Cloudless blue

Posted on by celfypridd

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I write at a desk in a room overlooking our kitchen garden. A bridge between the house and the garden spans the long yard below. I write and listen to the song of blackbirds. It’s the growing season and half my mind is concerned with gardening tasks and the other half a novel about a broken man and a frozen child. The sky is a cloudless blue.

Cutting the orchard meadow before full sun

Posted on by celfypridd

I always set the mowers blades high and they stay that way through the year. The orchards sward stays green and lush through the height of the summer even on the driest of years. Grass cuttings are used to mulch soft fruit bushes and the standard apple and cherry trees. This year is going to be a challenge as the rainfall has been low through the winter and the spring. Leaving the grass long slows evaporation and holds the dew in the mornings. In contrast my neighbour’s mow short and their ground is yellowing and I’ve no doubt I’ll hear the sprinklers soon. This year reminds me strongly of the spring of 1976!

I’m not tidy. I don’t cut at the edges of the field leaving long grass as hiding places for newly fledge birds. I leave daffodils and primroses stand and only cut when the flower pods are dry and rattling with seed. I collect the seeds before I cut and spread them where I think a splash of colour will look good in spring.

We choose the myths we live by

Posted on by celfypridd

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

The power of myth  Joseph Campbell