Summer

June has been quite an unsettled month here in terms of weather - we've had scorching heat and very cold downpours! So it hasn't been the best month for the bees, especially as it is the June gap, but our hives are all doing well fortunately.




This post is a catch-up session about our latest antics and a celebration of the English countryside in summer :)



To start with I should mention a fantastic microscopy workshop that my beekeeper's association organised at the beginning of the month. It was a really excellent day and we were led through the processes of identifying acarine and nosema by our regional bee inspector and two experts from the National Bee Unit - long way to come! It was a fantastic day. I learned to dissect bees in order to check for acarine - a delicate operation that involved removing the head, front legs and 'collar' of a dead bea to reveal its trachea. I managed to get a couple of good dissections and although I'm not sure how often I will have to use this skill I learned such a lot about the anatomy of the honey bee and the beauty of its construction. We also mashed bees up to release their stomach juices, from which we could detect nosema. Using the compound microscopes for this let us see not only the nosema but also some beautiful pollens! I think I was able to tell the very subtle difference between nosema apis and nosema ceranae at one point, although of course it could have been my imagination. Either way, a fascinating exploration of the honey bee and I learned s much about good disease management also. I now have a taste for microscopy, and have ordered a couple of books on the subject...who knows, maybe one day I'll get my microscopy certificate?



Aside from the bees, the countryside has been absolutely stunning this year. Below are some pictures of a poppy field and a field of what I think is flax, both near our apiary site and both absolutely jaw-droppingly beautiful, the photographs hardly doing them justice.

A quick flit to the garden centre revealed some beautiful (and edible!) fuschias.

And finally, I took the dog on one of my favourite walks and was absolutely struck by the beauty of nature that day. The poor dog felt somewhat neglected as I looked around me carefully, trying to look at the landscape from a Permaculture perspective. I could see that the hedgerows and edges of the woodland are naturally scalloped, a design feature that permaculturists often use on borders, and I was amazed that nature just does it naturally! Also the beauty of the chalk stream we visited was amazing. It was alive with tiny shrimp-like creatures and amazingly near to the water the forget-me-nots were still in flower, even when they have finished everywhere else! They made a very picturesque tangle with the watermint. The field around us was alive with insects and other life: a spider who had build her web in a curl in an iris leaf; dusty-brown butterflies and all different species of bees feeding off the drifts of clover; flies and hoverflies in unbelievable colours; slugs and snails in an array of shades from speckly green to dark, shiny black; mole hills; ladybirds - native ones! - feeding off clusters of aphids on the thistles; grasshoppers of every shape and size; an ant colony who had colonised an old mole hill; and every type of grass and ground-cover imagineable. The complexity of this eco-system was just stunning and what's more, it was so beautiful and tranquil.

Permaculture Magazine and Flowers & Birds, etc.

Thanks Crafty Green Poet for your kind comment on the last post.

Just been reading Rebecca Hosking's blog on the Permaculture magazine site (here). Very interesting article on holly. Lots of holly around where my mum lives in Wales, and we have a big shrub in the front garden, and it's nice to know that there are some brilliant uses for such a common plant that I once thought was only for decoration (and wildbird food - they love the berries, particularly the blackbirds). The Permaculture magazine site (here) is full of inspiring stuff. Check it out!

Also been reading the magazine, and considering whether to buy Sepp Holzer's new book about his permaculture practice. He's a self-taught expert, absolutely inspiring guy. But I have no money, and want to invest in a LegMaster (probably not terribly eco-friendly, but at least it doesn't plug in and waste leccy, like so much gym equipment), so it will have to wait. Holzer's hugul beds - big sloping raised beds full of organic matter - are a really interesting idea, and one that when (in a million years) I have my dream permaculture smallholding I will definitely try. Highly recommend Permaculture mag - always something interesting, and full of really inspiring articles by inspiring people, who are practising permaculture in all different ways and on all scales. Reading the magazine is like connecting with like-minded people and sharing good ideas and exciting news. Every issue brings a smile to my face and renews my optimism for the Big Scary Future.

