Apple Jelly made from apples grown and harvested here at Bealtaine Cottage Smallholding
This will keep well for years if stored in a cool pantry and can be used in baking and cooking and makes a wonderful sweet and sour sauce!
“Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language,
and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying.
The
consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and
has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things.”
~Elise Boulding
And so, tied down with the complex consumerism of life, we don’t get time to see and appreciate the simple frost on leaves, or deeply inhale the clear, morning air…
Everything we possess that is not necessary for life or happiness becomes a
burden,
and scarcely a day passes that we do not add to it.
~Robert Brault
Quality does not lie in quantity, but in something that is unique…and the most unigue is made by oneself, for sure.
Maybe a person’s time would be as well spent raising food as raising money to
buy food.
~Frank A. Clark
“The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your
eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before
you.
Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it
comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in
life.
~Robert Louis Stevenson
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude
will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
~Henry David Thoreau
I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but
private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because
they would take away my liberty.
~George Santayana
Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be
beautiful.
~William Morris
*************
Seeds…
http://bealtainecottage.com/seeds-for-sale/
Books…
http://bealtainecottage.com/books-for-sale/
Crafts…
http://bealtainecottage.com/craft-shop/
Bealtaine Cottage is also on YouTube…with over 100 videos about Permaculture, planting, growing and living.
Reblogged this on Mysa.
Or, as Socrates liked to put it back in the 5th century B.C., as he strode through the market place in Athens, ‘How many things I don’t need!’ (Nice article about him which you might enjoy here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/17/socrates-philosopher-man-for-our-times)
Thanks for the link I shall enjoy reading that one later on!
Reblogged this on betweenleafandsky and commented:
I love this post so much.
This post resonated so deeply with me and I sit in my 700 square foot condo in the middle of a major US city contemplating how to distance myself from the rat race! Your site is a breath of fresh air and calm serenity. I spent all last night and this morning discussing the details of my five year plan with my boyfriend. One day I hope to be copying your lifestyle at my own country cottage 🙂
That’s the way forward I believe…simpler lives for us all. Bealtaine Cottage is a way of seeing the world as home…even if I lived in a caravan it would be Bealtaine Cottage in the way I lived there. Blessings XXX
This subject is coming up more and more. I have purged to the hilt over the past 6 years. If I don’t love it, it moves on to someone that will. I love the simple life with room for those I love and what I love. The “stuff” that is left is for creativity to bloom. My mantra- I have enough! Have a wonderful glorious day.
Blessings…I had too!
Your home is beautiful, the gardens you’ve created are soothing and inspirational. There is something very Irish, something in the way you do this that my Nan had (in Australia), after many gardening failures I am finally learning something, and that’s confidence in creating. I love your gardening posts too, thank you for sharing them. One thing, I have to ask you how you keep them so well weeded? Well done!!
Ah…look closely…the weeds are thriving! It’s just that I don’t leave much space between plants and I mulch a lot over the Winter and Spring. XXX
Are there many of us who still darn socks ? or knit them in the first place !! 🙂
Yes and yes! A subscriber to htis website sent me a beautiful pair of hand-knitted socks…great quality! As for darning…well worth it to keep good socks going. I do! And it all starts with 1…:) Blessings X
Oh, I’m with you .some of my favourite winter evening occupations are spinning the wool and then knitting the socks !
blessings
M x
I knew it! Blessings XXX
Reblogged this on Bealtaine Cottage and commented:
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler…
That quote by William Morris is one I love, and try to follow 🙂
His work was brilliant, wasn’t it? Morris epitomised an entire era and made us love it…Victorian!
Colx