Homelessness and Vulture Capitalism

Posted July 26, 2016

Filed under Childhood, Current Affairs, Dublin, Economy, government, History, Hope, Thoughts

Why has the government of Ireland allowed Vulture Funds to cash-buy over 60% of Irish property when we have a homeless crisis?

A simple question.

A simple tweet, made this morning, as I pondered what government is actually for…

It concerns me deeply to imagine the almost two thousand children who are awakening this morning in their homeless temporary accommodation…mostly Bed and Breakfast only hotels!

I live in a comfortable little cottage, but grew up in circumstances not dissimilar to the homeless children of Ireland today, in that I was a child of an economically disadvantaged family.

This is what economic inequality looked like in Ireland 53 yrs ago…that’s me on the left.

Eleven children living in a two bed-roomed terraced house.

Yet over half a century ago, despite the cramped conditions, we had a house we called home!

My mother lived a long healthy life despite birthing eleven children…here she was in her eightieth year at Bealtaine Cottage.

There should not be a homeless crisis here in Ireland…or anywhere for that matter!

There were 5,811 people ‘officially homeless’ in emergency homeless accommodation in February 2016 – an increase of 48% over the previous February. This figure includes adults (3,930) and children with their families (1,881), but it does not include the ‘hidden homeless’ who are living in squats or ‘sofa surfing’ with friends or people who are living in domestic violence refuges.

~ http://www.focusireland.ie/resource-hub/about-homelessness/

If every country in the western world can find endless money for war and bankers…need I say more?

The Irish Government should be particularly ashamed this morning in the wake of yesterdays revelations that over sixty per cent of all houses sold last year in Ireland were to cash buyers…most of whom commanded the wealth of so-called Vulture Funds!

vulture fund

noun

FINANCE

plural noun: vulture funds

a fund which invests in companies or properties which are performing poorly and may therefore be undervalued.

In this so-called republic, for any child to go to bed hungry or awaken in cramped squalor is an utter disgrace.

Shame on us all!

**************************************

A message for Rhys (Reese) Jones: I need your email address to sign you up. Email me at:

coletteoneill2010@hotmail.com

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Bealtaine Cottage Good Life membership is 12 euros per year and allows me a small income to continue to grow the Bealtaine Project both here in Ireland and in the hearts and minds of good people all over the world.

Please join…

Sustainable Food Revolution

Posted April 9, 2014

Filed under Animals, Bealtaine Cottage, Childhood, Country Living, Edible Gardens, Fairies, hens, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Organic Garden, Permaculture, Smallholding, Spring

Living in a time when the cost of food is rising day on day, it might be time to re-think the lawn! This is what Bill Mollison, one of the founders of the Permaculture movement has to say on the subject:

“. . . every society that grows extensive lawns could produce all its food on the same area, using the same resources, and . . . world famine could be totally relieved if we devoted the same resources of lawn culture to food culture in poor areas. These facts are before us. Thus, we can look at lawns, like double garages and large guard dogs, [and Humvees and SUVs] as a badge of willful waste, conspicuous consumption, and lack of care for the earth or its people.Most lawns are purely cosmetic in function. Thus, affluent societies have, all unnoticed, developed an agriculture which produces a polluted waste product, in the presence of famine and erosion elsewhere, and the threat of water shortages at home.

The lawn has become the curse of modern town landscapes as sugar cane is the curse of the lowland coastal tropics, and cattle the curse of the semi-arid and arid rangelands…

Over the past few days I have been busy converting this little shed into a new hen house and run…food to swap and share…fresh eggs! it is going to be a simple enough barter, swapping a sack of logs for nine eggs. Most logs are traded at 3.50 a sack, so that’s a fair swap!

That makes a good swap as eggs are getting more expensive by the day and the logs will be delivered to my door! I just have to ensure that the hen house and run are secure against Mr ans Mrs Fox and family!

As Spring moves across the land, a drying wind is working its magic on the earth. The greening is under-way.

The view from the sitting room window is being filled in like a ‘Painting By Numbers,’ canvas. Ash trees are the last to get their leaves and so stand proud in all their silver glory against temperamental Spring skies.

This is the beautiful Field Maple to the front of the cottage.

Continuing my lifelong passion for trees…this is a wall tile I made from clay…complete with tree, a fairy tree.

The lone Fairy Thorn one often sees growing in the middle of fields here in Ireland served as my inspiration. They are often windswept and leaning away from the west.

