I really should paint the fence...

Spring has been forgotten, it seems, and we've skipped from snow and frost straight to summer. If last year is anything to be judged by, I'll enjoy it while it lasts, because the weather is glorious right now, and no doubt it will be downhill from here on in.

Yesterday was good though - we went to Finlaystone, which the kids have dubbed 'Fiddlysticks,' and much fun was had by all. My mother-in-law, on arriving at the pirate ship tucked away in the forest, promptly transformed into Mad Moll the Queen of Pirates, and set about putting all the children who were playing there in prison, who then made elaborate plans to escape...The kids loved it, although my mother-in-law was thoroughly exhausted by the end of it.

Near the stream that runs through the estate, replete with waterfall:




We built a cairn on the bed of the stream (as a thank you, in my mind) and my mother-in-law got all archaeological with the children, using technical terms, but Rosie insisted it was, in fact, a spaceship actually:



No trilithons and curbstones for Rosie, thankyouverymuch. Oh, alright. Maybe one.

I told my mother-in-law that we do this all the time when we go to the beach, and the other day I walked the dogs there just as the sun was setting and found that someone had made a wee stone circle, Callanish-style but surrounded by wooden posts at each corner, and a beer can stuck in the middle as if in offering to the sea. (It's a good way to try and appear considerate when littering, I suppose). I tried taking a photo of it on my phone but it was just too dark at that point. My mother-in-law, in turn, told me how they used to collect rocks from the beach near the caravan when my nieces were younger, so they could amuse themselves by piling them up when they were stuck at the caravan park. One year my father-in-law went there all alone, for a little respite, and amused himself (no doubt after several bottles of beer, vodka, or whatever it was he had to hand) by building a mini-stone circle on the lawn beside the caravan. He was so enamoured with it that he brought the rocks home and set them in concrete.

Today we took a trip into Glasgow to look for more clothes for Rosie's summer wardrobe, and got back in time to do a little gardening before dinner and dog walking. I treated myself to a blackcurrant and golden raspberry bush to flesh out my fruit harvest come the autumn, and I was pleased to find that the raspberry I already had (feared dead) was not only thriving, but I had another bush sprouting up nearby. So yay! The two new bushes have been planted, and I've stuck some bricks into the soil to make for stepping stones, so I can weed and pick more easily.

The rest of the bed's still in its early stages, and the chamomile has become a late casualty to the frost so now there's quite a gap to fill before the mint takes over. The growing season's started late, thanks to the weather, so there's not much to show except for wee shoots here and there, in amongst the straggly bushes (thanks to Mungo):



The first leaves of the rowan sapling, which I managed to not get in the photo for some reason, has its first leaves starting to unfurl, but I doubt we'll get any berries this year - it's still too young, I think. The alpine strawberries and the poppy's doing well, to the left and right of the stone pile that I've had a go at - finally - arranging into a small cairn (I took this yesterday, so you can't see the finished result yet). I built the cairn around a broken pair of scissors I found in the beds - for some reason it seemed apt at the time, and I'd always intended to put something in there. I don't know why the scissors sprang to mind, though. At the moment it's decorated with decorate red glass pebbles thanks to Rosie, who helped ('helped'), while Tom watered the flowers for me (by which I mean he made mud, near some of the flowers), but it's made me think that I should maybe decorate one of the larger stones - paint it or something. I'm not sure yet.

I've fixed the puddle (which the lavender is obscuring), with a new bowl that doesn't have holes in it, so it now retains water properly - although I was hoping to get something bigger so I could find some frogspawn and transplant it, to help control the midgies...I've had to make do for now, but the rushes are thriving in there at least.

Next to the puddle you might be able to see a white blob, which is actually a shell. I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, but Tom put it there and started putting daisies and buds from the heather plant into it, 'for the garden', he said:



So I've left it there and now Rosie's started to copy Tom as well. I admit, I'm surprised and pleased that Tom came up with the idea. It's such a simple thing, but it says so much about how they see the world around them.

