shapeshifting

Jo
Jo

I've been blogging a long time. Since 2003. Lots of things have changed since then.

I changed. Change is what I do.

I shapeshifted and I'm still doing it.

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2011 (10)
 

Lunatic

That lunar eclipse turned my brain into Spaghetti Junction last night. No sleep for the inspired. But no clear thoughts either. If I was to write a long (too long) post about my interwoven thought processes right now it would include these threads:

  • Online business coaching is producing multi-levels of clones and if the only business they have is telling other people how to run their business telling people how to run their business, who is actually doing anything? Making anything? Creating anything? I see the need for business coaching and there is some incredibly inspiring, fresh stuff out there but ohmygod sometimes it's like standing in a hall of mirrors. Of course I'm not an entrepreneur and I don't need to read any of it but when it's good, it's good. I like good now. Good's cool. Cloning isn't.
  • Some of us may have no urge to take over the world but we still want to be part of it. We still want to have left some small positive imprint. And look, Bindu has been reading my mind.
  • Being a catalyst for positive change among your immediate circle is a wonderful thing. The common ground you probably share will mean your interpretation of something is more likely to spark change than would the words of someone living an entirely different life. Why throw a whole lot of seeds on stoney ground when you can watch them thrive in your own back garden? I have been inspired to make real change by a number of close friends recently. Even though I've known for years that what they say is true, it took their voice and perspective to bring it home to me.
  • Age ain't nothin' but a number. Voicing my trepidation of turning 50 in two years has made me realise that the number is simply a marker of how long I've been here. It in no way defines who I am while I'm here. I could as easily label myself as having arrived at 09.30 GMT. Who cares right? But I do think that in my mind it signifies an age at which I really should have grown up. And that's what I'm aiming for. Maturity. A smidgeon of wisdom from the many lessons I've lived through. Less manic intensity. Waaaay more serenity (no, not that one). Serenity is what I've always hoped I'd find when I grew up; I guess the unnamed project is a way for me to get there.
  • I love the flavour. I'd forgotten just how much. Next year, now I know to pick before they flower, I'll be harvesting my own.
  • Tasha Beagle has been rehomed bringing my charges down to three. And, with so much less to do now (there were seven dogs when I started, three have been rehomed and one passed away) I'm only going to visit them once a month. I have been given three Tuesdays a month to do something else. That's good.
  • Restless. I'm restless. I'm getting that 'throw everything up in the air and see where it lands' feeling. I do not know if or when I'll act on that feeling. I do not know what I'd like to see in that new arrangement. I just have a feeling that there is space for something else. Something outward-facing and important to me. Something real and gritty and true.
  • It may be wrapped in something imagined and shiny but still true.
  • Thursday night is yoga night.
  • The project...it is unnamed.
  • Awesomised conversation and laughter with Susannah at Cafe Lucca. Also, standing at one of the busiest corners in Bath while she pokes her upper arm and shouts,"I mean, what the F*CK is THIS?" much to the amusement of me and many passers-by. @photobird...keeping it real.(N.B. It's perfectly normal triceps, in case you're concerned.)
  • Dreaming of teaching people to fly by firing them out of massive cannons. I tried it, it was AWEsome.

 

 See? Scrambled. Good, but scrambled.

 

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Soothed

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Valerian in known for its calming properties, soothing anxiety and balancing moods. We have a lot of valerian growng in our garden and I can verify that I never feel anything but calm out there. Of course we also regularly have seven Jimley Jackdaws on the bird table, a bunch of silly chickens, sunbathing dogs and a small child showing an unreasonable amount of talent at kicking a ball. What's to worry about?

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Inbetween

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In our garden is a hedge and behind that is another hedge and behind that hedge is a 10 foot drop down into the manor gardens. The chickens like to scratch around in the space between. I can relate to that feeling at the moment. It's rich ground.

 

This photograph came straight out of the camera, I just resized it. I love it.

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Protection

Our very nice, conservation-minded Landlord has it in his head that there are too many jackdaws around this year and they're killing the songbirds. They're not. Anyway, he wants to make a pre-emptive strike and shoot the jackdaws.