This sits upon the dresser in the kitchen…a time when preserves were sold in stoneware jars. All containers were re-cycled, in that they were re-used…even milk bottles! Lemonade bottles had a money deposit attached to them and children would collect them up to return to the shop, as a way of earning pocket money!

Even cream came in little stoneware jars like this, as it kept cool in the pantry in the days before every home had a fridge!

“A sacred way of life connects us to the people and places around us. That means that a sacred economy must be in large part a local economy, in which we have multidimensional, personal relationships with the land and people who meet our needs, and whose needs are met in turn.”
― Juliana Birnbaum Fox, Sustainable Revolution: Permaculture in Ecovillages, Urban Farms, and Communities Worldwide

Midwinter Cottage

Posted December 6, 2013

Filed under Animals, Art, Bealtaine Cottage, Buddha, Cats, celebrations, Childhood, Christmas, Crafts, Inspiration, Life, Personal, photography, Spirituality, Thoughts, Winter

The air is still.

The storm has passed.

Stillness and silence pervades the cottage.

Jack is in his bed, and the boys continue to doss away the morning in the Lodge.

A midwinter scene repeated all across the northern hemisphere.

Someone remarked on the increasing silence they noticed in the world around them.

Midwinter is a silent time, suffused with echoes and occasional sounds from strange places.

Places that are more difficult to pinpoint on the landscape…it’s a trick played on us by Mother Nature as she paces the dormitories of sleep and hibernation.

Candles illuminate the darkness, dispelling matt grey for moving shadows.

Jingles of Christmas on the radio, some lovely, most rapaciously dreadful, urging the listener to get out now and spend, spend, spend!

And so the radio is switched off and music switched on, low and evocative.

Midwinter enchants us all with memories of stillness and light, fires and food…times past, selected for our personal album of memories.

I found this photograph recently.

It was taken around Midwinter, in a photo-booth in London, when I first ventured away from home and Ireland.

Scents were what I most missed.

The scents of home, like turf and coal smoke, wisping out of chimney pots on rows of terraced houses.

London was filled with new, more exotic scents, especially places like Portobello Road Market on a Saturday morning, where Patchouli oil perfume lingered in the air.

Working patchwork, brings me back to early days, in London and the sheer wealth of fabric shops and stalls, Laura Ashley and the love of William Morris retro!

Colours, fabrics and textures continue to fascinate.

Natural fabrics hold most memory…perhaps because they are from the natural world, where energy is hosted.

Sackcloth and old lace cover a jam jar, filled with Honesty.

Cotton gingham of various colours in the kitchen.

Willow, wood and clay pottery, mugs and bowls.

The morning, washed by soft midwinter light…not to be bought and packaged for Christmas, but absorbed by the celebratory soul.

Blessings from this midwinter cottage…

A Sacred Space for the Mind

Posted July 26, 2013

Filed under Autumn, Buddha, Childhood, Family, Inspiration, Ireland, Life, Organic Garden, Permaculture, Spirituality

The morning was misty, with an autumnal feel in the air…cool and damp with dew. Cobwebs hung on trees and bushes, sometimes stretching for metres in the air.

It felt so liberating to just amble around with tea in one hand, camera in the other and not be oppressed with heat.

I don’t tolerate heat too well and look forward to autumn, it being my favourite season of all. The early morning sun began to evaporate the mist, bringing to mind the day ahead and all that needed to be done.

I love the time in the morning before any other creature has stirred…it’s magical and charged with a wonderful energy.

I was born and grew up in a tiny two bedroom house in Omagh, shared with parents and 8 siblings, so have come to appreciate the calm, before the day begins in earnest.

Quiet, early mornings, hold a sacred space for the mind.

Early morning, as the sun rises, is an almost different world…a world apart from the mundane and expected.

A world filled with possibilities, hopes and plans.

And the setting sun carries away the hot day, into the embrace of another cool, welcome night.

Earth Sense

Posted June 11, 2013

Filed under Abundance, Animals, Cats, Childhood, Country Living, Earth, Garden, Inspiration, Organic Garden, Permaculture, Summer, Trees

Thankfully it rained for most of the night!

Not a lot of people would be happy to report that, but as a grower, the dry heat of recent weeks has been a close call for the younger plants!

The water barrels have filled and the well is finally sending more than a trickle to the cottage!

More peas and beans were planted out yesterday, so this rain will bed them in nicely!