The garden is looking lovely, I will post pics tomorrow. Birds singing at the tops of their voices - pigeons getting jiggy with it on our roof, and sparrows nesting under the eaves for another year. Things are in flower - forget-me-nots, violets, lilacs, the viburnums have just finished, aubretia, dandelions (NOT a weed, NEVER a weed! Tortoise fodder!), currant bushes, primroses, citrus bushes just forming litte creamy-white buds...and every apple tree we own (around 13, I think) is just popping its magenta buds to reveal beautiful snowy white blossoms. I predict a bumper crop this year.

Pabi Bach and I went for a walk today along a canal, too. Lovely weather. On our way there we saw a whole bank absolutely covered in cowslips, and along the canal the banks were studded with primroses and violets. I absolutely love these spring flowers.

Interestingly the blossom has all been late this year. It means that we've all been having to keep on surviving the winter for a bit longer, but there are up-sides. For example, the bees are well and truly buzzing now, especially with today's warm weather, and the blossom being a bit late has meant that they get all the benefit of it.

Cider Time

Apologies for the long, blogless gap!

Today we have finally collected all our apples together (homegrown and scrumped) and have pressed them into juice, which we will then turn into cider!

Here are some pictures of the stages of the process that we have carried out today, and below these are some photos of the beautiful autumnal countryside behind our house, and my latest creation: what will hopefully turn out to be a Victorian-ish-style dress made from an old shirt and an old size 20 tartan dress. What you see there are the minute has been made simply from 2 sleeves. I'm making it up as I go along, pinning the fabric to the dummy and tacking it in place. Fingers crossed it turns out ok! Apologies for the quality of the photos, I took them on my phone.

Recycling Insulation!!

My Mum has an elderly friend who buys readymeals made my a local company that delivers to her door. To insulate the food they package it with this - WoolCool, insulation made from wool.

Sheila never knows what to do with the packaging once she has got her delivery. The WoolCool is expensive and the p&p is expensive accordingly. Usually she would just throw the packaging away, but luckily for me Mum suggested she donate it to my spinning and felting efforts, so I have just been given a load of free fibre!!

The wool is clean - no dags or anything, except a bit of plant matter here and there - but uncarded. The fibres are quite short as it's off-cuts. It's all natural colours, with everything in there from white to black. It's coarse but not unpleasant. So I am experimenting with it...

^ Thick and knobbly yarn spun for Mum to try rug-hooking or peg-looming with

I suppose it's good that wool is now used for insulation, as otherwise it would just get thrown away - apparently it is now actually classed as a useless animal by-product!! What waste! So at least it is getting used. But there are still so many things it could be used for before being put to insulation. Even if it isn't nice enough to wear as clothing, it could be used for furnishings, rugs, bags, slippers, stuffing for soft toys...and then used for insulation when the item was worn out. But at least I now have my hands on it and can try making some woolly wonders.

On the plastic bag around the wool, it says "it is totally sustainable, recyclable and biodegradable". Well, they got the last two right, but sustainable? Really? Last time I looked current global meat (and therefore by-product) production was absolutely UNsustainable, and we are heading for a future where people will have to settle for eating less meat and meat production methods will have to change drastically.

So, I'm happy, I've got wool ^^. But it makes me sad how a useful commodity - a commodity on which so much of our civilisation has been built! (Just look at Britain's medieval wool economy!) - is wasted, or at the most mislabelled and used once, still probably destined for landfill.

Green Brighton

I've just returned from a week's holiday in Brighton, a city that is increasingly leading the way in moving towards a more sustainable way of life and which has just elected the first ever Green Party MP to parliament, Caroline Lucas. My holiday was more of a fish-n-chips and tourist-souvenirs kind of affair, but driving (on the bus) past a community garden plastered with "Boycott Tesco" slogans every day inspired me to look a little deeper at the eco stuff going on in the city.

First of all, let's take transport, something which the authorities seemed to be working really hard at. The bus network is fantastic in Brighton, and as the side of each bus will testify, they seem to be seen as "essential transport" for the city. There are cycle paths everywhere also, all over the city and right up to the beach. The smaller streets of the centre of town are really pedestrian friendly, although crossing the roads was an absolute nightmare! Luckily though the Transition Brighton & Hove's Transport group are committed to changing this, and on the plus side getting around on foot also opens up the possibilites of visiting the many small local businesses and whole food shops and restaurants to be found. (In fact I was totally surprised by how many vegan restaurants I saw - it was really amazing, but unfortunately the friend I went with loves MEAT and so I didn't get to try any).

