By the end of Spring I am grounded in reality. There will have been some successes and some failures. I will know whether we are on track for a good harvest or whether I will need to source some plug plants.

This year I have failed at french beans. I put them in the ground too early and the slugs arrived. They came swiftly and decimated them, almost overnight. I had already sown an additional lot as back up, and it is now apparent that we will need them. I think, out of around 16 plants, only 4 of the first sowing are surviving. Note that I said surviving. Definitely not thriving.

I have learnt not to plant out too early, so this was a daft mistake on my part. I still have pumpkins, sunflowers, dahlias and salad greens to plant out even though we are now in June. This, I tell myself, is absolutely fine. They are being cosseted in the polytunnel for at least another three or four days until I can clear space for them.

In other news, the Lupins are blooming. This means traditionally that bees will swarm. Not so my bees, who decided to start the Spring with a bang, and let their urge to swarm kick in early. After a few telephone calls with my Mentor, I now have three colonies going, and everyone of them is busy building up food and babies. This is a first for me, as I am usually late to the party and have more than once gone outside between early June rainstorms to find a swarm dangling from a tree branch. Now, I always have a spare hive set up, just in case.

I like the idea of hands off beekeeping, but also feel a sense of responsibilty, as I am the one that brought them here. I really love to spend time with the bees. Sitting at the side of a hive in late afternoon and watching the forager bees return is one of my favourite things to do. I suppose you could put it under the titles of slow living or mindfulness. For me it is just checking in with friends.

Spring brought new life in the form of chicks and ducklings. This year was a first for me, in that we used a small incubator rather than a broody hen. The reason for this being that quite a few of my hens are getting on a bit, and whilst they like the idea of going broody, then don’t necessarily have the staying power. I was also given the chicken eggs from my brother, and didn’t have a broody hen at the time. (I have since had three go on-and-off brooding.)

The eggs contained the smallest chickens I have ever seen. They looked like children’s toys. Even now, at almost four months old, they are each smaller than a football. I fear for their safety in the free-roaming world of our smallholding, so they are confined to a run. I have seen several birds of prey hanging about and think that these little birds would maybe make the perfect quarry.

Not so the ducklings. They were a bit of a shock after the sweet, delicate little chicks. Within 24 hours they already looked too big for the shells they came from. At two weeks they were too big for the brooder and now, at four weeks they are almost the same size as their parents. Although they are big, they don’t have the street smarts of an older duck, so they too are confined for most of the day just now, with a few hours of supervised ranging around the garden.

I feel like Spring went by quickly. It feels strange to be entering Summer and it doesn’t feel like we should be there yet. The weather, although warm, is overcast and damp. Everything is growing at a pace I can’t keep up with. Especially the weeds.

I am back making hot compost piles, after giving up on them for a while. I could never get the knack, despite doing quite a bit of research. This year though, I seem to have it sussed. Mainly because I am having to do a daily poop collection from the elderly horses here, who are now on restricted grazing in their retirement. This poop added to the soiled bedding of pigs, chickens and goats in layers gets really hot. I top off with a thatch of straw to keep moisture locked in and the worst of the rain out and it seems to be working. This really gets me hyped up. Soil and compost are things I can get really into. The difference between a mulched and unmulched plant is mad.

The hot compost being…hot.

I listened to a podcast recently. It was either Why Women Grow or it was Talking Gardens I can’t remember which. On the podcast the person being interviewed talked about how sad plants send out distress signals that let slugs and bugs know they aren’t feeling too good. I knew this, but hadn’t applied it to my own garden. I chuck compost into the holes I have dug for new trees, and I use it for starting seeds in, but for some reason I am stingy at using it around existing plants. This year I am changing that, mainly by going on a compost making bender so it doesn’t feel like such a precious resource, but also because it is stupid to sow a seed, tend the seedling, plant it out and then watch it struggle in less than good soil. I know, this is all painfully obvious but what can I say? Some times I am just that blockheaded. (Incidentally, the term “blockhead” dates back to the 1500s and refers to the wooden blocks used by hat makers, meaning someone who is as dense as a block of wood.)

The next few weeks will see me mulching, planting out and worrying about water (if it doesn’t rain.) I also want to get back into some outdoor swimming. I am reading Roger Deakin’s book Waterlog at the moment, and like many who have read this book, it has made me want to get back in the river. We are lucky to live near a streach that is not badly polluted. I can’t for certain say not at all, but there are fish in there and it is a popular fishing river in this part of the world, so it stays pretty clear. There is always the risk of a fish hook in the foot though, so surf shoes are pretty important. I may look daft, but I would rather that than a hook through my toes.

I may not be quite ready to move on from Spring, but Summer is shaping up to be pretty promising. If the weather can just behave, and the midges not get out of hand that is.

Over and over.

The machinery used was huge, and the soil groaned under the weight of it, compacting ever more, until the plough came and tore up whatever soil microbes had managed to survive the abusive cycle.

The first vegetable I tried to grow here was kale. I bought a pack of six from a local shop. I prepped the ground and planted them, and watched them whither and die within a matter of days. Something was very, very wrong.

I went back to the basics. Testing soil the old way, rolling a lump of earth in my hand, coiling and twisting it to discover it was a heavy clay. I bought a soil test to gather pH and other data. What it all showed was a sorry affair.

The soil was depleted of minerals and life, and depleted of love. No human had loved this place in a long, long time. Why would they? It was north facing, with no distinguishing features. There are prettier places with better views nearby. So, I decided, I needed to love this place with all that I could. I needed to make amends for the years and years of abusive extraction that this bit of land had endured. Now was the time to give and not expect much in return for a while.

We bought a small number of animals on to the land. They started the slow process of fertilising the ground as we rotated them through the fields. Never staying in one place too long to damage it, just long enough to leave their dung and all of the microbes that come with it.

Soil building is rewarding, but it is also something that doesn’t get many people excited. It goes on underground and you can’t really see much without a microscope. I got excited by soil thanks to my daughter and her recommendation of Nicole Masters book “For the Love of Soil”. I listened to the audiobook all Summer long back in 2015, determined to put what I was learning into action.

If you have the money, you can rectify soil by buying in good compost in vast amounts. I don’t have the money, so instead I compost like mad, and spend too much time making weird concoctions from seaweed, nettles and comfrey to feed to my plants. It is slow, rewarding and makes me feel like an earth witch.

Weeds

One thing we do have an abundance of is weeds. I know, I know. A weed is just a plant in the wrong place. Well, we have a lot of plants in the wrong place. Especially dockens. If you turn your back on a garden bed for more than a day or two, a tiny baby docken will appear. Their seed can remain viable for eighty years. So, the seed bank here will outlive me. Quite a sobering thought.

Rather than spend my days battling against what could be an insurmountable enemy, I have decided instead to try and embrace them as part of the landscape that makes up my wild and ragged garden space. They still won’t be welcomed in the raised beds, but by concentraing my efforts and turning a blind eye to their proliferation in other areas, I feel like I can make peace with them. Maybe even grow to love them?

The first thing I learnt about dockens is that they actually support over 80 insect species. Everything from butterflies and moths to grubs and beetles all rely on them. The Green Dock Beetle is quite something, with iridescent green colouring, they can create leaf skeletons that are rather lovely to look at. Garden Tiger Moth Caterpillar also feeds on the leaves. I really love Tiger Moths, their patterning is, well, tiger-like. They are also an acceptable sized moth. Some of the ones we get here are huge and have very little understanding of personal space. Tigers seem to understand this concept and will flutter prettily out of range of my face.

Clouded Buff Moths also feed on them. These moths have the curious appearance of someone taking a red felt tip pen and gently outlining their wings. They too are an acceptable size and don’t get all up in my business.

Then there are Ghost moths.

Their larvae feed on dock roots (amongst other things that I would rather they left well alone). They can remain as larvae for up to two years but once they transform into their moth form, things get really weird. The males are entirely white, which is where the ghost bit comes from, and they don’t have a mouth so cannot feed. Which is, let’s face it is SUPER WEIRD. They usually live only one, or maybe two days. I can’t imagine how disappointing it would be to go from hungry caterpillar to mouthless moth.