If it was possible to bottle the Earth Scents outside in the gardens, then I’d be a millionaire and could buy lots more land to plant trees on!

There is another Earth Sense though…one we all need to tune into…one that ensures a sense of well-being.

A sense of belonging to the environment around us.

Living in a small cottage ensures much time spend outdoors during the day, something that was common place for many people until fairly recent times.

The advent of TV ensured more and more people lived indoors and not out.

I recall as a child spending much of the day outdoors, as there just wasn’t room in the house to play!

Walking outdoors can add to a sense of well-being, even in the rain.

The healing aspects of Nature are being continually distilled into medication by the pharmaceutical corporations, yet remains inherent all around us.

Nature massages the soul!

Being outside with plants, trees, wildlife, Nature, animals and birdsong, is unbeatably good for ones’ mental health!

Nature is real and alive, strong but gentle and always there for us despite the abuse we fling at her.

It is something that cannot be put into a pill and certainly not for sale in a bottle!

Bealtaine Cottage is also on YouTube…with over 102 videos about Permaculture, planting, growing and living.

Over 800 blogs from Bealtaine Cottage in the archives here.

Thank you for supporting this blog

The Woman Who Planted Trees

Posted May 30, 2013

Filed under Bealtaine Cottage, biodiversity, Birds, Childhood, Earth, Fairies, Garden, Gardens, Inspiration, Ireland, Organic Garden, Permaculture, Seeds, Uncategorized, Woodland

Many people ask if they can visit Bealtaine Cottage Permaculture Gardens and I always try to oblige if it’s at all possible!

Some advance notice is welcome, as life on 3 acres on one’s own can get pretty full on at times.

Last evening I was called by a friend, who wanted to know if she could bring a neighbour of hers to visit Bealtaine.

Her neighbour referred to me as “the woman who plants the trees!”

(By the way, it’s a beautiful morning as you can see from the pics!)

It’s an odd thing to do really, plant trees…so far over 900 planted!

Odd, in so far as so few people get this obsessed! Trees change every aspect of one’s life.

As I sit here typing this blog, the birdsong is magical and very loud!

My childhood was impoverished as far as trees were concerned.

I grew up in a tiny terraced house with no garden, just row upon row of slate roofs and grey walls.

My first encounter with trees was at school.

Entering the gates of the Convent school grounds, greenery enveloped me.

My childhood was transformed by the gardens of Loreto Convent.

I recently returned and collected seed from the convent grounds in Omagh, to grow on here at Bealtaine Cottage.

Visitors bring me trees.

Subscribers to this blog send me tree seeds, from all over the world.

I dream about trees.

I have left instructions to be buried in a woodland…let a tree rise from me!

The Circle of Greed, The Spiral of Life and The Tipping Point

Posted February 12, 2013

Filed under Cats, celebrations, Celtic Mythology, Childhood, Climate, Current Affairs, Ecology, Food, History, Ireland, Life, Permaculture, Uncategorized, Wildlife

The tipping point has been reached.

Reading this report from yesterday quantifies everything that is wrong with our approach to food.

You see, Salmon, used to be a seasonal food.

Much like other seasonal foods, it was enjoyed as a celebration of a particular time of year.

I remember this time as a child.

The salmon would return to Ireland to spawn…swimming furiously up the rivers to lay their eggs in dark, sometimes shallow, pools of freshwater, having survived a momentous journey across the Atlantic Ocean and into the fast, freshwater rivers of the west of Ireland.

It was easy enough to catch them, though not always legal, but then people rarely took more than they could eat or share.

We had no fridge in our tiny house and no freezer.

Barely standing room for parents and eleven children!

The salmon was a great supplement to a frugal diet and the men seemed to understand the value of the sacred fish, for they were regarded as such in the old ways.

The Salmon of Wisdom.

The Salmon of Knowledge.

There was a sense of compassion by the banks of the River Strule in Omagh.

An empathy even with this most magical of all fish… Fish Farms put an end to all this, injecting a venom of disconnect into the veins of human beings.

Greed over-ruled millennia of links between human and salmon.

This is what I have just read from yesterday’s paper…

The number of salmon killed by diseases at Scottish fish farms rose to more than 8.5 million last year.

New figures released by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) reveal losses from all salmon farms have reached nearly 10% of production.

The main problem has been the spread of amoebic gill disease, blamed by some on the warmer seas caused by climate pollution.