In terms of food, Brighton is bustling and it seems that local businesses really work together - there's a food festival, a market, and loads more...but on my trip I didn't see any allotments or much evidence of people growing their own. However, Brighton has plenty of green space and parks, so hopefully as the Transition movement there finds it feet we'll start seeing beautiful green gardens instead of parched grass!

However, best of all I think is the sheer number of individual projects and organisations at work in Brighton. The Brighton Permaculture Trust has a fantastic programme with events such as Open Eco Houses and family-friendly Apple Day, and projects to renovate orchards or involving local schools. There's also the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership, which has a 'Scrumping Project' (sounds great to me!) and Harvest Brighton & Hove, which runs local courses in growing your own and eating locally. And just on my skin-the-surface trip I encountered a photographic exhibition near the peer highlighting conservation issues...even the most superficial of tourists couldn't fail to notice some of the city's many inspiring initiatives, events and projects.

In all, as a tourist town Brighton has to balance the needs of local businesses and tourism with their eco-aspirations. It has its problems - litter left by lazy tourists and no doubt huge amounts of electricity needed to power the pier and other attractions. On my visit I didn't see a lot of direct hand-to-earth action, but the atmosphere of cooperation and working together between local organisations and businesses was really noticeable (even on the pier, with the milkshake ladies providing cups of tea for the people in the henna tattoo hut) and the range of initiatives going on is enviable. Keep it up Brighton, you're an inspiration!

Spring Has Sprung!

The first snowdrops appeared about a month ago. In the last week or so the primroses have come up, and just this week the crocuses, which have been pushing up little buds for a while now, came into full bloom. Recently the weather has been almost summery. In the evenings when I walk back from college now the wildlife is still out and about, people are walking their dogs, there are bulbs everywhere in the parks, with great swathes of yellow and purple everywhere you look, and the kids are even playing outside well into the evenings now. Apart from the wind, which is still a little nippy, it feels like August. Everything is coming alive! Here's a look at what we've been up to recently.



^ I don't know what this evergreeen shrub is called, but the bees love it and when it's in flower it smells wonderful.



^ Hellebores



^ The garden today.

^ First Celandines

^ Cardoons sprouting up from the ground.

^ A forgotten Brussels sprout plant left over from 2 years ago!

^ Snowdrops

^ Some plants are already in full flower

^ Snowdrops again!

^ Crocuses emerging through a jungle of strawberry plants

^ First primroses!

^ Yellow crocuses amongst the wall flowers

^ Purple crocus buds

Below: Birds' nests from last year: in the climbing hydrangea (blackbird); behind the satelite dish (collared dove); an a nest from an unknown bird that fell out of the hazel tree, beautifully constructed.

Dad's Velvety Aubergines

Not exactly seasonal or eco-friendly but a great vegetarian option and perfect for evenings that are still a little chilly.

1 aubergine, cut into medium sized chunks

3 fresh tomatoes

fenugreek and coriander seeds

1 clove garlic

a little vegetable oil

salt and pepper

Fry all the ingredients together until the tomatoes have cooked down to a delicious pulp. The aubergines will still be raw and spongey, but turn of the heat and place a lid over the pan. Allow to sit for as long as possible, allowing the aubergines to steam. Reheat when you're ready to eat. The aubergines will be really velvety and melt-in-the-mouth, absolutely delicious!

NB: You can make the recipe spicier by adding chilli or cayenne. Allspice is also a nice addition.

I have been continuing with my ever-growing reading list. I recently finished Regeneration by Pat Barker, a really good read. I loved the style of the writing - simple and subtle but absolutely sublime - and the depiction of the suffering endured by both officers, infantry troops and the people who had to care for them during WW1 was incredibly moving, especially as I recently went on a college trip to the Battlefields and saw the enormous cemeteries left over from the war for myself. I'm not enjoying First Casualty by Ben Elton as much however. Although still an interesting storyline, the writing style feels clunky and crude when I compare it to Pat Barker's work. I also have a new, eco-related addition to my reading list: Whole Earth Discipline by eco-pioneer Stewart Brand. I haven't started it yet but I'm excited about reading this book as it looks like it's going to make me rethink some of my ideas about green-ness. I like the fact that it is centred on treating the Earth as a whole though, rather than just sorting out a few problems here or there. Should be interesting...I'll let you know how I get on!