Culinary Uses of dockens

Some people say you can eat the leaves and that they have a lovely lemony taste. There is evidence that people used to grind the seeds up and make a flour out of them but, honestly, why would you? The leaves are high in oxalic acid making them bitter and the time and hassle of gathering and then grinding the seeds doesn’t fill me with joy. I feel with regards to dockens as a foodstuff, I am clutching at straws.

A moment of realisation

Do you know...I’m not doing this.

Here I am, trying to find all the good things about dockens. Perhaps, just as it is with people, I should accept it for exactly what it is. A tough cookie, a not welcome every where member of our plant family. It isn’t all bad, but in the volume we have here, it isn’t great either.

It just…is.

Perhaps that is what I should be doing. Rather than trying to find the silver lining, just find acceptance and a way to co-exist.

So, docken is here, and it is very much here to stay. It outnumbers me by the 100’s, probably the 1000’s. I am not going to eat it, I am probably going to swear at it occasionally but I am also going to give it a break.

I may not ever love it, but I reckon I can learn to live with it.

Honeybees are incredible. They are individuals that come together to become one organism. A hive is kept to the same temperature as the human body. A swarm looks like a single living creature. I like many, am in awe of how they live and function as a society.

Honeybees are brutal. At the end of the Summer they will evict all the male drones. I have a soft spot for these stingless, clumsy fellas. They wander about the hive, bumping into their busy sisters and generally getting in the way. Their sole purpose in life is to die with a Queen on a mating flight. Those that don’t achieve this goal will be removed from the hive at the start of Autumn. I have seen worker bees tear drones in half, and I have seen the girls become tiny bouncers, refusing re-entry to the lads, who will eventually succumb to the cold and die.

Not for the faint hearted.

I have not found beekeeping to be therapeutic This perhaps is the biggest lie I was told before I brought bees here. Every year since I started out there has been a challenge, a cold wet Spring, a too dry Summer. Wasp plagues and swallows stealing bees on the wing. No two seasons the same. Climate change is happening to the bees far faster than is obvious to our human eyes perhaps?

I have a mentor who has been keeping bees for over forty years. She tells me it was easier in the past, that the bees kept to a seasonal pattern but that these patterns are disrupted and no longer reliable, and each year has to be learnt anew. This, plus the thought of disease and mites that can wipe out a colony, keep me awake at night. Beehosting can bring heartbreak. I lost two colonies to wasps last year. I spent hours trying to save them, crying through my veil and sobbing when they were eventually overrun.

Checking a hive is an excerise in mindfulness. You have to be fully present when you are delving into the home of 40,000+ stinging creatures. Learning to read the hive from what is going on at the entrance and then following this up with a check of the frames within requires good eyesight and attention to detail.

Breathing is important.

For the first year I kept holding my breath when inspecting. It made me feel dizzy and wobbly. I have never felt fear though, as I trust the bees. They came from my mentor, and they are kind. They tolerated my early clumsiness, only raising their voices in warning, never actually getting too angry at me.

I have been stung twice. Once by a bee who got stuck in my hair, and once on my hand when I accidentally squashed a poor worker who was minding her own business. Neither of these were when the hive was open. Both were my own fault.

Beekeeping is an art. I watch my mentor at work, she handles them like they are her children. Carefully and calmly and with reverence. She speaks to them throughout “Clever girls!” When she sees a beautiful brood pattern and “Hello, your highness” when she spots the Queen. It is a habit I have taken and expanded upon.

I find myself talking to all the creatures. A centipede in the compost. The swallows that nest in the shed. The hardy kiwi plant in the polytunnel that desperately needs a prune, but which I can’t quite bring myself to chop. I talk to them all.

Don’t do it for the honey

Would I recommend bees as a hobby? It depends. If your goal is to obtain honey, I would suggest bypassing getting bees, and finding a local keeper and buying in bulk from them. It is easier and less work. Some years I have had hardly any honey at all, as I will only take the excess the bees make. The honey is a bonus. The real work of the honeybee is in pollination. We have had an abundance of fruit since the bees arrived. When the tree blossom comes out, you can hear the buzzing. It is as though the tree itself is vibrating.

I think I will always have bees. Whilst other animals may pass in and out of our lives through the years, I cannot imagine not having a hive in the garden. It would feel like I had lost a part of me. I don’t know where I would take my coffee on a warm Spring morning. Sitting quietly beside the hive, watching the bees come and go is one of my favourite Summer activities.

Talk to me.

Telling the bees is an old practice.

Traditionally, you would tell the bees of important life events such as births and deaths. It was common to drape a hive in black cloth for mourning of a passed beekeeper. Telling the bees is a practice that has been in existence for more than 600 years. Not informing the bees risked them absconding. Bees were believed to be messengers between this world and the next.

I have told the bees of those that have left this world, and I tell them of those who are struggling and in need of a spiritual lift. It may seem like a lot to put on such a tiny creature, but if you have ever been eye to eye with a honeybee, you can see their souls are deeper than we can fathom.

For us, it was making a wrong turn that led us here.

We had been living rurally in another part of the British Isles for a while, when we decided to move closer to family and into a small town. We bought a big house on a small plot and thought that we would live there for a long time.

Turns out that owning a big house isn’t what it is cracked up to be. It was an old in need of repair, which meant we needed money. Which we didn’t really have in abdundance after paying our mortgage, bills and general living costs. It was work, and not the kind that I loved.

I could see the kids struggling with the confinement of living in a town. They enjoyed the closeness of cousins, and the playparks and libraries in walking distance, but there was something just not quite right. The moment I realised this was when I observed my two middle boys scaling the big stone wall that separated us from our neighbours. They were confined. We all were.

So we decided to start looking for a new place to call home. This time with space. We found nothing in our budget. We looked and looked. We stopped viewing places as there seemed little point in getting our hopes up only to be outbid by embarrassing amounts.

After six months of searching I saw an advert for a bit of land two hours north. It was a field being sold by a farmer. It seemed cheap for the size so we assumed it was the usual low asking price that would go for much, much more. We put in an offer without making the trek to view it.

A couple of days later we had a phone call to say that our offer had been accepted.

In a bit of a panic we piled the kids into the car and drove up the country to take a look. It was not what we had been looking for. It was in fact, the complete opposite. We had been dreaming of a ruin in the woods. Instead we had bought 15 acres of a commerical arable farm. There was a crop of barley in the fields. No real trees save for a fallen ash dumped to one side.

And yet, it had something of a promise about it. At the base of the field on the other side of the farm track there was a small winding burn in a scrap of woodland, and behind the fields at the top of the hill there was a dense forest. It felt like it was just waiting to be loved, and that was something I was sure we could do.

We moved in the Summer. First in tents, then into a small tourer caravan. Six of us in the smallest living space we had ever had. We had no power, no running water. Every single chore took planning. I worried that the kids would hate it, and hate us.

There were some tears (mostly from me) but overall, they seemed to see the move as an adventure. They pretty much lived outside. Our days were full and our nights were cosy.

After a few months we bought an old static caravan. It arrived just before the weather turned and it felt like luxury. The children took the two bedrooms and we slept on the sofabed in the living room. We installed a woodburner and got creative with storage. It was a sweet space to spend our first Christmas on the land.

After two years we built a large shed and moved into that. Once again our space increased and I for one, was thankful to have a kitchen with running water (cold only) and for the kids to have their own spaces, just in time for them to reach their teenage years.

We had solar power by now. Still limited, but enough that we could run laptops, lights and in the Summer, a small fridge. We still didn’t have hot running water and would heat a large pan on the woodburner for dishes and washing.

Those first few years went by fast. We tried, we failed and we learnt. We became more resilient. We sold our house and paid off the debt on the land. We were free from the financial burdens that were keeping us held in place. It felt wonderful and weird and frightening to be without the safety net of “the system”.

Throughout this time I read as much as I could about permaculture, silvopasture, forest gardening and living lightly on the land. I read Ben Falk, Toby Hemenway, Patrick Whitfield, David Holmgren, Alan Carter, Graham Bell, Nathaniel Hughes and many more. Good stewardship of the land started to matter more and more.