I sowed some primroses to put around the puddle, but so far they haven't done anything so I'll have to get something from the garden centre, so it's all festive for Bealltainn. The rest of my DIY efforts have been a little more successful - we now have cauliflower, broccoli, beetroot (bleurgh), willd rocket, carrots, onions, leeks, basil, cabbage and 'caterpillar plants' sprouting, along with some sunflower seeds the nice neighbour gave us, which have begun sprouting as well. The cucumber and strawberries don't look hopeful, though - they've not done anything yet - but everything else is coming along nicely. I ordered some container bags as a cheaper option to proper containers, which have arrived and now we just need to get the compost and acclimatise the seedlings before planting them out.

And figure out what to do with all 40 cauliflowers I sowed...

I think I went a little overboard there, and while I know there will inevitably be some casualties, sowing and then having to transplant 40 cauliflowers at the same time seems to have been less than bright, as ideas go. I've managed to fob some off on other people, but that still leaves too many.

But in spite of that minor hiccup, there is exciting news:



Mushrooms! It seems like they've taken for ever, but they're supposed to be somewhere cool and I'm not sure I really have somewhere cool enough, that isn't too cold, at the moment, so I'm sure that's slowed them down a little. I've already picked the first few, and have a few more ready to pick as well now, and there's plenty more to come as you can see by the small white blobs. I shall be using the ones that I've picked already for a mushroom risotto tomorrow, I think.

Really, I'm so excited that I've actually managed to grow something, all by myself, I'm like a big kid.

And another update

Not much time for proper posts at the moment - I'm on a writing and research kick that's kind of taking my brain away from any actual deep thoughts to ramble on about at great length (and aren't you glad) - so instead you'll have to put up with another update about the stuff I've been doing over on Tairis.

Maybe it's the fact that Spring finally seems to have settled in and I'm coming out of hibernation mode. I'm enjoying the sunshine and I seem to be inspired by it at the moment, and so the next few articles I've done are only, oh, four months late (but better late than never...). So:

Yule/Hogmanay - Part 1
Yule/Hogmanay - Part 2
Celebrating Hogmanay

Unfortunately I ended up managing the equivalent of a short dissertation, so the first article wouldn't fit on one page and I've had to split it up...Part one covers Yule, Hogmanay and New Year's Day (in Scotland), while Part Two covers The Processions and Bonfires, New Year's Eve in Ireland, and a short Conclusion. I've attempted to pick out all the important bits from there to give some suggestions on what you can do if you want to go about celebrating the New Year in style in the second article, Celebrating Hogmanay.

All that's left to say at this point is: I do have a life, honest...

With unerring predictability

Yeah well...It started chewing at me, wanting to be written, so write it I did...

I decided to write an article on Latha na Caillich after all, mainly because I had a few thoughts I wanted to get straight in my head, and as usual, writing it out is the best way for me to figure things out. So in a way it's more of an opinion piece than I usually do - you may or may not agree.

Seeing as it's still fecking freezing round these parts - we've had snow again this week, and the ice and wind resulted in power cuts and who knows what's happened to the phones - I've not actually done anything for it yet. I'm going to make some formal offerings, but given the weather I think I'll wait for the Old Style date, April 6th, to do that.

Latha na Caillich - notes

I've been trying to find some good sources on Latha na Caillich - something definitive on its origins and any customs associated with it - but I've not come up with much, other than passing mentions. On the one hand this is pretty much what I expected. On the other, it's a little frustrating.

I was hoping to get something down in writing before the day, but life got in the way of that plan...Seeing as I haven't got much, I thought I'd share the few resources I've found, in quote form, for anyone who's interested in hunting up some information on the day.

While it's referred to as Latha na Caillich(e), March 25th, it also coincides with Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation (when the archangel Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her that she is with child). Before 1600, March 25th was the official New Year in Scotland, and the 'official', fixed date for the Spring equinox. In England, Lady Day was the spring quarter day, which was marked at the beginning of February in Scotland, so the dating may have some English influence in terms of marking the start of spring proper. Carmichael notably makes no mention of Latha na Caillich, and instead has Mary or Bride as the agent of spring who finally defeats the cold.

It seems that much of the lore surrounding the season was meant to determine when it was best to start the sowing of certain crops that needed to avoid frost, or else marking when the danger of storms at sea had passed and everyone could be a little more confident of returning home with a good catch.

Seeing as Latha na Caillich comes from Scottish tradition, the sources are naturally skewed to Scotland, but I've found a few notes on Lady Day in Ireland as well, which I've included for comparison. Seeing as I've already posted Grant's notes on the Cailleach from Myth, Tradition and Story from Western Argyll, I won't post them again here, but they're worth a read for some context, since MacKenzie makes mention of it below.