Dad has visited the bees to see how they have been getting on. We are now down to 3 hives, which is fairly disappointing. Some of the hives seem to have emptied before the weather got too cold, others have clearly diwed out over the winter, and oddly didn't eat any of the vast quantities of honey and sugar we fed back to them. This is interesting though as it presents us with a number of opportunities. The first one is to learn more - I want to become a better beekeeper so that I know how to take better care of these fascinating animals who so kindly allow me to try and nurture them. The second is that we're planning to try out a number of different methods this year. We'll be giving some hives the Warre treatment - i.e. letting them make the choices for themselves - and treating others as we would normally. And thirdly, it's interesting to note that all the hives that survived are our grumpiest bees which we have captured from the wild...I wonder if this says anything about the genetically-engineered artificially produced blood lines that one buys from queen breeders or has imported from Hawaii? Dad has ordered a few more queens to arrive this year, and we're already on the swarm list. But I wonder whether angry, swarming, wild bees are better able to survive than cushy calm bees that are made by humans for humans...

And finally, I have been planning a project for when I leave college (and that will probably end up taking over my whole life for the next 50 years...hope so!). My plan is to research and experience permaculture and sustainable practice from across the world - the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australasia... in order for me to learn more about the ecosystems of the Earth and how to work with them. The idea is to make my way around the world (or as much of it as I can afford) using the most efficient transport possible, working on aid projects and learning from people who really care about working with the planet rather than against it. I intend to record my travels on the blog and maybe when I've learned from the world's best I'll be able to pass my knowledge on in other ways too. I'm beginning to look up possible places to visit but if anyone has any suggestions of places I can go or people I could contact, please leave a comment! I'll be writing more about this as the year goes on, and I hope you''ll find it as exciting as I am finding it already!

Thanks for all your comments and support through the blog - now that things are happening out there in the garden hopefully i'll have more to blog about! ^^

Morning Sunshine Throught Ceonothus and Rose Leaves, 30.01.10

Looks like spring could be on its way ^^

Long Time No See!

Well, this weekend I have finally found some time to catch up on the blog! I've missed it a lot but things have been extremely busy, and now that I'm at college I'm afraid homework and coursework have to come first! I haven't had much time to do much gardening etc. and the bees are all in bed for the winter...just as well, as we have had a really cold snap and almost a month of snow! Our village was on the news with some of the heaviest snowfall in the south, and oddly enough my Mum visited Toronto recently and for once we had more snow than they did! It has been absolute chaos, roads blocked, lorries jack-knifing...we've had nearly a foot of snow and everything has come to a standstill. Schools have been closed, and even when they're open some entrances have to be blocked off because of huge, dangerous icicles...it does have some benefits though: everywhere looks so beautiful in the snow, and when you can't get your car out of the drive it means you have to walk everywhere...good for our health (provided you don't slip and break something, of course) and the environment. Although I have to say I'm slightly relieved now it's thawed! We spent 8 1/2 hours in a traffic jam when we went to get our Christmas tree, and although there was a great spirit of comradeship among all the stranded travelers, I'd rather not repeat the experience. And there's even a luscious hint of spring in the air today.

^ The village early one morning, in the snow

^ Our Christmas this year. Peeling sprouts, our tree, and chocolate pudding and syllabub with Christmas dinner!

^ Up until last February when we had snow, I had never seen icicles. The past few weeks they've been everywhere!

Anyway, as I have mentioned, things are rather quiet here in terms of gardening at the moment, although recently Dad and I did harvest and blanche our celery crop, by washing it, plunging into boiling water, cooling in ice cold water, and then freezing. I grew enough celery to last us 6 months this year (21 plants) so I'm looking forawrd to using it all in soups, chilli, stews...all the warming food you need when it's cold outside.