Oh, the land.

The first year we lived here I planted a small garden bed of kale and cabbage plants. They all died in the first week. It was then I realised I had a problem. The previous owner had grown crops on the land by using intensive farming methods. He had sprayed, ploughed, sown and sprayed again. He had scraped the land to allow big machinery in, dumping the topsoil and leaving a dead layer of earth that smelt sour and grew very little.

I listened to Nicole Masters read her book “For the Love of Soil” to me as I worked to bring some fertility to the earth. We brought in poultry, sheep, horses, goats and pigs to help build the soil up. We planted trees, put up deer fences and scattered green manures. Slowly, slowly the ground woke up.

This morning I took hay to our three old horses in their Winter pasture. The field is dotted with molehills. Whilst some would see this as a problem, I see success. To have moles present means there are earthworms When we first moved here, I struggled to find the worms. Now they are here in their droves.

We have an abundance now that I dreamt about twelve years ago. Apple, plum and cherry trees. Currants and raspberries. Salad crops, tomatoes, brassicas and root vegetables. Eggs from the poultry, meat and manure from the animals. So much.

From what was a simple desire to leave the town and move back to country, we accidentally found ourselves on a path to a different way of life. Off-grid living isn’t for everyone, and it can be really hard. When the systems fail, there isn’t anyone to call. You are the system. It soon becomes apparent that you need back-ups for your back-ups.

When you generate your own electricity, you become acutely aware of how much you really need. We don’t have hairdryers, or fancy kitchen appliances. I have a small hand blender and a sturdy Kitchenaid. That is it. No electric kettle, toaster, airfryer or coffee machine. We have a stovetop kettle, we toast bread on the woodburner and coffee is made in a stainless steel mocha pot (and tastes so much better, in my opinon.)

It will have been twelve years this Summer, and I can’t really see us changing. In 2024 we finally completed the build of our home. It has been designed with the future in mind. We have a pantry on the north side of the house, a large woodburning stove that is enclosed in a brick fireplace that retains the heat. The insulation is solid, and the most has been made of solar gain in the living space.

There is still so much to do. We have plans to build a small barn, dig a large pond, create a small summerhouse facing West for evening sun and so many other ongoing projects that are a whole other post in themselves.

I think that is probably the truth for most people who garden, or have a small parcel of land. You are never truly “done”. There is always another project bubbling away in the back of your mind, a tweak to a system or an improvement to be made.

I wonder sometimes, what will happen here after I am gone? Will one of my children want to take on the small farm? Who will prune the apple trees? Perhaps no one will want it, and the house will fall into disrepair and nature will start to claim the land back. Perhaps a hundred years after I am gone, someone will stumble upon the ruins and wonder who built it.

Perhaps they will see the w

ild raspberry canes, roses and unkempt trees and realise that it was a loved place that held a family through uncertain times.

I wrote a very long essay about my grandparents and then shelved it. It was too personal and more of a remembering for me. I am thinking about them a lot at the moment, as this month marks both the birthday of one and the passing of the other. It is a weird little fact that my Grandad passed away a few days before my Grandmother’s birthday, and she, in turn many years later died not long after his Birthday.

I don’t know why, but I find a comfort in the entanglement of their births and deaths. It is the reminder that you can’t have one without the other, or something like that. I don’t seem to have the right words to explain it, but I hope it makes sense.

Spring also reminds me of them. I know that I am supposed to feel closer to them at Samhain when the veil is thin, but that doesn’t seem to really work for me. Spring is when the garden comes to life, and it’s when I feel like they come back to me too.

I spent a lot of time with my Grandparents as a child. I was lucky, because they were a constant in what would have otherwise been quite a turbulent childhood. Whilst my parents had to figure out their relationship, and ultimately end it, my Grandparents were the best example of a functioning, real and loving partnership.

They both loved their garden and spent endless hours working in it, talking about it, sometimes arguing about it and of course, shopping for it.

My Grandad grew tomatoes in a greenhouse, and I think it is why I also grow them in our polytunnel. The smell of tomato leaves takes me back to his potting shed, sitting on a high stool and watching him gently pot up tomato seedlings. He would be wearing a flat cap, shirt and braces over his old gardening trousers. I wouldn’t dare to talk in case I broke his concentration.

My Grandmother got to see the place we now call home before she passed. It didn’t look like it does now. We were pretty much living in a large shed but she never criticised, seeing only possibilities. She bought me a rose that I planted in the garden. I took cuttings from it a couple of years ago and now have two of them growing. It was the last and most perfect gift she gave me.

I inherited her sewing box. It is a metal biscuit tin, as all good sewing kits are. Still now, ten years since she died, I can open it and smell her distinct scent. I open it rarely for fear of using it all up. It is now for emergency use only.

I inherited other things from her. My love of growing things from seed is one of them. She always had a pot of soil on her windowsil, in which she would press lemon pips and orange seeds. As a result, there was always a small jungle of citrus plants growing and obscuring the view out the window.

Many years ago, I listened to an interview of Daniel Foor, author of “Ancestral Medicine”. In it he talked about how not all Ancestors are good, and that just as they were hurt in their lifetime, some will carry this through to the afterlife. It is something that has stayed with me since hearing it, as it makes perfect sense to me. When I talk to my Grandparents, I make sure I use their names and ask for their help specifically. I know this may sound a little weird, but I am not looking for misguided help from a dodgy source. And there are plenty of dodgy sources in my family line.

A few years ago I went down the ancestry rabbit hole. I was curious to know where I came from. What I found out was at times confusing (pretty sure my great grandfather used forged ID as he has very little records to show) and at other times a little concerning. It seems that there were quite a few shady characters dotted through the family tree. I found court records for wine theft from a tavern, a policeman who deserted the force under suspicious circumstances and workhouse documents. There is something heart wrenching to see your family amongst the most destitute people in the Victorian Era.

By some miracle, we survived and now here I am producing the next generation. Each version of us has enjoyed a more comfortable life than the one that came before. I don’t know if that will still be the case in a generation or more.

I worry about ecological collapse. I worry about climate change, broken food systems and all of the other things that seem to be hanging about on the horizon.

But then we survived plague, clearances, witch hunts and workhouses, so perhaps we have the ability ingrained within to weather what the future brings?

This was not supposed to take such a bleak turn. I planned to write about the Spring garden and my Grandparent’s influence. I grow food because I want to, but not because I need to. If all my crops fail I can go to a supermarket and buy what I need. Each year I put myself through the highs and lows of growing-my-own, and what’s more, I do it willingly.

This work feels important.

My need to grow food comes from a need to develop my skillset, so that should events take a turn, I will be able to feed people. It is why I am trying to get better at preserving and fermenting. One day these skills will be needed. If I can pass them on to the next generation, then I will feel happy.

It has been a funny little dance for the past decade. Wanting to invest in learning how to feed people, repair things and future proof our smallholding, whilst also living in the present moment and doing the things that our current modern lives expect us to do. Without really setting it out properly, my partner and I have an agreement whereby he is working and earning the money needed to exist in the current paradigm whilst I am quietly working away in the background to make sure we have the tools and knowledge to live should the current system buckle.

We are not preppers any more than our Grandparents were. We are just listening to the Ancestors, seeing the waymarkers and gently laying our plans out as we go.

I have walked these woods for the past eleven years. For most of that time the woods has remained unchanged.

I don’t think I will ever not feel lucky to have such a place of abundance and sheer magic on my doorstep. There are old tree fellows in there that have seen not just world wars but a Jacobite uprising too.

They would have reached up to a sky that did not know planes, or satellites or drones. A sky void of man made sounds.

Their roots would have sunk into a soil that did not know plastics and other industrial detritus.

There are some windblown trees in there, with their great roots upended. I touch the tops of their crowns and wonder if I am the first human to do so. Not long ago that tree was over 100 feet tall and only in reach of birds, insects and squirrels.

I have never come across another human soul in that woods. I have only seen evidence of them in boot prints or quad bike tracks.

