A touch of frost to warm our hearts.

The last week has seen a lot of frosty weather in the West of Ireland. We have ventured out into the garden early in the mornings to capture some of the structural beauty. Plants that look quite ordinary on any other day have been transformed into stunning creations, full of natural grace.

As we moved around the garden with fingers getting increasingly numb, trying to capture this on camera, we realized that the winter garden brings its own special magic. Everything looks so different at this time of year, the colours muted into browns, greens and the occasional reds. The white frost just sets this new palette aglow and creates beautiful contrasts. Our garden is a source of an abundance of food, a wild life haven, a pesticide free zone where nature is allowed to do its own thing with as little interference as possible. We love it for all of those qualities but sometimes it is just a place of marvel, a beautiful space in which to get lost for a while, dream, re-energize and meditate.

We cannot think of anything better to do with our time than to look after this little piece of our planet to the best of our abilities. It is amongst the most rewarding things we have done in our lives and the more you give the more you get back.  There is much to say about the benefits of working with nature. You will never need a gym membership, you are rewarded with plentiful things to eat and get to see so much beauty that any sadness or worry disperses quickly.

We are very grateful for this opportunity as we have lived for many years in places where we did not have the means or possibility to work with nature. It is only in the last four years that our dreams are starting to take flight. A piece of nature is ever changing and there is so much to look forward to. If you ever get the chance to move to an old house with a piece of land our clearest advise would be to start work on the land as soon as possible. We only made our house barely liveable and then concentrated on planting trees, shrubs and smaller plants. After only four years we are rewarded with a piece of paradise where until recently was nothing but a bare field. The house has got its fair share of attention, but only after the land was given a chance to start to recover.

You can see what it used to look like in these Google Earth images, nothing but laylandii cypress, some lovely old ash trees and grass.

 

It does not take long to transform any piece of land and bring it back to its roots, a beautiful, magical and natural place. We are so lucky to be a part of this transformation. It is our biggest hope that this blog will inspire others to try a bit of the same thing. Once you get started, there will be no stopping you.