Treading lightly, one step at a time.
My name is Maria. Many of my earliest memories are to do with nature and plants. I remember travelling along a road through a forest in the middle of winter in Sweden and every time the moon glimpsed through the trees I would shout out in wonder “Look at the moon”. This annoyed my big … Read more About the author.
Over the last few years we have extended our old cottage, built a conservatory and are now in the process of renovating and improving our shed to use as a workshop and storage facility. Our aim is for our buildings to have as little negative impact as possible on the environment. We have used reclaimed … Read more Building our sustainable home.
Even before we bought our cottage and piece of land four year ago, we were planning our forest garden. Forest gardens exist all over the world and their history goes back for thousands of years. It is a way of growing mostly perennial vegetables, shrubs, trees, vines and other useful plants in a way that … Read more Gardening in harmony.
Recently I had the pleasure of venturing out on a trip with a friend to the beautiful Bellefield house and gardens, located close to Birr in County Offaly. We arrived around noon, in the brilliant spring sunshine to a world quite far removed from our home County’s of Mayo and North West Roscommon. Bees and bumblebees were buzzing around, the birds were singing in all the trees and the ground was carpeted in exquisite snowdrops and cyclamen.
Snow is not very common here in the West of Ireland. We have plenty of rain, sleet, hail and the odd thunderstorm. But this week we had one of those rare days when you wake up to a world transformed and we headed outside to capture it all on camera. The air was still and every surface was covered in snow that glistened and sparkled in the cold morning air. We had a similar day last year in December and we did write about it here but since it is such a rare occurrence we thought another post filled with shimmering winter magic would not go amiss.
As we look back at the month of January we would like to use a Swedish word that sums up our involvement in the garden during that period, and it is lagom. Lagom is a word that has slowly spread out across the world in the last couple of years and there is not really any one word in the English language that it translates directly into. The closest might be moderate, adequate, good enough or just the right amount. Not too little and not too much.
In the winter we burn a lot of candles. It is relaxing and comforting to watch the flickering flames and feel the warmth they emit when the rain and snow hammer the dark windowpanes.
The light is returning slowly, every day we have a few more minutes of day light. As we look back on the darkest month of the year, we realize that more time should have been spent in the garden.
We think that light is one of the most important factors to consider when building or renovating a house. We wanted as much light as possible when we extended our cottage a few years ago and as we also wanted to be as sustainable and eco-friendly as possible we decided to build sections of our walls from glass bottles and jars.
2017 is drawing to a close and it is time to sum up the past twelve months in pictures. Sometimes you lose track of time and it is difficult to remember all that has happened so we find this practice highly rewarding. We have so much to be thankful for and at the end of one year it is enjoyable to look back, but also to look forward and think about options and opportunities for the year ahead. We found it suitable to write this post today, at the darkest time of the year, as the wheel is turning towards brighter and warmer days ahead. We have put in links to posts about the various projects, for easy access if you see something you like.