I did once meet a digger tearing a path into dense forest. It felt jarring and otherwordly to come face to machine in such a wild place. The sound of trees being ripped from the ground made me feel physically sick. I found myself apologising over and over to the trees.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I stood and watched, unseen by the driver. I didn’t want to be there, but it felt important that someone witness the destruction. Someone who was on the side of the forest.

Not long before this encounter, I had watched the Film “Train Dreams” based on the Novella by Denis Johnson. A quote from the film circled my mind whilst I stood there watching.

“It was only when you left it alone that a tree might treat you as a friend. After the blade bit in, you had yourself a war.”

In the scheme of things, it was only a small scar on a much larger landscape. I tried to see the positives, such as the opening up of a patch of light that might allow dormant seeds to grow. I stayed until the digger left, only then did I moved on.

Woodland walking is a good exercise in letting go. I do not own the woods (does anyone ever really own a woods? Probably not.) I do not have any say in its management. I can only observe the changes and leave the trees as I found them.

I have walked these woods with family, with friends, with dogs and alone.

I have enjoyed the expansive views, and I have appreciated the smallest of plants that grow there. I know where the giant honeysuckle is, where the tansy grows, which tree hollow the woodpeckers nest in and a hundred other little things that make up the woodland for me.

I have had encounters with hares, deer, badgers, fox cubs, red kites and owls. Each one a privilege to witness. Each one a story I have shared with someone else.

This, to me, is golden.

Building a relationship with a wild space. Learning to become a part of it, rather than imposing my will on it. Over the years I feel like the woods has come to know me. I have walked it in grief and sadness as well as in happiness. It has witnessed me evolve as much as I have witnessed it evolve.

It takes time to build a relationship with a woodland, much like it does with a person. Years and years of learning and trying to understand the landscape. Having time to walk in the woods is a blessing and a balm.

I don’t know if there are other people who have the same strong feelings about this forest. It is for the most part quite unremarkable. People tend not to come here as there are other, more well known and more attractive places to walk in the local area. I am happy to keep this place a secret, to share it for the most part with the non human world that inhabits it.

I do worry what the future holds for the trees up here. The digger may not have been a one-off. What if there are more plans for more tracks, and more trees being ripped out of the ground?

I can’t stop it happening, I can only apologise and hope that the trees hear. It is a micro scale example of the helpless and hopeless feelings that sit in me with the global scale destruction of the planet.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry”

It doesn’t seem enough.

Why then do I still feel like I am still learning? Perhaps this is both the blessing and the curse of a garden. You are always learning; you will never know it all. Even things you are confident with can trip you up, because so much of gardening is dependent on the weather and the seasons, not just skill or knowledge. What worked for the past decade may not work for this coming year. We are all at the mercy of the weather.

I think it is this feeling of not knowing enough that has always made me shy away from writing a how-to article. What works for me in my wet, windy corner of the world may not work elsewhere, and who am I to tell other people what to do?

There is something else at play. Something that I have only become aware of in recent weeks when my partner gifted me the book Into the Weeds by Tama Matsuoka Wong. In this book I found a kindred spirit. Like Tama, my current garden does not look like something you would see in a magazine. I have had smaller, urban gardens in the past that were more in keeping with the magazine aesthetic, but here, I have struggled to create something that most people would recognise as an intentional organised garden space. I felt so much stress, trying to always maintain the impossible and never quite managing to catch up.

One of my most favourite parts of the garden is the enclosed orchard. It contains a riot of apple, plum and cherry trees, and a singular pear that sulks each year but is now too big to move. There are currants and raspberries, gooseberries, wild roses and hawthorn. It was the first place I planted anything when we moved here. For the past couple of years I have not cultivated this space, save to mulch the fruit trees each Spring and prune some of the dog roses. It has become a wild space, with raspberry canes that tower over me, and a wild mint patch that streches across ten feet. It is a space that is full of life.

Whilst there maybe corners that are photogenic, overall it is a wildneress. Each Winter I vow that this year I will keep on top of it. Then Spring growth happens and I am soon distracted by seed sowing and seedling transplanting elsewhere. Summer arrives and I strim paths through the long grass so I am able to reach the fruity bounty. I am once again surrounded by a jungle on all sides.

I am coming to realise that it is OK to have a space like this. My garden doesn’t have to look like anybody else’s. I love the bird’s-foot trefoil that grows in huge bunches by the drive, the mullien that has self seeded by the bedroom window and the architectural spear thistle that is growing in a raised bed beside hollyhocks and lupins. I know many people would rip these plants out as they are considered weeds. My personal view is that if they choose a spot, then it must be for good reason.

So my approach to the garden is changing. I am no longer battling against the wild. I am working within it. I have left long strips of land between us and our neighbour’s field, in which I have planted hawthorns, hazels and willows. I have left large clumps of five foot tufted grass that are busy with chatty little voles. By leaving these verges alone, I am finding less vole activity in the raised bed. They prefer the undisturbed habitat on the edges rather than the tended and busier area of a cultivated bed.

I am planting more currants, willow and dog woods on the rougher parts of the hill that is usualy covered in docks, stinging nettles and milk thistles. Over time, the shrubs and trees will shade out some of these plants, but for now they will be hidden from potential deer nibbles by their weedy neighbours.

I will still grow cottage garden plants, but I will phase out anything that is too delicate for our environment. I love dahlias and zinnas, but I do not love the cosseting that is involved in growing them in our climate. Instead, I will focus on hardy annuals, biennials and perennials that will self seed and thrive.

As odd as it may sound, I find that putting restrictions on what I can grow tends to make me more creative. I love the colour palette of the dahlias I have grown in the past, but I can replicate this with other things.

I have often avoided calling myself a gardener because it didn’t feel right. When I thought of a gardener, I think of someone in overalls in a Victorian walled gardener with every inch pruned, weeded and trained to perfection. It felt at odds with what I was actually doing.

I also don’t like the name Caretaker. It suggests that the plants wouldn’t manage without my input, which isn’t strictly true. Some might fall by the wayside, but many would do just fine.

So perhaps this is why I am so glad to find Tama’s book, because in it she has managed to come up with a description I feel comfortable with. She calls herself a “Practitioner of the Middle Ground, a forager-farmer” and this makes much more sense to me. I love where I live and grow. I know I am blessed to have so much space to work with and that there is beauty in the wild. I am excited to see what this year brings, now that I have given myself permission to let go of percieved perfection and to truly see what the land can yield, and what I can give back in return.

I wake up, pull on the clothes I have left hanging over the bottom of the bed frame and make my way drowsily to the bedroom door.

I feed the shouty cats, and then take the dogs out for their morning walk. In December it is always dark, and sometimes cold. I love cold mornings the most.

The slap of an icy chill on a still-warm-from-bed cheek is a brutal but brilliant wake up call. I will usually walk past the hen house, and listen to them quietly mumbling. I will always face east and then turn to walk west. If the sky is clear there will be stars. There will be owls calling and possibly crows stirring.

I will return to the house where coffee has been made and the fire lit. We live offgrid with our woodburner being our only source of heat. We have got good at banking up the fire so there is usually some embers in the morning. I love our woodburner so much. It is very much a central part of our lives. We could not be here without it in Winter.

Coffee by the fire, some chat with my husband (he will usually share some pearls of wisdom from his current book.) Possibly a weather check on my phone but nothing else. Early mornings are for connection in person, not online.

Then I am back outside, to feed goats, pigs, horses and sheep as well as releasing the poulty from their night quarters for their breakfast.

Everyone is checked upon. Water buckets are filled and bedding topped up as needed. Every being is happy to see me, and I am made to feel lucky to have such abundance around me. Even the geese, although they scream at me, are happy to be fed and let out.

Usually I come back in, for second coffee and to have my own breakfast. Then I will do household chores. More often in the Winter months I will put a pot of soup or stew on the woodburner to slow cook throughout the morning, and if I remember, a pot of chai to drink and perfume the house.

My life is simple, although writing out this chore list makes it seem more complicated. Perhaps simple living is really a lie. Something that influencers want to present to us all as yet another unachieveable aesthetic. Perhaps simple is too…simple a word??

What ever the correct terminology is, I love my mornings. There is no hustle, just a gentle rhythm that is set by daylight and weather, animals and coffee.

