A well known Irish blessing I would like to share with all my family, friends and followers.
“May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.“
It is the 26th of December today and we are only moving towards the end of the year – so no I was not looking for signs of spring, it’s a little too early and as well as that I am trying to rein my energy in. Every year about the beginning of January my energy peeks and, like a run-a-way train, it is hard to hold it! So no I was not looking for signs of new growth but nevertheless I found fresh young plants growing all over the place. It was a mild and sunny day, beautiful weather for a walk. I woke up feeling full of the joys of life and found that the birds outside had similar thoughts, the sounds of the sparrows, the starlings and the crows was overpowering for some time during the hours of brightness. So here I was trying to experience the darkness of midwinter in order to get into the fullness of my energy once the new year would start and get going, but similar to what nature seems to be doing lately my internal clock seems to be a little mixed up. Hence I forced myself not to look for signs, signs of new growth, signs of an early spring.
I have not written or produced many blog posts during the past year, something that I have missed doing. I know that it is partly due to a changing pattern, first with the lockdowns, and then with being out of the habit. With practically staying inside the home, garden, our little town and just the very immediate surroundings. I have to use a lot of imagination to be inspired to keep writing. During the year I started researching more of the local history and joined the historical society. We explored one village recently which I found very interesting. I hope to continue with my research of local history and of reading the old maps of the area. And writing about what I find or learn.
Wishing all my friends, my family, all my dear followers here on WordPress a really wonderful 2022, filled with good health and happiness.
And thank you all for your great support for my blog.
To all my friends and followers all over the world at this time of the year, whether you celebrate Christmas or not I would like to wish you a peaceful, and joyful time, a time filled with love and the warmth of human company. As we move to brighter days, may all your wishes come true and may you be blessed.
There is something very satisfying and grounding about a task that repeats itself on a daily basis, especially during the cold and damp winter months, for me it is getting a supply of fire-wood from the garden shed. Though it might seem a very menial chore, it is no chore at all, on the contrary I am finding it and made it into a daily ritual.
My sleeveless coat, my hat and my wellingtons are ready at the backdoor, and while I trail through our at the moment water saturated garden, I check on our winter vegetables and on the fine young plants some being herbs but also next summer’s wild flowers. This is always a pleasure and my curiosity is aroused as to anything new or changed.
In these testing days of the last 18 months it is a solace to find something that both calms one down and also excites the senses, we have to make do with whatever is at hand. And for me collecting my fire-wood from the garden shed is one such activity. I love the feel of the wood, I enjoy the patterns of the different type of bark, the musty smell, and the visible rings where the pieces were cut.
Cleaning out the ashes and lighting the stove is part of the ritual. As I scope the ashes carefully into a bag I make sure that there are no sparks left alive and shining bright red – sometimes this happens. Putting the light to the kindle is always a nice feeling, especially when I light the fire while dusk is falling outside and I know that soon the room will be illuminated by the dancing flames giving off a beautiful glow and making us feel warm. Fire is one of the four classical elements in Greek philosophy. The combination of wood and fire literally soothes the mind and feeds the soul.
A nice little story that I would like to share is that a few days ago along with the wood, as for once I had just brought the bag inside and emptied it out in the basket, a tiny little shrew appeared in our living room. It was so delicate and beautiful, I caught it in my hands and it felt so soft. I went and put it back into the garden-shed hoping that it will live.
I hope that you are all well my dear friends and followers. Wishing cosy and warm evenings and days to you all.
This morning nature is calm, mature and mellow.
I am sitting in the garden, it is early.
The trees, their canopies heavy with foliage are at their most impressive, not a wind is stirring in their rich green leaves.
There is a different feel to the world right now. The frantic twittering of the young sparrows in the hawthorn tree has eased now that the fledglings are looking for their own food.
Last night, after a really warm day, there was rain and the refreshing scent of earth and herbs is exhilarating.
A light mist hangs over the long valley, the blue sky is nowhere to be seen yet. Cows are lying in the gently sloping fields.
Yesterday I heard the young swifts in the nests under the eaves of our neighbour’s house. The young are being fed by swooping brigades of adults, they are feeding the fledglings’ purposefully so that they will be strong and ready for the long flight to Africa in a few weeks’ time.
Days like this remind me of Constable’s paintings and of Elgar’s music, of the English countryside of years gone by, and of their beautiful cottage gardens.
Many plants are in full bloom, others are busy creating their seeds.
It is mid-summer, nature is coming into its own, rich variety of wild plants and flowers cover the garden around me. I wish that I could stop time right now.