In 2012, 13,627 tonnes of dead fish had to be disposed of by 230 fish farms along the west coast and on the islands, compared with 9717 tonnes in 2011 and 7159 tonnes in 2010.

This has raised questions about how such large amounts of diseased waste are safely disposed of, and how the process is regulated. Sepa and local authorities both say it is not their responsibility.

Anglers and environmentalists pin the blame on production methods and are demanding a halt to any expansion plans.

“It is clear from these massive mortality figures there are major problems,” said Hugh Campbell Adamson, the chairman of the Salmon and Trout Association in Scotland. “When a large number of fish are closely confined, the likelihood of endemic disease is greatly increased.”

Fish farmer Grieg Seafood declined to comment.

HeraldScotland

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/disease-deaths-on-salmon-farms-soar.20177714

A Wish for The Children of Gaza

Posted November 19, 2012

Filed under Childhood, Christmas, Current Affairs, Life, Thoughts

The full moon rises above Bealtaine Cottage.

Last night there was a new moon, somewhere in the sky.

Often times I watch the moon and think of all those it shines upon.

Many dark nights, when the stars fill the sky with their own light show and shooting stars leave a momentary arch in the night sky, I make a wish.

In the cold November air of a Sunday night in the west of Ireland, I made a wish, a heartfelt wish, for The Children of Gaza.

It was quite a simple wish too.

There was nothing of Christmas, Santa or presents galore.

Nothing to do with Disney, or mince pies, or turkey.

It was simply this…

That somewhere here in the western world, there will be one human being, one hero, one person of compassion and integrity, a leader, who will stand up for what is right.

One brave person and true… for there is one, at least…

Just one, who will say, “No more!”

One who will stand in front of the Children of Gaza and say…”You shall not pass…not on my watch!”

The days when one associated a political leader with integrity and justice are over.

Their mandate appears to be greed and psychopathy.

One can still wish.

Last night I made a wish…

A Christmas Childhood

Posted November 17, 2012

Filed under Childhood, Christmas, Cottage, Country Living, Folklore, Inspiration, Ireland, Poetry, Winter

A Christmas Childhood

by

Patrick Kavanagh

(Bealtaine Cottage in the snow…looking down the driveway in the week before Christmas, 2010.)

One side of the potato-pits was white with frost-

How wonderful that was, how wonderful!

And when we put our ears to the paling-post

The music that came out was magical.

The light between the ricks of hay and straw

Was a hole in Heaven’s gable. An apple tree

With its December-glinting fruit we saw-

O you, Eve, were the world that tempted me.

(Bealtaine Cottage in the winter of 2010, just coming into the driveway.)

To eat the knowledge that grew in clay

And death the germ within it! Now and then

I can remember something of the gay

Garden that was childhood’s. Again

The tracks of cattle to a drinking-place,

A green stone lying sideways in a ditch

Or any common sight the transfigured face

Of a beauty that the world did not touch.

My father played the melodeon

Outside at our gate;

There were stars in the morning east

And they danced to his music.

(A winter sky at Bealtaine Cottage in the frozen winter of 2010)

Across the wild bogs his melodeon called

To Lennons and Callans

As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry

I knew some strange thing had happened.

(The Blackbird at Bealtaine Cottage.)

Outside in the cow-house my mother

Made the music of milking;

The light of her stable-lamp was a star

And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.

A water-hen screeched in the bog,

Mass-going feet

Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,

Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.

(Moon-rise before Midwinter at Bealtaine Cottage, 2010.)

My child poet picked out the letters

On the grey stone,

In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,

The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.

Cassiopeia was over

Cassidy’s hanging hill,

I looked and three whin bushes rode across

The horizon-the Three Wise Kings.

An old man passing said:

‘Can’t he make it talk’-

The melodeon. I hid in the doorway

And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.

I nicked six nicks on the door-post

With my penknife’s big blade-

There was a little one for cutting tobacco.

And I was six Christmases of age.

(Bealtaine Cottage in a snowstorm, Christmas 2010.)

My father played the melodeon,

My mother milked the cows,

And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned

On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.

by Patrick Kavanagh

You have been reading a blog from “Bealtaine Cottage”.

The Bealtaine Cottage Press presents…

“A Cottage and Three Acres,” by Colette O’Neill

Please email Colette if you would like a particular inscription in your book. From a desolate cottage set in 3 acres of monoculture sadness, to a vibrant, thriving food forest of life…the journey back to Eden over 13 years… Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.