The animals are all doing really well. The ducks and chickens had been moulting in the autumn, which made them look rather scrawny, but they're now resplendant in their plumage. None of them have really enjoyed the wather recently, although the ducks are enjoying the mud now that it's thawing. Willow however loved the snow and took a lot of persuading to get back in the hutch every evening. And we now have a cat called Lucas, a stray that sheltered in the greenhouse at work after the storm and who has become part of the family. He'll probably go back and live in the greenhouse but we have been taking care of him at home recently. I'm not really a cat person at all - there are way too many of them in the UK, they kill the wildlife and think of all the energy that goes into producing cat food, not to mention the fact that what goes in and out of them absolutely honks - but I have to admit that it's great fun having a cuddly, fluffy animal running around the house. We keep him well away from the other animals however.... Alfie the tortoise is still hibernating in the fridge but we will wake him up sometime in the coming fortnight.

Anyway, something that I have been doing lots of at the moment is reading. It's one of the most enjoyable things you can do on a cold winter night, I find, and it's definitely useful for my Literature AS level too. A new string to the blog that I am adding for winter is a reading list - books I have read, am reading or want to read. Sorry to keep adding more and more things! But I need something to do apart from building new frames when the bees are in bed (and my English teachers are shouting at me).

Anyway, the subject of my course is First World War literature, and I am getting more and more interested in history, so this year so far I have read:

• The Accrington Pals - a play by Peter Whelan.
• Birdsong - a novel by Sebastian Faulks.
• Up The Line To Death - selected war poetry
• The Runes - non-fiction by Horil Svensson. I got a set of runestones for Christmas. I'm not sure if I believe in all the "mumbo jumbo" around things like this but the history of it all is so interesting and the runes provide a different viewpoint on life, so I am finding out more.
• All Quiet On The Western Front - a novel by Erich Maria Remarque.

My favourite of these have to be All Quiet On The Western Front and Up The Line To Death. Up The Line was written during WW1, by people who could actually hear shell fire etc. while they were scribbling down the poems. The anthology features work by the greats such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and my personal favourite Isaac Rosenberg. It's so interesting because it takes you from the beginning of the war, when the poets all believed the jingoistic propaganda going around and that they'd all be home by Christmas, through to the work that describes horrific individual episodes in unflinching detail. I love Sassoon's work becuase it just drips sarcasm, but Isaac Rosenberg is my favourite. I love his poetry but even more I just can't believe how unfair it was that a talented, pacifist but poor, wheezy and short lad from the East End had his life cut short on April Fool's Day 1918. And he wasn't tall enough to be a medic, only for cannon fodder. Poor bloke.

All Quiet is fantastic because it was written in the 20's by someone on the other side - a German veteran. It's an amazing book about the power of the human spirit, and reminds me that there was suffering on both sides - when you study the English literature, that is always going on about the Hun and the Bosch, it's easy to forget that the opposing troops didn't have it any better. I also love it because it was banned and burned by the Nazi's in the 30's - a sure sign of a good philosophy. It's written from the first person too so you really feel like you're there, and the detail...the reported stories of men continuing to attack when both their feet had been blown off, or crawling back to safety holding their intestines in with one hand, and the inimitable Katchinsky...it's a really short book, it only took me a day to read, but it's one of the best books I've ever read.

Birdsong is one of my set texts, and I didn't enjoy it quite as much for several reasons, but it's still an amazing book that I would really recommend.

At the moment I'm reading:

• A Small Sound of the Trumpet - non-fiction by Margaret Wade Labarge - all about women's roles in the middle ages. Really interesting and shows that there were powerful and influential women even in a society dominated by men and religion. And my village's castle is mentioned twice - I had never realised that the old pile of flint down the road was so important!
• The Rune Primer - non-fiction by Sweyn Plowright
• Mslexia issue 44 - women's writing magazine, absolutely inspirational. I have already had work rejected by them, which made me feel like a proper writer, haha! Poetry, short stories, flash fiction, articles...if you love literature, you'll love this, no matter what your gender or background.

And I'm planning to read (for the time being. The list gets longer every day):

• Goodbye to All That - memoir by Robert Graves
• Regeneration - novel by Pat Barker
• Life Class - novel by Pat Barker
• The Middle Parts of Fortune - novel by Frederic Manning
• Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man - memoir by Siegfried Sassoon

Nice to be back blogging and hopefully the next post will be along much quicker!