But breakfast has to be made, the day’s work has to start. Thank goodness that there is a moment for everything, for rest and for work, all in its own time.
“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbour—such is my idea of happiness.” —Leo Tolstoy,
“I think about this, not like someone thinking, but like someone breathing,
And I look at flowers and I smile…
I don’t know if they understand me
Or if I understand them,
But I know the truth is in them and in me
And in our common divinity
Of letting ourselves go and live on the Earth
And carrying us in our arms through the contented Seasons
And letting the wind sing us to sleep
And not have dreams in our sleep.”
― Alberto Caeiro
“If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” —Vincent Van Gogh.
Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God. Euclid
I’ve enjoyed sharing some of my favourite quotes about nature and some of my recent photos of our garden. My own thoughts on nature are also reflected in the quotes that I picked. When I am in nature, on my own or together with my grandchildren, my daughter or with Ian, I feel totally at ease, calm and joyful, yes especially joyful. And I can but join in the sentiments of Sylvia Plath when she said that she felt her lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. and she thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.”‘
I also hope that nobody minds my photos of the spiders, these are Steatoda grossa, although I think the light coloured one is a Steadoda nobilis. They also live in our shed and I have become quite fascinated by them. There are at least a few of them.
I hope that everyone is keeping well. I think that I am very behind again with reading all your blogs, so from tonight onward I will make a start with that again, looking forward to connect.
I hope to re-blog some of my earlier posts, this one about a tree I got to know while we were staying on Gozo.
While on the island of Gozo I took notes of and enjoyed some of the trees unfamiliar to me. It is nice and interesting to find out what they are called and then to search on Google about their uses, growth, country of origin and so on, it keeps me quite busy at times. Then I will take many photos of all the different attributions, leaves, flowers, seeds, seed hulks, shoots, trunks etc. And of course I like to share this in my blog, my blog is after all a celebration of all that the earth so generously has to offer to us and to life itself. And so here goes, I hope you enjoy.
The Ombu tree, or to give it its proper name the Phytolacca dioica L. is an attractive tree. I found it growing in the area of Ghajnsielem along the main road. I was amazed to…
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Hard to believe that we are already getting close to the middle of February. Winter is giving way slowly to early spring, though today you would not think so. We are experiencing a bitterly cold wind from the East and lower temperatures than is normal for this part of the country, which usually has mild winters.
But while the cold spell lasts there is plenty of planning and creativity going on inside. I made a true to scale plan of the garden so as to have a good oversight of it (and for the fun of it too). And I tested the soil on all of the 12 raised beds and found that they are poor, some beds depleted even in Phosphorus, and Nitrogen, but did a little better on Potash. So now I know what to add and where. I’m also cutting out snippets from gardening magazines that apply to our garden in particular. I do have some good gardening books but I find this somehow more personalised as I only keep what applies to my experience here.
Here in the small market town of Skibbereen a spice and exotic vegetable shop has opened and it did not take me long to go and check out the vegetables with which I learnt to cook in both S.India and in Mauritius. The delicious meals made thereof and the pleasure of the memories got me to buy quite a selection and for a whole week those dishes were on the menu. Among them okra and bitter gourd would have been most know to me, also the chayote squash. Some of the vegetables did not make it into the cooking pan as I want to root them and I was lucky enough to see a shoot coming out of both the taro root and the chayote squash, this is an experiment. Once before I grew a large plant from a taro root but it died when I went travelling.
And then there is the garden! Well we have had so much rain now for many weeks that the garden is saturated and I am hoping that this present wind will dry the things out a bit. The garden looks forlorn at the moment and I am not doing much in it until the weather turns. I have lots of spring bulbs coming on though and they are a pleasure to see. (in my home-made small greenhouses to protect from heavy rains). There are still quite some vegetables ready for use, the cut and come back Kale and the leeks among them.
And to finish off a picture of how cosy it is inside while out there the icy wind rages, throwing lashes of hail and sleet against the window panes. The wood burner keeps us nice and warm.
I’m finding that although we are quite isolated here and especially so with the current lockdown, I am making very many interesting contacts online, being invited to interesting social media groups on culture and art and on growing in calmness, quietness and reflection. Some of these groups are in my mother tongue (Flemish) and I enjoy that very much. Making new friends and maintaining existing connections with old friends. I was also invited to become part of a meditation group. It all goes to make this lockdown time quite interesting and a place of growth for me.
I hope that all your activities and experiences are keeping you inspired too.
Much love to all.
agoyvaerts 