€27.00

Magical Mythical Map of Bealtaine Cottage and Gardens

Beautiful map created by the artist David Gascoigne, especially for Bealtaine Cottage. The picture shows one side of the map…it is printed on both sides, see the photos on this page. The price includes all Postage and Packing to wherever you live in the world! Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.

€12.00

Bealtaine Cottage Guide to the Deep Midwinter

A little Yuletide book filled with colour photographs, recipes, reflections, lore, poetry and mirth to guide you through the wonderful days ahead. Fifty pages of sheer delight from Bealtaine Cottage to you. The book is fully bound and can be posted direct as a gift. Price includes P&P worldwide. Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.

€15.00

Special Offer: Goddess Book and Midwinter Book

In Search of the Goddess Rising and The Bealtaine Cottage Guide to the Deep Midwinter…both books normally cost €36.00 but can be purchased together for for €32.00 which includes P&P Worldwide. Bealtaine Books and Maps are printed in Ireland and posted from Ireland to support the people of Ireland.

€32.00

SPECIAL OFFER! Reduced to clear… Bealtaine Cottage Calendar for 2019

Price includes postage and packing worldwide! The calendar hosts a page of colour photographs from Bealtaine Cottage for each month of the year. The months of the year are written in Celtic script…ie: May is Bealtaine, August is Lughnasadh and so on…many of you are already familiar with the Celtic Calendar. The pictures on each month also feature some added wisdom from Bealtaine Cottage and information on the ancient festivals of Celtic Ireland.

€9.95

Calendar and Map

Special offer: Purchase the Calendar and Map together! Cost was €27.00…Special Offer €20.00! Price includes postage to anywhere in the world!

€20.00

Calendar and Midwinter Book

Special Offer! Purchase the Calendar together with the Bealtaine Cottage Guide to the Deep Midwinter for the special price of €23.00 The usual price is €30.00 Price includes postage to anywhere in the world!

€23.00

Thank you for supporting Bealtaine Cottage

Bealtaine Cottage Calendar 2020 NOW REDUCED!

This calendar celebrates the magic of Bealtaine and the evolution to a Sanctuary for Life. The Hare was viewed by the ancient Celts as being the link between this world and the Otherworld-a supernatural world which is directly linked to nature. The Hare is known for being able to run between our world and the 'Otherworld'. Shapeshifters are widely known in Ireland to take on the form of the Hare. This is told in the famous story of the Celtic warrior Oisín. The Hare guards both the entrance to and exit from, the Fairy Wood at Bealtaine. The Calendar, which features over 50 photographs and all the Celtic festivals, includes Postage and packing WORLDWIDE and can be posted on your behalf as a gift, from Bealtaine Cottage, Ireland. (Pre-orders now accepted) WAS: 16.50€ INCL P&P NOW: 13.50€ INCL P&P

€13.50

January 2020
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Oct
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

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Living in a time when the cost of food is rising day on day, it might be time to re-think the lawn! This is what Bill Mollison, one of the founders of the Permaculture movement has to say on the subject:

Over the past few days I have been busy converting this little shed into a new hen house and run…food to swap and share…fresh eggs! it is going to be a simple enough barter, swapping a sack of logs for nine eggs. Most logs are traded at 3.50 a sack, so that’s a fair swap!

That makes a good swap as eggs are getting more expensive by the day and the logs will be delivered to my door! I just have to ensure that the hen house and run are secure against Mr ans Mrs Fox and family!

As Spring moves across the land, a drying wind is working its magic on the earth. The greening is under-way.

The view from the sitting room window is being filled in like a ‘Painting By Numbers,’ canvas. Ash trees are the last to get their leaves and so stand proud in all their silver glory against temperamental Spring skies.

This is the beautiful Field Maple to the front of the cottage.

Continuing my lifelong passion for trees…this is a wall tile I made from clay…complete with tree, a fairy tree.

The lone Fairy Thorn one often sees growing in the middle of fields here in Ireland served as my inspiration. They are often windswept and leaning away from the west.

Even cream came in little stoneware jars like this, as it kept cool in the pantry in the days before every home had a fridge!

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

The morning was misty, with an autumnal feel in the air…cool and damp with dew. Cobwebs hung on trees and bushes, sometimes stretching for metres in the air.

It felt so liberating to just amble around with tea in one hand, camera in the other and not be oppressed with heat.

