It's hot here today. It's very hot, but it was beautifully cool and calm at 5 this morning 
I love our changing seasons, I feel totally attached to the world when I'm working within those seasons, thinking of the next ones, preparing a little for them.
It's a never ending seasonal round that grounds me, fixes our place within this world. I watched my Grandparents work through the seasons, heard stories of their own grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins.....all long gone now, but somehow still in that stratigraphy of life.
Today I'm cutting back Ladies Mantle, Herb Robert, trying to dead head things like Figwort and Foxgloves and bluebells before they can seed all over the garden. I managed to cut back all the rushes earlier in the week. The meadowsweet is next, and I've been feasting on wild strawberries, blackcurrants, raspberries, and an assortment of greenery while I do so.
The reedmace is full of pollen, it got my washing all yellow yesterday, but today I rattled it into a poke and it's going into my scones. Raw protein
The poppies I've cut down too, and they're in another paper poke to dry. I'll scatter some randomly through the garden beds, but most will end up on home make crackers and biscuits.
I've been pulling the wood avens before it's wee burrs pop off everywhere too, and the buttercups, I need to get to the St.John's wort and the Toadflax and nettles next, before they seed too.....and every year I have to do this, every year they come up in their season and I'm out there at the crack of dawn in the cool trying to fight back the encroachment of the wilderness.
I like the wilderness, it's healthy, but it's right on my doorstep and if I don't weed I wouldn't get out the door let alone the gate in a year or so, every space between slabs has a line of tiny wee silver birch and willow seedlings....and the seasons flow, everything comes up in a sort of annual succession. From the birch sap to elderflowers, to rowans and soft fruit to the big rosehips and quince as the Autumn bites in.
The willows blew seeds like a blizzard and the silver birches, just now it's the earliest seeds from the wych elm and the sycamores. Pines and acorns will come later. It's a round of never ending seasonal rituals, not just what to plant, and what to harvest, but what to weed out, prune back ....sometimes I think a goat would be handy and the whole time the Earth is turning, and from Solstice to Equinox and every time within, from the first greenery on the bushes, the first new milk from cows and sheep, as the days stretch out to May Day then the harvest festivals, and into the fire ones of the shortest days, and the cold bites, and then the year turns and we're back in Spring before we've had time to stop. Every season has it's work, has it's own flavours, scents, different air and different light.
The birds do their parallel season changes and lives too, so does the fox and the badgers, the bats, the weasel and the wee voles. GFSon1 has ducks, and they're laying now, our friendly neighbourhood poacher is eyeing up sloe bushes, he brought me round a tray of leek seedlings last week, and newly lifted Ayrshire tatties.
I've been gathering and drying herbs, the ones that we can't get later in the year, for now. Selfheal, heartsease, lungwort, mare's tail, etc., not so much ready to take the mints, the sage and thyme kind yet.
The fruit trees are laden here this year, there were masses of cherries, the apples are turning red, pears are slowly filling out, plums are setting well.
We'll hope the water gods are good to us all and the harvest is exceptional.
I cannot imagine being adrift from this round, I cannot imagine not 'needing' this seasonal round, or the work that goes with it.
I was three when my Aunt and my Granny started to teach me to sew (honestly I think they thought if they could get me to sit still and focused for ten minutes, they'd call it a win
) and eventually I started a sampler.
Granny wrote out, "Patience, Contentment and Reason. All things in their time and growth in their Season".
I still think it's a incredibly sound way to look at the world.
Toddy
I love our changing seasons, I feel totally attached to the world when I'm working within those seasons, thinking of the next ones, preparing a little for them.
It's a never ending seasonal round that grounds me, fixes our place within this world. I watched my Grandparents work through the seasons, heard stories of their own grandparents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins.....all long gone now, but somehow still in that stratigraphy of life.
Today I'm cutting back Ladies Mantle, Herb Robert, trying to dead head things like Figwort and Foxgloves and bluebells before they can seed all over the garden. I managed to cut back all the rushes earlier in the week. The meadowsweet is next, and I've been feasting on wild strawberries, blackcurrants, raspberries, and an assortment of greenery while I do so.
The reedmace is full of pollen, it got my washing all yellow yesterday, but today I rattled it into a poke and it's going into my scones. Raw protein
The poppies I've cut down too, and they're in another paper poke to dry. I'll scatter some randomly through the garden beds, but most will end up on home make crackers and biscuits.
I've been pulling the wood avens before it's wee burrs pop off everywhere too, and the buttercups, I need to get to the St.John's wort and the Toadflax and nettles next, before they seed too.....and every year I have to do this, every year they come up in their season and I'm out there at the crack of dawn in the cool trying to fight back the encroachment of the wilderness.
I like the wilderness, it's healthy, but it's right on my doorstep and if I don't weed I wouldn't get out the door let alone the gate in a year or so, every space between slabs has a line of tiny wee silver birch and willow seedlings....and the seasons flow, everything comes up in a sort of annual succession. From the birch sap to elderflowers, to rowans and soft fruit to the big rosehips and quince as the Autumn bites in.
The willows blew seeds like a blizzard and the silver birches, just now it's the earliest seeds from the wych elm and the sycamores. Pines and acorns will come later. It's a round of never ending seasonal rituals, not just what to plant, and what to harvest, but what to weed out, prune back ....sometimes I think a goat would be handy
and the whole time the Earth is turning, and from Solstice to Equinox and every time within, from the first greenery on the bushes, the first new milk from cows and sheep, as the days stretch out to May Day then the harvest festivals, and into the fire ones of the shortest days, and the cold bites, and then the year turns and we're back in Spring before we've had time to stop. Every season has it's work, has it's own flavours, scents, different air and different light.The birds do their parallel season changes and lives too, so does the fox and the badgers, the bats, the weasel and the wee voles. GFSon1 has ducks, and they're laying now, our friendly neighbourhood poacher is eyeing up sloe bushes, he brought me round a tray of leek seedlings last week, and newly lifted Ayrshire tatties.
I've been gathering and drying herbs, the ones that we can't get later in the year, for now. Selfheal, heartsease, lungwort, mare's tail, etc., not so much ready to take the mints, the sage and thyme kind yet.
The fruit trees are laden here this year, there were masses of cherries, the apples are turning red, pears are slowly filling out, plums are setting well.
We'll hope the water gods are good to us all
and the harvest is exceptional.I cannot imagine being adrift from this round, I cannot imagine not 'needing' this seasonal round, or the work that goes with it.
I was three when my Aunt and my Granny started to teach me to sew (honestly I think they thought if they could get me to sit still and focused for ten minutes, they'd call it a win
) and eventually I started a sampler.Granny wrote out, "Patience, Contentment and Reason. All things in their time and growth in their Season".
I still think it's a incredibly sound way to look at the world.
Toddy
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