I realise that this all sounds rather whimsical, but it was hard fought for. I have spent many years of my life hustling out the door to get to my paid employment, or hustling small children to eat breakfast. These mornings we have now were a dream for the longest time.

I don’t resent the time before, when I couldn’t figure out how to get here. It makes it all the more sweeter, and the appreciation all the more greater. How can you be thankful for something if it has always been a given?

We, like many, do not have a safety net. We got here by graft and sheer will. It has been hard. Yes, I am aware that 99.9% of my good fortune is down to my ancestors and as the author Rolf Dobelli puts it The Ovarian Lottery in his brilliant book “The Art of the Good Life.” Even so, none of this just fell into our laps. We had to work hard.

It is mid morning now, and I have electric fencing to move. So excuse me whilst I don waterproof overalls once again and make my way outside to be blasted by the high winds, and to be thankful. I hope you have had a good morning, too.

If you drew a line across the globe, we would be almost level with Anchorage, Alaska. Thank goodness for the gulf stream, that saves us from having the same cold temperatures.

Even so, it is cold and it is dark. I used to struggle with this when we first moved here. Offgrid living means there aren’t always light switches to flick if you’ve had enough of the gloom. What daylight there is, is spent tending livestock and hauling firewood. Evening chores are done by the light of a head torch, and we try not to resent the distant neighbours with their huge floodlights and on grid, neverending power supply.

When you live with limited power, you get to be really careful about how you use it. Sure, we have a generator for emergencies and high powered tools, but we don’t want to listen to THAT all night. So, you make sure you do the important things, like wash, during daylight hours so that the water pump doesn’t need to come on.

You also question whether you really need to shower. Yes. I know how gross that sounds to most people. But when your days are going to be spent in the hills, with mostly animals for company. you can suffice with a sponge wash. You get pretty quick at it too, as the bathroom is unheated.

Early Winter life is a life of extremes. You will be cold, with numb hands whilst clearing ice from water buckets. But then you go back indoors, where some kind soul has tended the woodfire, and you are met with a blast of heat that thaws your hands and makes them tingle. Layers of clothes get removed, and faces turn pink.

There are additional worries…will the water pipes freeze? Have we done a good enough job insulating them? Will mice also enjoy the insulation and move in the lean-to shed that holds the water system? Will the track to the main road become an ice rink? Will the main road be gritted or will you have to skid and slide into town?

I become an obsessive weather watcher. The three and five day forecasts are my first reading of the day. If there is a chance of prolonged plunging temps and snows, then I will rearrange my time to make sure I can get into the nearest town and collect animal and human feed to last us at least ten days.

This make sound a bit extreme, but only last week we had an early dump of snow which lasted eight days. I didn’t leave the land for five of those days. We cleared our track several times, but each morning we woke to fresh snow, and ice. It is the ice that is the challenge. Once it gets a hold, it can hang around for weeks. We are north facing, so there are some parts that see no sun for the Winter months. Frost pockets can last a whole season. Knowing your land becomes important.

When we moved here, I wanted to place the bees in the fruit garden. It made sense as there was a good amount of forage we had planted as well as early pollen in the form of willows. What I hadn’t taken in to account was the frost that hung about here for weeks at a time. The bees would have hated it, and likely not survived. The fruit trees however, are thriving. They blossom later than my neighbour’s south facing trees, which means they are usually safe from late frosts. I read in a really old, dusty fruit growing guide that north facing slopes are actually better for fruit as they will always blossom later. I have discussed this with other gardeners and have always been told that it was a nonsense myth and yet, here we are, with year on year bumper crops of apples, currants, plums, cherries and raspberries. Admittedly, the two pear trees I planted leaf up and then sulk all season, but you can’t have everything.

I have made my peace with November. I used to mourn for the Summer. Now, I truly do see it as the cliche it has become: a time to slow, to plan, to read and to rest. It doesn’t always work out like that, and this November has been a busier one but I appreciate the fire, and I am reading more than the Summer.

Now I just need to work on my appreciation of February, and my seasonal soul will be fully healed. I can’t see that happening any time soon, but I can always hope.

She thrived in mainstream schooling. She had lots of friends, got on well academically and even got the lead role in the Christmas play. But something felt….off.

But was she really thriving? Or was she heading for the six year old version of burn out? It all came to a head when she moved from infants to juniors. The list of rules that contradicted themselves had her spinning. She was still thriving on paper, but it felt hollow when she was clearly miserable and confused.

Then the universe placed an angel in my path. She told me about home education, perhaps sensing I was struggling with the conformities of the traditional school system, and worried about how my younger children would fit in. She didn’t home educate herself, but knew people who did and she put me in touch with them.

It was like the veil had been lifted. Here were kids who seemed happy, content, able to talk to their peers and adults alike. They were…wholesome but also normal? I met their older teenage kids and they were so lovely to talk to, and so unlike other teenagers I knew. I wanted my kids to be just like them. I realise now how naive that was. I had completely glossed over the work the parents had put in to get to that point.

So, we removed our eldest from the school register, just six short weeks after she started junior school. Two weeks later we deregistered her brothers who were in year one and nursery. The youngest was only three months old and never went to any formal school setting. We agreed to trial it for a few months and decide from there whether this non traditional path was for all of us.

I messed up

Every home ed parent I had met had told me not to try and recreate school-at-home but did I listen? No. I did not, and I printed out every age appropriate worksheet the internet could present to me. That lasted two weeks until I realised I was making a big mistake. I put the worksheets away and spent my evenings on the internet, reading blogs written by other home educating parents.

The Christmas holidays were approaching so I reasoned we could start them early and regroup in the New Year with the formal learning stuff. Christmas came and went, and we kind of forgot to get out the worksheets and the planner I’d made. Instead we played outside with the ice, ate toast and watched TV snuggled up under blankets and went to the library where we would easily loan forty books at a time.

Gradually, I realised that you can’t stop kids from learning. They have a built in curiosity that needs answers. My job was to help them find them. We went to workshops, social meet ups, art classes, museums, historical tours; local country parks and many, many self guided walking tours that usually ended up with us getting lost (and the occasional child meltdown when they thought they would never, ever see home again thanks to Mother’s terrible sense of direction).

I bought good art materials as and when we could afford them, and I let the kids use them at will - something I found surprisingly hard at the start. chalks, oils, clay, watercolour, good felt pens, card, thick paper and art pads. We went to Scrapstores and came home with bags and bags of materials to create huge and complicated structures. Some of them we kept for years.

We spent hours outside, playing in water, in sand and in mud. Children are more manageable in the open air. They are less loud for a start.

Home education was not sitting around a table, perfecting timestables. Instead, it became our lives. We learnt by reading, doing and thinking. We made lots and lots of mistakes. (I still don’t know where our cheap go-pro knock off ended up after we tied it to a balloon and a gust of wind snapped the string. This was before the days of drones and the kids wanted to see if they could make a flying camera.)

There are tough bits

The main question all home ed parents get asked is “What about socialisation?” Which has always irked me. Like spending 6+ hours a day in a room with 30 people the same age as you is normal. But it is fair to say that if you choose to home educate, then you do have to make extra effort to make sure your children are getting their social needs met. The challenge comes when each child has a different social battery. I could not always keep everyone happy, and so there would often be quite the range of emotional responses to a proposed social event. I was lucky that being one of four meant that they had built in playmates. I don’t know how home ed parents of one child manage, and I salute you.

The other hard bit is watching them step out in the world alone. Much like any parent, you have to cross your fingers and hope that you’ve done a good job.

As a parent, you can never know if you’ve done a good job until it’s too late.

When you home educate, the buck stops with you. You cannot blame the school system or society if your child turns out to be a bit of a twat. All you can do is your best, and hope that it was enough. I can honestly say that all of my children have had their moments when I have questioned what on earth I was thinking. I never took the decision to home educate lightly as the consequences weighed too heavy. I recognised how fortunate we were to even be able to make the choice to home educate and have a parent stay home, in a world where this was becoming less and less of an option for families.

