winter time. Note so self: Next year… check that out better. To lift up a crop of potatoes from the soil is like witnessing a miracle over and over again, I find it both fascinating and exciting and I love it.
I’m aware of the decline in biodiversity and as much as possible I attend and take part in local groups that are concerned about this and try to enlighten the public about all the various aspects of avoiding and helping to minimize this current worldwide problem. The environment and biodiversity is high priority on my agenda, and while I can only attend a certain amount of activity or meetings, I like to give priority to this important current problem. I take photos of pollinators and share them, we need them more than we know. Knowing which plants attract pollinators and cultivating those also is of importance.
All in all nature in general, in all its beauty and interest is enhancing and making my life fascinating. Every day I learn and discover more, it lights up my days and keeps my brain sharp with doing more and more research. What a blessing. There is today a huge amount of information online and in up to date books both about the beauty, the interest, and the problems currently present in the environment, with biodiversity, with the ecology, in farming practises, and in nature connectedness. It is a never ending nature study!
Fortunately many people are very well aware of all this and much is being done, but much more needs doing worldwide.
agoyvaerts 