Happy Birthday to my baby brother, although he is not much of a baby now!
A glorious blast of late summer sun has arrived on the island so we have been outside most of the day. I woke up in time for the sunrise so I could take a picture as part of the scavenger hunt for the Rewilding Challenge. All excited I dashed outside with my camera only to find that it was very disappointing. Given the quality of the photos posted in the private facebook group I decided that today was not the day to take the photo. I do hope that doesn't mean a sunrise wake every morning for the whole month! Once awake I can't really go back to sleep so I armed myself with the biggest mug of tea I could find and went back to bed to write.
My homework on my course with Waverly Fitzgerald was to choose something to do to celebrate the seasons. I am planning to do a seasonal pilgrimage for each of the seasons in 2014. I am, however, not leaving the island (much). I have selected four places I want to spend time in but they are not all marked on the calendar yet. I do know I want two of them to mark the summer and winter solstice but I haven't decided the date of the other two yet. Let us just say that planning is underway and I am more than a little excited. I do want to mark the summer solstice at the standing stones on Machrie moor and I expect to meet some interesting people on that pilgrimage with their stories to tell. I also want to cheat slightly and visit the Holy Isle which is a small island just off Arran and a World Peace Centre. I then want to stay close and spend some time camping on my own land as one of the journeys and I want to visit a forest for my winter solstice. With those details figured out I can now get on with the planning.
The North American Indians are connected with the land to such a degree that I feel the need to include some of their practice in my seasonal pilgrimages. My on going research has been such an awakening about how simple rituals can calm and heal the mind and the body. So I am going to weave some of their rituals into my pilgrimages and see where that takes me. I have talked for years about doing a long pilgrimage when the children have all left home but my deteriorating health may prevent that. I shall just have to find other ways to travel that I can do.....Rickshaw??
I spent a long time on my homework which then spoke quite clearly to my plans for Scottish island mum in 2014. I have a very large piece of paper which is slowly becoming full of notes and a shape for 2014 so I am pleased. During November/December I will be asking you guys what you think about the future for Scottish island mum and then, by the time December 31st arrives, I will know what is ahead of me. I am so enjoying the course with Waverly because it keeps offering up new aspects to living in the seasons.
The next part of the day was spent with the boys on our rewilding challenge which we are loving. A totally inspirational idea that has gone viral. The activity in the closed facebook group must be beyond the expectations of the authors and I do hope we can all keep it up. I am discovering corners of the world that I knew nothing about. Today was about perspective and the task involved climbing a hill. So the three of us and the three dogs set off up the track by Hazelbank that leads to the top of a reasonable hill. This proved to be my 30 minutes of exercise as well. Once at the top there was a bit of gate climbing so that we could get a better view. The cursing and sweating was well worth it as the view was wonderful. We spent ages discussing what we could see which included our own land. It was interesting to see the smallholding from above. We continued with our scavenger hunt and managed to tick a few more things off our list.
We took yet more photographs and have now set up a flickr set devoted to the challenge. Every day we post our best photos online and today the boys wrote a small poem which I love -
We climbed a hill with three dogs to see what we could see.
Up high we looked at the fluffy clouds high above the blue
sea.
One dog in a bog rolled and rolled while the other two
stopped and stared.
We saw tall trees higher than us and white cottages as far
as we could see.
Moss as thick as pillows cradled the damp stones while
berries hung in the air.
We scavenged for feathers and animal holes as we turned for
home.
Well done boys! The dogs were filthy so a hosing down was required before we retreated inside to view the photographs. After school with George and Max and then Harry I went out seed harvesting. I am actually still harvesting flowers and herbs for drying but I am also underway with seed collecting. I have six bags of lupin seeds for the first six people who message me with their name and address. A little bit of Hazelbank! I will be posting details of other seeds as they are ready. It is really important to ensure your seeds are dry before you store them away otherwise they will rot. They also need to be stored away from light. I will write on the bag how we cultivate the particular plant but you might have a better way that is more appropriate for your location.
I am still harvesting tomatoes daily and cropping my parsley to freeze. I am still getting sweet pea flowers but also seeds so it is a really interesting season. This late sun with ripen the blackberries so we are hopeful of jam this year. The crop last year failed so we were jamless. We are not happy campers when we are jamless.
I do hope you have managed to get outside for some of the day and that your day has been kind to you.
Until tomorrow. xx
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