Category: environment
Midsummer 2016 in a Permaculture Garden
First Flight…
And here it is, the very first flight of the baby Bluetits!
As you can see, one of the parents is feeding the nestlings.
I was lucky to get this shot as the birds are so very fast!
This is the first one to put it’s head out of the box.
The parents will feed their young almost round the clock!
Blue Tits feed mostly on insects, especially caterpillars, and seeds.
Through this feeding, pattern the birds are of great assistance to the gardener in her attempt at natural pest control.
And here we go…
Subscribe…
Make a purchase…
Or even…
Thank you for supporting this blog
Bealtaine Cottage Podcast from the Gardens
Listen to the first podcast from the gardens at Bealtaine Cottage…birdsong is free!
In The End There Is Only Love
Climate Change…The Elephant in the Room
The conference in Paris is underway as I write this.
World leaders have gathered to discuss, debate, harangue and eventually come to some agreement…hopefully!
However, there are two aspects of any agreement, that the mainstream media will ignore, in their reporting of the biggest threat to face humankind ever!
The first one is evident to anyone living in the developed world: we have to consume less, much less and, in fact, change our entire perspective of how we live with this planet…not, as many say, on this planet!
This means reducing consumption of consumer goods, oil, but, more importantly, changing our diets and expectations.
We have become used to buying food from all over the world, holidaying all over the world, eating more meat than any other generation before us and living in homes where heat is supplied at the flick of a switch.
You will not hear political leaders talk such talk, as this has no place in “economic growth”…
Western society in it’s present form is unsustainable…even without the massive problem of Climate Change!
(For example…did you know that there are, today, nearly 65 billion animals worldwide, including cows, chickens and pigs, crammed into Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs)…Factory Farms to you and me!)
We eat meat as a snack food…unheard of when I grew up!
However, much as the mainstream media ignore much of the above, there remains a most important part of this problem unspoken of…
War and the Military machines of increasingly feudal governments. They’re right up there in the major league of Climate destroyers!
Did Al Gore even mention the devastating impact of endless wars and military in his money-spinning presentation?
No!
Why?
It was an Inconvenient Truth.
It represents the Elephant in the Room that no-one wants to talk about!
Last year, the UK government spent $60.5Billion on Defence.
A huge amount of money that could have provided solar power and retro-fitted insulation to millions of homes…yes, millions!
Here’s an article that evaluates the US military’s impact on climate http://www.countercurrents.org/smith261115.htm
“Militarism is single greatest institutional contributor to the growing natural disasters intensified by global warming.” 
~J Lawrence
Some of the facts, should you care to research them are staggering… for example, an F-4 Phantom Fighter burns more than 1,600 gallons of jet fuel per hour!
It is interesting that the spin on war and climate change has already begun, with the media posing the question does climate change cause war and refugees.
Refugees do not cause climate change.
It is time we did a little number crunching for ourselves!
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…
The Dominant Motive
Why should we all labour to enrich the banks?
It is when profit becomes the dominant motive that the cycle of disaster begins.
~John Seymour
This month, March 2015, saw one of the biggest and certainly the most expensive building in Europe to be opened, amid a flurry of protests.
It had cost over 1.3 Billion Euros to construct in a time of imposed austerity.
This monstrosity was the new headquarters of the ECB-European Central Bank based in Frankfurt in Germany!
This has come in the midst of some of the most severe austerity ever imposed on the people of Europe post WW2.
There is little more to say…it speaks for itself!
Mother Earth is blissfully unaware of man-made austerity…she just keeps growing and giving for those who tend her with love and care.
Hope for the future abounds!
Mother Nature, left unfettered, knows no austerity!
The abundance of the Earth is pushing through at a fast rate here at bealtaine Cottage and this is because the earth here is treated as sacred, nurtured and fed.
On the same subject, I read this piece by George Monbiot recently…
“We’re treating soil like dirt. It’s a fatal mistake, because all human life depends on it.” ~George Monbiot http://gu.com/p/47vg4/stw
This is so important if we are to avoid hunger in generations to come…we must give back to the Earth, for she gives unrelentingly to us all.
On a related subject, I was thinking about the mantra I live by…”Don’t throw it away, there is no away!”
It’s time to introduce a deposit scheme on every take-away piece of packaging!
Make it worthwhile for rubbish to be collected and returned!
If every plastic bottle, cup, bag,etc had a deposit attached to it, there would be no rubbish on roadsides in Ireland!
It is clear that the present economic model works by imposing its waste products on the environment!
This has got to change if there is to be any sort of decent future for our children and grandchildren!
On that note, time for a large pot of tea and a chat with Sammy-Bear!
I have spent the morning updating the Seeds for Sale page…here’s a link to the Permaculture Seeds Treasure Trove…
http://bealtainecottage.com/seeds-for-sale/
Bealtaine Cottage is free and has over 850 blogs, as well as over 3,500 photographs.
Bealtaine Cottage Good Life is a mere 12 euros per year and allows me a small income, to keep doing what I love doing most…writing about Mother Earth and photographing her.
To subscribe, a small donation of 12 euros per year, will add your name to the subscriber list.
Click on button below to join the website…
Thanks for your support!
Bealtaine Cottage YouTube is free from adverts, with over 100 videos to date.
Bealtaine Cottage Podcast is a free service.
A Feast of Autumn
Autumn in the permaculture gardens continues in a glow.
It’s near mid October…my favourite month, my birthday month!
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Stoves are keeping the cottage and the lodge warm and snug.
The nip in the morning and evening air is quite tangible.
In the scheme of things, Autumn is an exuberant finale to the year, filled with colour and joy, mindful of all that’s passed and all left to come, as the descent towards midwinter moves ceaselessly on.
“The tints of autumn…a mighty flower garden blossoming under the spell of the enchanter, frost.”
― John Greenleaf Whittier
Perlagoniums resist the cold, staying in full flower, continuing in their summer glory.
The pink roses of Midsummer have passed, leaving behind the fruits of each visiting bee…rose-hips hang plump upon the branches.
Wisteria turns golden on the veranda.
The morning and evening air hangs heavy and still, laden with mist.
“GATHERING LEAVES
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?”
― Robert Frost
Salix Contorta and Honesty catch the morning sun.
“I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn; —
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.”
― Thomas Hood
“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love – that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one’s very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”
[Letter to Miss Eliot, Oct. 1, 1841]”
― George Eliot
“And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days…”
― Dylan Thomas, Collected Poems
“I ate breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five miles to the station through the most glorious October colouring. The sun came up on the way, and the swamp maples and dogwood glowed crimson and orange and the stone walls and cornfields sparkled with hoar frost; the air was keen and clear and full of promise. I knew something was going to happen. ”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs
“Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies.”
― Sharon Kay Penman, Time and Chance
“There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing … The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.”
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
The Magical and The Sacred
It is a rare thing…to be lost for words.
A day in Autumn that changes one perspective on life and the meaning of it all.
Where shall I begin?
Perhaps where I started, this morning, camera in my dressing gown pocket and mug of hot coffee in my hand, traipsing out in rubber clogs onto grass saturated with morning dew.
Or maybe, a little earlier, as this year began, immersed in deep sadness, as my mother made her own journey back to the Divine.
But the Wheel, as they say, turns and the beauty of the Sacred overcomes the grief of the mortal…I stepped out…
What magic lies in Nature that transforms barren into life again and again?
The gardens have emerged this year as Woodland…and my mother loved walking in the woods.
Come walk with me…
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
***
Blessings X