I still marvel at people who are so sure of themselves when it comes to parenting. Surely we are all muddling through and hoping for the best, no? When I see someone (usually the parent of a first baby) confidently telling folk that they know exactly what they are doing because they read a book/ watched a youtube series, I say a quiet prayer for them, and hope that they will give themselves the same grace that everyone should give themselves when faced with a parenting situation that wasn’t covered in the book/ video. Because there will be one, and no amount of reading or research will prepare you fully for how to manage.

I kow this because I was that parent. When my daughter was born she was perfect. She did everything by the book and slept like a sweetheart. Then her brother was born and the scales tilted somewhat. He had read a very different book in the womb and came out crying….and continued to cry until he could walk. He made me a proper parent, and made me a kinder and less judgemental person.

Now I am the parent of four almost adult children. My youngest is hurtling towards eighteen and plans to move out next Summer and join his siblings at university. I am at the stage where I am seeing the results of years of parenting successes and failures, and breathing a deep sigh of relief that, for the most part, it has all worked out.

I love them fiercely and without embarressment (on my part.)

Do I think the home educating gamble paid off?

Yes. They are wonderfully weird in their own unique ways. They have each had some tough challenges to overcome and have handled them with maturity and understanding for the most part - and that to me is when you know you’ve done a good job. It’s not the university degrees, the home ownership or their future career success. It is how they adapt and overcome, how they treat each other and the people they have let into their lives. It is their ability to come and talk to us, their parents, about the hard things. It is giving them the freedom to make mistakes whilst knowing that they have a safety net to come back to if it all goes a little sideways.

I do sometimes miss the home ed days. They went by so fast and yet I don’t want to go back. This moment, right here and now with these interesting, flawed and beautiful adult children is actually the bonus I hadn’t expected when we were deep in the trenches of home ed life.

To have children that I love as a parent but really like as people in their own right is a gift, and it is one that I will treasure always.

People have gathered in circle since people began. It only feels weird or awkward in this age because we live in a digital era where most of us have our daily interactions in online spaces. Looking at people’s faces and being in their physical presence has become a bit alien. I really believed that we would benefit from an in-person group where we could really see each other and bear witness.

It started small. Just three or four people came along at the start, but women I spoke to were keen to come along and see what it was all about. Our numbers grew to around a dozen…and that is when I made my first mistake.

Social Media Is The Opposite of A Circle

We had been communicating via email up until this point. It was clunky and not always easy to follow the thread of conversations. Not everyone had whatsapp so we decided a facebook group was the right way to go. A private group was created, members were invited and it seemed to be going well. Until it wasn’t.

Perhaps I am just niave, but I kept my role as Admin pretty loose. I trusted the women who were in the group. Any member could invite another person into the group. No vetting or questions asked. The group GREW. We went from 12, to 28 to 40 to almost 80 over the course of a few years. The dynamic changed. People weren’t so keen to share their thoughts with what was a bunch of strangers at this point.

Then the DMs started.

People had fallen out - not within the actual group but either elsewhere online or in person. As sole admin I would get messages from people telling me they were leaving because of xyz. I was never sure what to do with this information.

Then the pandemic came and I noticed a sizeable split in the group. Most people were pretty quiet about their views, but there was a core number of people, on both sides of the divide, that wanted their opinions known. People were saying things that they would likely never say in person. It got frustrating pretty quickly.

I tried to go back to email, but it was too late. Facebook had taken our small group of women and turned us into every other group and it was my fault. I kept hoping that when restrictions were lifted and life got back to normal, so would the group.

We were a bit disjointed after losing our in person meet ups due to covid restrictions, but I think we were all keen to try and pick up where we left off. Which was my second mistake.

Things Had Changed

I don’t know whether I can pinpoint the exact moment when I realised we had gone so far down a path that we weren’t going to find our way back, but I do have one moment that still sticks with me.

A member had posted on the group that they were looking for a toddler group that met in the afternoons as they were not morning people. What followed was a few supportive comments, all saying pretty much the same thing. Who wants to drag themselves out of bed to sit in a hall full of loud toddlers? At the time I didn’t think much of it.

The next day I got a gut wrenching DM from a now former member. She was a working mum of two children. Her words have stuck with me. “I loved this group pre and during the pandemic but it has become so privileged. I am not a morning person, but I HAVE to get up early every morning because I have to go to work to put food on the table. My kids are school age now, but toddler groups were a safe place for me when my boys were small. For 50p they got to socialise and I got the reassurance I needed that I was doing a good job with my kids. I live in a council house, and I probably always will. The women in this group are so far from reality it is almost laughable.”

And she wasn’t wrong.

I knew it. I just didn’t want to face up to it and I didn’t know how to address it.

There Isn’t Always Strength In Numbers

A core number of voices had got louder and louder over time and the number of women attending circle in person had dropped right off. I received DM’s from other women saying that they felt the group had become judgemental and toxic. I was way out of my depth and didn’t know what to do.

I contacted someone who has decades of experience in facilitating women’s circles and she gave me solid advice. It was also pretty brutal.

Using facebook had created an unsafe space.

I did not have the skills to facilitate a large bunch of strangers.

I needed to step away and allow someone else to take over who did have the skills and time.

So I did exactly that. I opened up the admin roles and a few brave souls came forward. I was quietly sad that something that had started with such good intentions had become this other place.

But I would be lying if I didn’t admit there was also a huge amount of relief in not being responsible for organising and mediating in the group.

What Happened Next

It has been a couple of weeks since I left, and I thought that would be it. My time in circle was over, at least for the foreseeable. I didn’t make an announcement because it felt pompous and silly.

What I didn’t expect was a bunch of emails and texts (I had left facebook completely) from women saying that they had also stopped coming to the circle in person for their own reasons and offering to meet up for dog walks, or coffee or an evening of knitting by the fire.

It dawned on me that my first intention, to build a community of women supporting one another had actually born fruit. Without expectation or prompting, here were women supporting women, making connections and being there for each other. Turns out it wasn’t such a stupid idea, and that even after making a total mess of it, there was still so much good that came out of it, and for this I will always be thankful.

It was mostly about home educating our children. I didn’t use their real names or show their faces and for a while, it was pretty popular. As the kids got older and social media started to appear, I decided to take the blog down and now have it downloaded as a keepsake. One day I will edit it and turn it into a printed family book.

I liked blogs. It was long form and not a million miles away from Substack to be honest. I dislike Instagram and Facebook. I don’t have an opinion on Snapchat or Tiktok because I don’t know them. Back in the days of blogging there was a lot less noise so it felt easier to keep up to date with the blogs I followed whereas now, if I log on to Instagram I feel like it is shouting at me from a million different directions.

Nostalgia made me go looking for some of my favourite blogs, and I was genuinely chuffed to find that several are still online, albeit many are inactive. So join me for a meander down blogging memory lane, won’t you?

The Rhythm of the Home

Waldorf inspired, this is where I would head when I was trying to find things to occupy little hands, or inspire our next home based project. They used to produce a seasonal guide which was just lovely, but it seems that the link now takes you to an interior design website. There are still a lot of ideas stored on the posts, as well as a great book recommendation section here.

Wee Folk Art

Still up and running and still producing new content! This is where we would go to get inspiration for painting peg dolls, which seemed to be a real craze in the late 2000’s in home ed land. It is absolutely a fad that needs to come back.

Wisecraft

Blair, author of this blog, wrote a book which I have. This site is still active and has so much inspiration, especially if you are into quilting. I am not, but there is so much more on here from creative processes, so simple sewing how-to’s. I think Blair’s energy and commitment to keeping blogging alive is also to be commended.

Soulemama

Honestly, this was probably the epicenter for parenting blogs for quite a few people. Amanda wrote three books and went on to be the editor of Taproot magazine which was a beautiful, in-print magazine. Sadly, both her blog and the magazine are no more, but the archives are still generously there and it is worth having a look about for things to engage all ages of children.

Angry Chicken

I cannot tell you how happy I am to discover that Amy Karol has kept her archive up. Her book recommendations are brilliant. Her own books are also pretty cool. There is so much to discover here!

Dottie Angel

So, weirdly, Dottie Angel must have been reminiscing about blogs as well. She has a link that she posted in March of this year to another site but it doesn’t lead anywhere. There are still good how-to’s and general inspiration to be found here.

