This week celebrates the eighth anniversary of Bee and my wedding that took place at the Organic Centre on 28th August 2016. Was a wonderful day full of friends and family and sunshine. As a gift we planted an apple tree which we visit on occasion and maybe pinch a celebratory apple.
In this weeks Mindful Gardening Newsletter there is mention of anniversary and apples in addition to developments in various parts of the garden. Here is a poem that Bee wrote to celebrate our day.
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Anniversary
I open the curtains and feel
Gratitude that the steady stream
Did not manifest to dampen
The joy in our wedding marquee.
But today we are become one
Of those older couples we once
Saw staring resolutely out to seas
While sipping tea from a thermos flask.
Sitting side by side in the car
In practical clothes made
To withstand the weather
We too, have seen some worse storms.
Here we stand, if not always
Hand in hand, or side by side
Walking in identical strides, but here
Growing in love with each passing year.
28th August 2024
Bee and Tee in Stewart’s Grove on Anniversary
Fruit and Nut Garden
This year’s apple harvest in 2024
This year we had the fun activity of collecting fruits from the bushes that I was gifted by Keith who is the local tradesman who replaced our old wood stove in the cottage. He had a lot of strawberry and gooseberry bushes he wanted to get rid off and so I managed to get these. The gooseberry bushes produced fruit, but the strawberries produced only runners that I will plant up for next year.
Yesterday (Monday) I walked through the weedy orchard to find a single apple on one of the apple trees – James Grieve. Its such a delight to find produce on a tree that you were instrumental in bringing to fruitage.
A Mixed-breed Apple
A little mixed-breed apple,
half red, half yellow, tells this story.
A lover and beloved get separated.
Their being apart was one thing,
but they have opposite responses.
Rumi
Our neighbour Bridget who lives around the corner by Moneen lake brought us a gift of a lot of apples from her apple trees which are more mature. So, there will be lots of custard to buy to go with the apple pies that will need to be created to use up this lovely bounty.
The Rumi Garden
Having cleared the weeds from around the Southwest of the proposed Rumi Garden the result is that we now have a kind of a lake forming. This will mean my digging a long trench to fill with gravel and pipes so that it becomes somewhere safe to walk. I will be doing this a little bit at a time.
This week we planted up the beginning of the Southwest side of the Rumi Garden with flowers that bloom into late autumn. We planted around twenty of the type of Coreopsis which included the one called “American Dream.”
There was also the planting up of two Veronica with the name “Anniversary.” We talked of this garden reflecting the grace this garden has become since the time we got married eight years tomorrow (Wednesday).
I thought that Bee should plant up the “American Dream” coreopsis with the prayerful intention that everyone in America awaken from the dream of personal separation that is the primary cause of all suffering within this dimension of time and space. In this way there will be the creation of a REAL United States which manifests from the deeper reality of the silence within beyond the personal and the divisionary.
The Yeat’s Garden
This week I got to cover a lot of the ground in the proposed Yeat’s Garden in cardboard that I collected from a skip in Enniskillen courtesy of Poundstretcher where I buy garden supplies. I will be checking to see about the availability of a range of Irish primroses from Barnhaven Nurseries that include: -
· Innisfree (my mother’s favourite poem)
· Drumcliffe (the churchyard close to Sligo and under Ben Bulben where Yeat’s is buried).
· Tara (representing the Divine Feminine)
It was on Streedagh Beach near Sligo where the marriage proposal took place under the magnificence of the Ben Bulben Mountain. A magnificence setting for a magnificence endeavour.
I will begin to move the primrose Quakers Bonnet which is prolific here in Cordressagagh and is a primrose that seems to bloom into forever.
Quote
I am of Ireland and the holy land of Ireland. Come dance with me in Ireland – W. B. Yeats
Here is a reading of this poem that I recorded on a cassette some time ago.
Decided to pull some carrots to see how they are coming on. Am impressed by the size of these carrots but realise that size is not everything. The tops will be going to a bunny who loves them and is the pet of our assistant head gardener Lillie (4 years old).
Picked the last of the rhubarb some of which was given to our favourite post mistress in the Dowra post office who loves to receive these unexpected gifts. The favour is often returned by way of biscuits or cake.
The last of the rhubarb for 2024.
Meeting with Merlin
One of the highlights of the week (other than the wedding anniversary) was the meeting with the merlin fledgling that was sitting in the middle of our lane and would not move as I drove toward it. So, I stopped the car to pick up this little bird. It seemed very ready to allow me to lift it into my hand. It was not a bird whose markings I have become familiar with given all the presents brought into the house by various cats.
It sat in my hand cheeping, and it spread its wings. It didn’t appear hurt, but it stayed in my hand. I moved back up the lane to an opening by a gate and I was about to place my hand on the ground so that I could put it on the ground when it took off like a rocket at a speed one could hardly imagine. It flew halfway across a field to a bush in less than a second.
This encounter with what looked most like a merlin chick left me feeling elated for days. Even now when writing about this meeting has the feeling of delight returns. It was such a special encounter with something that was so beautiful. I got the opportunity to stoke its little head and body and marvel at its creation.
Conclusion
Bird bath in Stewart’s Grove set up this week.
Over the last two days Saturday and Sunday the sun has been shining and provided two perfect days for gardening. I think I have accomplished more in these two days than I have over the last several months. I cleared around the shed and out into that part of the garden that I hope to have the two seven metre bell tents for the festivals I have planned for next year.
Today (Sunday) I started to clear around the polytunnel both inside and outside. In addition, I managed to have some ideas about how to re-create a version of the Orangery that was blown down in the storms that destroyed it and the greenhouse in early January. I have kept all the materials that made up the Orangery and greenhouse. However, I will only be using the polycarbonate sides and top and create a structure that will at least stay upright. (I hope).
That’s the news from this Mindful gardener in the townland of Cordressagagh (Place of the Briars). I wish each of you the embrace of the Presence within you that KNOWS you by heart and has loved you all your life. (Love after Love).
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