I don’t tolerate heat too well and look forward to autumn, it being my favourite season of all. The early morning sun began to evaporate the mist, bringing to mind the day ahead and all that needed to be done.

I love the time in the morning before any other creature has stirred…it’s magical and charged with a wonderful energy.

I was born and grew up in a tiny two bedroom house in Omagh, shared with parents and 8 siblings, so have come to appreciate the calm, before the day begins in earnest.

Quiet, early mornings, hold a sacred space for the mind.

Early morning, as the sun rises, is an almost different world…a world apart from the mundane and expected.

A world filled with possibilities, hopes and plans.

And the setting sun carries away the hot day, into the embrace of another cool, welcome night.

Share this:

Like this:

Thankfully it rained for most of the night!

Not a lot of people would be happy to report that, but as a grower, the dry heat of recent weeks has been a close call for the younger plants!

The water barrels have filled and the well is finally sending more than a trickle to the cottage!

More peas and beans were planted out yesterday, so this rain will bed them in nicely!

If it was possible to bottle the Earth Scents outside in the gardens, then I’d be a millionaire and could buy lots more land to plant trees on!

There is another Earth Sense though…one we all need to tune into…one that ensures a sense of well-being.

A sense of belonging to the environment around us.

Living in a small cottage ensures much time spend outdoors during the day, something that was common place for many people until fairly recent times.

The advent of TV ensured more and more people lived indoors and not out.

I recall as a child spending much of the day outdoors, as there just wasn’t room in the house to play!

Walking outdoors can add to a sense of well-being, even in the rain.

The healing aspects of Nature are being continually distilled into medication by the pharmaceutical corporations, yet remains inherent all around us.

Nature massages the soul!

Being outside with plants, trees, wildlife, Nature, animals and birdsong, is unbeatably good for ones’ mental health!

Nature is real and alive, strong but gentle and always there for us despite the abuse we fling at her.

It is something that cannot be put into a pill and certainly not for sale in a bottle!

Share this:

Like this:

Many people ask if they can visit Bealtaine Cottage Permaculture Gardens and I always try to oblige if it’s at all possible!

Some advance notice is welcome, as life on 3 acres on one’s own can get pretty full on at times.

Last evening I was called by a friend, who wanted to know if she could bring a neighbour of hers to visit Bealtaine.

Her neighbour referred to me as “the woman who plants the trees!”

(By the way, it’s a beautiful morning as you can see from the pics!)

It’s an odd thing to do really, plant trees…so far over 900 planted!

Odd, in so far as so few people get this obsessed! Trees change every aspect of one’s life.

As I sit here typing this blog, the birdsong is magical and very loud!

My childhood was impoverished as far as trees were concerned.

I grew up in a tiny terraced house with no garden, just row upon row of slate roofs and grey walls.

My first encounter with trees was at school.

Entering the gates of the Convent school grounds, greenery enveloped me.

My childhood was transformed by the gardens of Loreto Convent.

I recently returned and collected seed from the convent grounds in Omagh, to grow on here at Bealtaine Cottage.

Visitors bring me trees.

Subscribers to this blog send me tree seeds, from all over the world.

I dream about trees.

I have left instructions to be buried in a woodland…let a tree rise from me!

Share this:

Like this:

The tipping point has been reached.

Reading this report from yesterday quantifies everything that is wrong with our approach to food.

You see, Salmon, used to be a seasonal food.

Much like other seasonal foods, it was enjoyed as a celebration of a particular time of year.

I remember this time as a child.

The salmon would return to Ireland to spawn…swimming furiously up the rivers to lay their eggs in dark, sometimes shallow, pools of freshwater, having survived a momentous journey across the Atlantic Ocean and into the fast, freshwater rivers of the west of Ireland.

It was easy enough to catch them, though not always legal, but then people rarely took more than they could eat or share.

We had no fridge in our tiny house and no freezer.

Barely standing room for parents and eleven children!

The salmon was a great supplement to a frugal diet and the men seemed to understand the value of the sacred fish, for they were regarded as such in the old ways.

The Salmon of Wisdom.

The Salmon of Knowledge.

There was a sense of compassion by the banks of the River Strule in Omagh.

An empathy even with this most magical of all fish… Fish Farms put an end to all this, injecting a venom of disconnect into the veins of human beings.

Greed over-ruled millennia of links between human and salmon.

This is what I have just read from yesterday’s paper…