Maya Made

Maya was upcycling before it was mainstream. She wrote books and raised kids. She has very amazingly left her archive of projects up for all to be inspired by here. If you are looking for something to do with stuff you probably already have, she is your person.

So there you have it. The seven blogs that I probably visited the most. It has been a long time since I really visited to them and much like anything else, I didn’t know that blogging was going to go quiet(er) with the arrival of social media. There was no grand end, just a slow fizzle out where Facebook squeezed out these forms of slower communication.

With my desire to step ever further away from social media, I am going to spend some time in the archives of these blogs, and maybe find other forgotten places.

It feels like a happy place to be.

I have been mulling this question for the past 24 hours since it was asked of me. There are so many answers I could give. Should it be broad brush strokes or small details?

Bigger Picture V Smaller

Weirdly, I find it easier to answer immediately with smaller things. I love watching the chickens potter about. This morning I was struck by the mist in the valley. A cup of coffee made by my partner. A good book. A plant growing from a seed sown. All small things.

The bigs things: My family, seeing my now adult children feel their way into adulthood. My partner. He brings me joy every single day in his ability to make me laugh so hard that I lose the ability to stand properly. To have someone who is able to make belly laughs happen so often is truly a gift. My health. It isn’t 100% just now, but it means I value it even more. Security. Knowing my home is my home and no one can take it from me (no mortgage nonsense thanks to my partner who was determined to work so hard that we could pay debts back at speed.)

These things bring me a huge amount of joy.

So I find myself asking another question. Is it because we worked so hard at the big things that I am blessed enough to see the smaller ones? If I were living in a different situation would I be too exhausted by the weight of responsibilities to see the same things?

When our children were small, and money was tight I think the small things mattered even more. Watching them in the park or engrossed in the simple act of drawing with crayons were all moments that made my heart full. Perhaps birthing and raising four humans kept me too busy to think too much of the worst scenarios and that in itself was a blessing.

I limit my news consumption, but I cannot turn away from the human suffering of Palestinians. I saw a video of a music teacher using the hum of a drone to teach children to harmonise and it made me cry. Here was a man and a group of children living with absolute terror and still they found some beauty and joy.

There is a guilt there. Who am I to live with such abundance in my life? How dare I be here enjoying my life, my freedoms and my family when so many can’t? I decide I am going to be thankful and love my life because I don’t want to waste my incredible good fortune.

I will be thankful for the sunrise, for the peace here, for the family that I have and the place that I call home. I will think, everyday, of those who don’t have these things and I will do small things that I hope will make som

e differences.

The world might be a bit crappy, but I can’t solve the big problems by myself. I can do small things like donate what we can in money, food and clothes to those that need it. I can give some of my time to help out in my community. If we all do small things, perhaps we can make big changes?

Nothing I am saying here is new or revolutionary. So many people have already said exactly the same thing. It doesn’t make it any less valid. We can all make a little bit of difference. In the words of Arthur Ashe “Start where you are, use what you have.”

I like to think that Permaculture was still quite niche back then (I am sure many will say that it is niche now, but that is a discussion for another day.) It was still very much in the domain of the hippy and hadn’t been monetised in the way it is now. I don’t mind people making an income from Permaculture. People have to live and earn, but some of the costs are so far out of reach for lower income people that I question whether it truly is considering the three core ethics of Permaculture, in particular the People Care and Fair Share elements.

I hear a lot of people say that Permaculture has become a middle class hobby and I HATE that. To quote one of the founders it is “Revolution disguised as gardening” and should be accessible to everyone regardless of income or social status. Too often though in this world of social media, we see these beautiful images of permaculture homes and gardens and they just seem so unobtainable to the normal person.

Full disclosuer: We live on a smallholding, and we got it by buying the crappiest bit of land that no one else wanted, and by sheer hard graft to pay off the bank. We started out with nothing and had to get into debt to get where we are. We paid that debt off by living frugally and working really hard. We were still incredibly lucky.

People need to be more honest about how they got to where they are and how they finance their lives. It is like watching Grand Designs and wondering how the hell people manage to build these homes. When I see someone online with a beautiful farm, I want to know how they fund it. Too often Permaculture feels like an aesthetic rather than real a way to live.

Which leads me nicely on to the REAL subject of this post…

Glass Bottle Lined Pathways

First seen by me in said Permaculture Magazine.

They look fantastic and seem like a brilliant way to recycle glass bottles. I spent months saving bottles that were of a similar height and then when I finally had enough, I used them to line the border of a newly planted blackcurrant bed. It was pretty hard work digging the earth, placing the bottles in and then mounding earth around them to make sure they stayed in place. It felt worth it though because it looked so nice.

Winter came, and then Spring and the business of seed sowing and bed prep meant that the glass bottles were still there, still looking lovely but mostly ignored. Then the grass started to grow and I couldn’t see the bottles so much. I made a mental note to weed around them at some point.

My partner has a scythe. He uses that scythe to keep the grass down around our home. He did not know where the glass bottles were, exactly. You can see where this is going….

One strong swing of the scythe and it was goodbye glass bottles and hello shards of glass scattered throughout the grass. I have children. They were small back then and fond of being barefoot. I decided that was my last experiment of bottle lining anything.

Fast forward a decade and I am at a friend’s event. We are discussing Permaculture and someone says “Do you know what really gets me about Permaculture? Those sodding glass bottle pathways.” It was like an awakening. It wasn’t just me. I wasn’t a failure. Someone else chimed in and said how they had tried it too, only to have the bottles break. I don’t think they even smashed them with a scythe.

Are glass bottles used in this way the Permaculture version of The Emporer’s New Clothes? Where we all know it’s a bit shit, but we don’t really admit it?

Perhaps.

All I know is that I won’t be wasting my time with glass bottles in the garden, and I am not alone in this. I wonder how many other things could come into this category? Are herb spirals next? (Say it isn’t so, I still have a hankering to build one of these.)

I think what I am trying to say is, don’t believe all the hype. Yes, Permaculture has a lot of offer but just like religion, it has been corrupted in some ways as it passes through the filters of human beings.

If someone is starting out on their investigation into Permaculture I would suggest that they read one of the older books on the subject (my next post is going to be a book list.) I would suggest staying away from Instagram and Social Media, where you’ll be dazzled by beauty but starved of substance.

And don’t be fooled by glass bottle lined paths. They’re crap.

I'm finding myself at the time of year when the sun and I are waking up together.

Soon, I'll wake before the sun but for now, for this brief window I'll welcome this morning companion.

Turns out that permaculture really is just a set of concepts that you can apply to most decisions to help you come to the right one. There are also three core ethics that are the foundation of permaculture. These are:

Earth Care, People Care & Fair Share. To me, they all kind of bleed into each other. For example, if you’re considering the planet in your day to day choices (Earth Care) then you’re not taking more than you need (Fair Share) and leaving enough for everyone else (People Care.)

I realise I am simplifying a whole industry (because like it or not, Permaculture has become and industry in some ways) but it really can be that simple.

It can also be a lot more, if you want it to be so.

Personal Permaculture

This area is probably the most uncomfortable for me, so I may as well sit in my discomfort and start here.

If you have ever read a permaculture book or watched something permaculture-ey on youtube, then you have likely come across the idea of zones. I want to say right now that I have twisted and bent my ideas to try and fit into the neat idea of concentric zones only to find out that, actually, that isn’t how zones have to work. I hope this knowledge saves someone some heartache. Anyway, back to zones.

There are six:

Zone 0. Home

Zone 1. Area just outside the home - where you might have a woodstore or salad crops for easy picking.

Zone 2. Annual veggie beds.

Zone 3. Orchard

Zone 4. Forestry/ Pasture

Zone 5. Wild area.

This idea is that the places you visit the most are closest to the house (Zone 0). This doesn’t necessarily work in practice. If you have livestock that need checking you will be in that zone at least once or twice a day, so Zone 4 could actually be a well visited area. See what I mean? So easy to tie yourself up in knots.

There is another Zone that isn’t always talked about, and that is Zone 00.