The excerpts I've given are listed in chronological order, with Scottish sources and then Irish references to Lady Day. And so without further ado:

The Good Life

Since we've been here - two years now - I've been making tentative steps at working on the garden. The first year I expanded the flower bed in the back garden and planted a rowan out there (probably too close to the fence really, but I'm not sure I want to move it now - never mind), and last year, after the whole flower bed got Mungo'd*, I had to start again with most of the planting and decided to take a slightly different tack, with more of a focus on incorporating it into my practices.

I decided I wanted to make my efforts a more devotional act, honouring my granddad who was a gardener, and as a way of trying to connect with the first fruits aspect of Lùnasdal. I planted some red and pink roses for my granddad, along with a poppy and lots of other things to fill in the gaps that Mungo left, and also put in a small pond (i.e. 'puddle') with some seasonal flowers for Bealltainn - marigolds, I think they were - followed by geraniums in the hopes of discouraging the midgies. Next to it I planned to put a small cairn - again for the ancestors - but I've still to finish that, and I put in an old bird box that I didn't really have anywhere to hang for them to nest in, with the idea that bugs might move in instead (to eat the midgies). I also put in a blueberry and a raspberry for harvesting at Lùnasdal - which would have been a great success if Rosie hadn't picked all the blueberries to show me they weren't ripe yet (bar two or three, which managed to survive...). For comparison here's year one (taken in May, just after planting) and two (taken in July):

  



Overall, most of it's survived. Ish. A lot of it's looking a little forlorn at the moment, and there are bits that will need replacing after succumbing to the winter, but the blueberry and raspberry seem to be doing OK and the poppy is looking nice and leafy already. Hopefully it will flower this year. I've built the cairn up but I need to find some larger rocks to finish it off. The 'puddle' has sprung a leak so I need to figure out the best way to solve that problem, and I need to get some compost to spread over the soil in the hopes of conditioning it a little - it's not very good at all. So far it's been a way of putting myself into the soil, if that makes sense. Getting a feel for the place and trying to look after it.

But the biggest plan we have for this year is to grow some veg and perhaps more fruit. I was planning on suggesting to Mr Seren that it might be a good idea to try, but wasn't sure he'd go for it because of the initial expense in getting everything we need - because of the poor soil and lack of space, we're going to have to try growing the veg in containers, and I'm not really sure how successful it's going to be. However, seeing as Mr Seren saw Food, Inc. the other day he's decided that we should aim towards some level of self-sufficiency and grow what we can ourselves - so that made the conversation easier. Me being me, I went straight out and bought seeds and seed trays, and promptly summoned the kids to help me sow some onions, carrots, leeks, cucumbers, cauliflower, strawberries and some basil. We sprinkled some cress seeds over wet paper towels and put a mushroom tray in the airing cupboard, and I've got seeds for aubergines, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, beetroot (bleurgh), wild rocket, oregano, a different type of carrot, swede (rutabaga/tumshie), broccoli (green and purple) to go in at some point too. Assuming there's space.

As I said to Mr Seren, I think I might've gone a wee bit overboard...

We'll have to buy the compost this year, but at some point we're hoping to get a composter for peelings and so forth, so we can use our own in the future. I intend to do it all organically, or as organically as possible, but I could only find organic carrot seeds so it's not as ideal as I'd like it to be.  But if we succeed in growing something then I think I'll be quite happy at this point, and the seeds will keep for a couple of years so I can try different things next year if I don't get round to everything just now. For now, I've got 200 hundred seeds sitting on the kitchen windowsill in the hopes that they'll sprout, and then next month we should be able to get the containers and set them up ready for moving the seedlings outside once the frost risk has subsided.

Of course it occurred to me, after the fact, that I should have ritualised all of the sowing (although the blessing I've found in the Carmina Gadelica is for corn crops, specifically, it seems, I don't see why they wouldn't - or couldn't - have done something similar for their veg). But this I can do for subsequent sowings and for when I set up the containers and move the seedlings.

So far it's all looking like this:



And it's going to take a while yet before most of it sprouts, I should think.




* Mungo verb To wreck something whilst frolicking with wanton enthusiasm and manic fury.