A Very Happy Bealtaine to everyone!
Even with the steady grey sky and rain, I feel so full of life and happiness! The buds on the trees are swelling, the squill and and lungwort blooming! I even spotted my kale peaking above the soaking earth. It has been so damp here, so there is a fire on but we have plenty of firewood left over from the winter so it doesn’t bother me so.
The mercury hasn’t dipped below 0 for the past week or two – I have planted our potatoes, kale, onions, rutabaga and all kinds of random flower seeds. I’ve transplated some chives and rhubarb and echinacea. I even broke up the root of a comfrey plant and stuck two pieces of it elsewhere – they are already coming up! My hope this year is to make lots of comfrey fertilizer teas for my plants and young trees.
Oh, there isn’t much to share in way of gardening photographs! Outside, although the smell of damp earth is intoxicating and there is a little bit of green finding it’s way up, up up – it is still mostly shades of brown and grey. I have a feeling that in the next week all of the buds will burst. The surrounding landscape will remain muddy until the fields have been planted but at least the trees will soon breath again.
The life that I’ve spotted gleefully includes, lupins planted last summer, echinacea, poppies, sedum, a thousand maple trees (I think I’ll pick 10-20 to come up), some chestnut, rhubarb, catnip and roses. Some of the garlic has also begun to crest the straw. Inside, I have tomatoes, peppers and flowers galore! Chamomile, Hollyhocks, Marigolds. I imagine an old fashioned garden full of fairy tale flowers. Someday, I hope to have the property completely enclosed by trees and shrubs and inside an oasis of flowers.
Goodbye and Blessed Bealtaine! The sun is actually here! I watched a really wonderful movie on Netflix Yesterday called “Dare to be Wild” (I may have been crying for most of the film) and then continued to listen to Mary Reynolds speak in a podcast. I highly suggest, she is amazing!
I wish I could leave you with the sound of our chimes! I’m sitting in the sunroom, windows open wide listening to the birds (I wrote burds and it made me laugh) and the gentle chimes. It’s cold and there is a fire on, but I don’t really care. Perhaps I’ll try to post it on my instagram stories, I feel a strange sense of completeness hearing them.
Green Blessings!!
Ways of Wood Folk 
It is delightful, when doors can be open, and the sound of wind chimes can be heard again!!!
What a lovely, lovely area you live in.
And what a lovely dream you have, of having it surrounded by a border and loads of flowers. Such a pretty dream, to work toward.
So many plants started! Amazing…
You have a real little pond. Oh wonderful! We have to make do, with a little man-made pond. With a birdbath in it, which my husband made into a fountain. Not real, but still nice, just off the back patio doors…
Happy Bealtaine!
Happy month of May!
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Thank you so much for your lovely comment! I am trying to figure out how to follow along your blog 🙂
The pond is actually man made! I was considering taking it out completely but there is so much life in there! Frogs and irises, I have to remind myself that so much GOOD and beauty is designed and implemented by humans, so I’m going to really work on making the little pond a special place.
The chimes are so special, I’m going to try to capture them later today when I have the chance. They are “The Chimes of Neptune” and you can hear them on youtube (I should attach that video, ha).
Sounds like you live in a very lovely place yourself!
Blessed Bealtaine!!
Julia xo
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I can hear and feel the Life in your green goddess ‘voice’, Julia! You are emanating such beautiful energy out into the universe. Energy of love, life, passion, soul. I haven’t even started our seeds yet, but hope to get to them this week. We had so much flooding late winter and early spring. Though the water has subsided, the ground is still like a wet sponge. It is so nice though to finally have warmer temps. Today we didn’t even burn our wood stove!
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I checked out the Dare To Be Wild movie trailer. I will definitely watch the movie! Thank you for sharing.
By the way, have you ever read the little book 📖, Flower Fairies 🧚♀️ of Spring, by Cicely Mary Barker? She wrote it in 1923 and then followed it with similar books for summer, autumn, and winter. In the spring book she has written lovely little poems about the flowers of spring and their fairies along with beautiful illustrated drawings of each fairy and their flower. It is lovely. I found it at my local independent bookstore. I’m hoping the proprietor will carry the other 3 seasons too! I bought it for my 5-yr old granddaughter who loves all such things, but I decided to read it before I send to her! It is so sweet.
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Hi Bonnie!
Did you happen to watch the film? It is so lovely, I think I will watch it again soon!
And yes, I do have all of the Cicely Mary Barker works!! I absolutely love them! I never knew about her as a child, but grew to love her work when I was older. My mom gave me a little tin for jewellery of the chicory fairy that I have cherished since I was about 15! Your granddaughter is SO lucky to have you introduce her!!
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Hi Julia! I just finished watching the movie. I’m still sniffling from the tears 😭 I shed throughout it! My husband loved it too. Oh how it touched me so deeply and brought back feelings from my childhood when I would wander into the woods and fields and know that I was surrounded by life that could not be seen by all but that glistened and could be felt. The stones, trees and plants talked to me then and they still do now.
My granddaughter is so very one with nature now. She names all the little ladybugs 🐞 in her gardens. And makes birthday cards and presents for them. She embraces and lives the mystery and magic of nature. I hope to encourage that so she never loses it. It took me years to recover what I lost as a child.
I’ve been reading one poem per day in Cicely’s book. Slowly relishing and delighting in it. And I will encourage my local bookstore to carry the other 3 seasons!
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I am so glad you watched it!!!! Isn’t it lovely? You can also find Mary Reynolds speaking on Youtube – there is a TedTalk as well as an interesting podcast where she is interviewed (I can’t remember what it is called but the host is Australian I believe). So inspiring!1
Ah yes, your bookstore must carry the others. I have an anthology and you inspired me to read the first Spring poem this morning, thank you!
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Hi Julia!
It’s so lovely to see all the images of plants growing and the earth springing to life. I tried to look for the movie, but couldn
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Hm.. That got posted before I had finished it. Hah! Here’s the one I meant to post: 🙂
It’s so lovely to see all the images of plants growing and the earth springing to life. Birds song is the prettiest and more hopeful song of all, I think. 🙂
Things are growing here too, but today it’s cold and rain, I even lit the firestone one last time.
I tried to look for the movie, but could’t find it on my netflix. 😦
Camilla
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once again, i love your pictures and i honestly did not know about the dog hair for plants!!!! i have to try that although where i live… we barely get any cold weather lol
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Thank you! Oh you are SO lucky, sometimes I imagine living in a place that is warm year round and usually my mind goes to everything I could grow and be content with greenery all weird round. I think if you have a cat or dog and simply brush them and put the hair in the garden would still provide some great nutrients for the soil! I honestly clean out my hairbrush too and just put it in the compost 😛
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