This is you. Your wellbeing. Your internal landscape, if you like.

It is what makes you feel good, or not. The other zones don’t really work if this one isn’t visited regularly. Thinking about what makes you tick, who you are and who you want to be, what you’d like to learn or unlearn are all parts that make up a healthy Zone 00.

This whole 00 thing isn’t without debate. There are some such at Toby Hemenway who thought that it doesn’t exist at all. He wrote an article about this back in 2014. His book “Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture” is one of my most favourite books and one that I turn to when I’m in a creative funk. Sadly Tony passed away in 2016 not long after the publication of this book. The comment section of the linked article is worth a read alone. It is a great example of how permaculture itself is open to interpretation.

For me personally, I find checking in with myself to make sure I am going in the right direction helps. Life is busy and I can easily get blown off course.

Anyway, moving on from that debate…what else is would be considered personal permaculture?

I’m Rich! I’m Rich!

There are eight forms of capital. Here they are with some examples of each:

Financial - money

Material - stone/ timber/ land/ machinery

Social - connections/ community/ influence

Spiritual - deep personal wellbeing/ faith

Intellectual - knowledge of a subject/ education

Experiential - Practical experience/ maturity

Cultural - Shared processes from a community/ ancestral knowledge

Natural - animals/ plants/ soil

We are witnessing the slow death of capitalism in its modern form. If currency fails, what else do we have? How do we move away from a monetary economy and into whatever the future holds?

By finding other meanings of wealth.

If you have a thriving community where people work together for common good, where skills and goods are exchanged in a gift economy then you become less reliant on money.

If this sounds idealistic, that is because it is.

We are a long way away from ancestors who survived before Capitalism made us all slaves to the monetary system. Most of us don’t have someone in our lives to show us how to make this system work so we are going to have to teach ourselves and be kind when it doesn’t always work out how we would have liked.

This leads onto…

Communication

Gah. As someone who often has difficulty explaining what I mean, this one is complicated. I find that in person communication works best. Short, text based communicaiton is a minefield but email or letter writing is a good middle ground if you have something to say but can’t find the space or the in person words.

I am learning about Non-Violent Communication which is something that made me cringe a little when I first heard about it, but that I now recognise as a good way to make yourself understood with minimal upset. It doesn’t always work out but at least I am trying. This goes hand in hand with learning to be a better listener. How often are you just waiting for the other person to pause so you can jump in with your contribution? I know it isn’t just me. Learning to actively listen to a person is a skill. One I am still working on. How good does it feel when someone actually listens and asks thoughtful questions about a topic? How good would it feel to be the good listener?!

As much as I don’t want to admit it and whilst the terminology might give me the ick, personal permaculture is probably a good place to start. It’s like the cheesy phrase about oxygen masks: You have to put your own one on before helping anyone else. Perhaps permaculture is the same.

Want more? For a much better and more detailed explanation than I could manage go here.

What was so great (and, at the same time absolutely not great) was that I didn’t get to choose who came to the group. I was forced to socialise with a lot of different people, some who would end up being life long friends. Some who were friends for that season, and then we either moved house or they did, and we lost touch (because…no social media. If you wanted to get in touch with someone you had to call their house or write a letter.)

By the time baby number four came along there was facebook, but it still wasnt really a part of normal life. What had changed was my attitude to these groups and meet ups. I had by this time moved house and country a few times and had become more adept at talking to people. I found I liked meeting new people. I still disliked huge groups, but I became good at seeking out the other shy parent annd forming a mini weirdo squad within the larger meet.

We also home educated, which meant I spent a lot of time at all kinds of clubs and groups. Some were social, many were specific: Art, Fencing, Bushcraft, Science, Music…at each of these activities we met more people, found more friends with things in common.

What has changed in the past decade is the internet. I know I am not alone in my love/ hate for it. I love that I have all this information just waiting for me. I hate that it has made us socially lazy. People will say that they want community, but aren’t willing to go places to find it and would rather it came to them. If you’re not willing to put in the effort (and it really is effort sometimes) then what you are really looking for is, perhaps, entertainment. There isn’t anything wrong with entertainment, but it is consumerist. Part of being in community is reciprocity. Giving and taking.

This isn’t to detract from online communities. I know that they are life line for people who are house bound for medical or personal reasons. I have made connections with people from across the globe thanks to the internet. But it isn’t the same as seeing someone in real life, it can’t replace for me the true, authentic exchange of an in-person meet.

At the start of your journey into community, you might feel like you are taking more than giving. Then one day someone new will join and you’ll find yourself in the position of helping them get to know the ropes. Or perhaps you’ll be the person in the group who holds the solution to another member’s dilemma.

I have run and attended many, many groups over the years. They all come back to one thing: How willing the members are to make it happen. How much people are able to meet each other in the middle. Not everyone in a group will be for you, and that is OK. What you need to do is figure out how to be a part of that group still and find a way to coexist.

I recently discovered the term “Sonder” which means “the feeling you get when you realise that each random person you pass by is living as complex and vivid life as your own, with their own thoughts, feelings and experiences” It is something to remember if you meet someone and they seem preoccupied or reserved or emotional…who knows what that individual has gone through earlier that day? In real life, it is easier to appreacite Sonder. Online, may be not so much.

Social media has allowed us all to creep into comfortable echo chambers, or even worse, get really mean online in the comments section. We see something, it triggers us and off we go (including myself here!) It is so easy to do, and there can be a weird little endorphine rush that kicks in when you are so sure the other person is wrong.

My Gran used to say “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” and whilst I don’t actually agree with this entirely, I think there is a modern equivilance which is “If you wouldn’t say it to the person in real life, don’t say it online.”

So, how do you find your real-life, living, breathing community in a world that seems to live off the internet? You start….ironically….with the internet. In some towns and villages you may still find notice boards with activities posted on them but more and more events are advertised online. So, suck it up buttercup and get on your local page and see what is occuring.

Maybe start with something that you have an interest in. A toddler group is perfect if you have a toddler. Scared of being judged as a parent? Don’t be. 99% of the people there are also winging it. The other 1% are lying to themselves. Be prepared for your kid to let you down with a spectacular show of some kind. Maybe they’ll launch their drink over everyone, maybe they’ll bop another kid on the head with a toy car, or maybe they’ll chew the foam matting meant for the babies…but rest assured whilst you’re dealing with your own shitshow so will everyone else and when it is time for a cuppy you will all laugh at the crazy and bond over the wild ride that is parenting. I promise.

Maybe you love growing vegetables, or you want to learn to repair your clothes, or learn yoga, or a new language. There will be a club out there somewhere that will tickle your pickle. You just have to be brave and go along. You might have to go to a few until you find your one. Don’t be despondant. Community should be a verb as it is something you do, slowly, one step at a time.

What if you don’t have any cash or transport? Been there, my friend. Start where you are. Talk to a neighbour. When I had three children that were all preschool age and under, we lived next door to a stern old lady who terrified me. She had a greenhouse full of grapes, and my oldest loved grapes. Over the garden wall we got to know each other. Turns out she wasn’t stern, just lonely. She ended up becoming a good friend, who shared her grapes and her kitchen with my littles. She taught me gardening secrets and I shared my seedlings that I always had too many of. Through her, I got to know the local old lady network. Never underestimate the Elders for good chat and skill sharing.

Cast your net wide. Go along to AGMs of local groups, risk it all at a bingo fundraiser (but don’t go with me because I have not got the hang of bingo and have made a hash of it on more than one occasion.)

If you can’t find what you are looking for, start your own. This is probably the most scariest of options, but what have you got to lose? Most communities have a space that is free to use if it’s for non-profit and all you really need is some biscuits and a kettle. Worst case, you have an hour or so of alone time with a sugary snack. Still sounds like a win to me.

The online world is deteriorating before our eyes. Polarisation is on the rise. We can’t win in a virtual world that is filled with AI Images and argument provoking content provided by bots.

We HAVE to turn to each other in real life, and find the common ground. We have to learn to respectfully agree to disagree and bring back the lost art form of debating and discussion. Your community is out there, I promise. It’s just waiting for you to be brave and take that first step.

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