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my work station

We have jackdaws living in our chimney stack or, as Evie calls it, our jimley. They are The Jimley Jackdaws (and if I ever change my name by deed poll again I'm going to be Jo Jimley-Jackdaw because we all know that would be awesome). I love our jackdaws and do not want their death or the deaths of their subsequently starving chicks literally hanging over our heads.

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So I thought I should put some protective stuff together for the JJs and to that end, I made a quick totem for them. A very small one. And now it's sitting on the mantlepiece in the kitchen, where the JJs can be heard, waiting for me to add some penwork.

I quite like it.

(Young jackdaws have pale blue eyes.)

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Ten days

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Chicka meets Idgie and Ninny at their front door.

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See the beautiful blue/greens? Chicka likes to perch. They're perchers, this family.

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MeiMei - always moving. Little Brown Hen. Sweetie.

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The Flag of Chicken Nation from an original design by Evie.

 

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Sweet MeiMei lays blue eggs. This was her first one for us.

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Late afternoon. Horses in the field = Nell on a lead. #herder

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I look at this and a sob explodes in my heart. Is he not perfect and wild and beautiful still?

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the august break: eleven

Last spring we had many adult toads in our garden. We live on what seems to be some kind of toad ley line. Also, if it weren't for the complicated network of managed streams and moats and ponds here on the estate, I believe we would be living on a water path. There is a well outside our kitchen door that is hundreds of years old. Much aqua. Good feng shui. Good for toads.

Yesterday it rained for 12 hours for the first time in longer than I can remember and the baby toads came out to take part in a little toady pilgrimage to wherever it is they go. The cobblestones outside our kitchen were a toad highway. When I came down to settle the dogs for the night I found six of these cuties had found their way under our ancient back door and were checking out the kitchen.

Exactly how perfect is this home for me? I know.

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the august break: ten

Finally, my garden breathes a cracked sigh of relief...and drinks.

 



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How does your garden grow?

The gingerbread house that we live in is built on a slope so the kitchen is on the ground floor and the back half of it is underground. Outside is a 25ft x 25ft-ish patch: half cobbled and half...er...not. It’s tempting to use blogger’s licence and refer to the rest as lawn but really there’s a little rough grass, a lot of wild plants and a Virginia creeper with a strong desire to take over the world. There’s an unused vegetable bed thick with the result of months of scattered birdseed. Shrubs and small trees separate the garden from our neighbour’s on two sides - overgrown in theirs and ours; the third side is the old stone wall that encloses the manor garden. It’s south facing and as hot as hell on even a mild day. Dry as a bone during the summer and sopping, boggy wet for the rest of the year.

There are steps that link this area to the ‘top garden’. They go up the side of the cottage to meet the little porch area outside the front door and the doors to the laundry room (once an outside bathroom) and a log store. The top garden is long and laid mostly to lawn that is in turn mostly clover. There are three flower beds, two small apple trees, a pear tree, a vine, a cherry tree and a silver birch. The biggest buddleia ever is in the far corner and wild clematis that grows unchecked, linking the lower trees and shrubs with the huge yew that stands just beyond our fence, its extremities dipping down to provide some dappled shade for the chickens as they excavate the ground beneath. There’s a thick tall hedge down one side, the continuing manor garden wall along the other.

A large gravelled area halfway up the garden, next to the wall, was claimed as my veg garden. I filled two plastic raised beds with compost and planted young veg plants and the seedlings I’d grown in the greenhouse. I had potatoes planted in sacks. There are herbs in containers and peas growing up a willow pyramid. The chicken run (always open to the garden) is tucked away next to the veg patch with the buddleia towering over it.

Sounds awesome doesn’t it? Oh the plans I had for this garden. There would be beautiful, but old recycled containers full of flowers, found curios would hide in shady corners. the lawn would be green and soft and perfect for a small child. Herbs and scented flowers would fill the air with evocative scent and we would eat delicious veg that we had grown ourselves, marvelling at how much better it would taste than anything we’d bought. We’d be all sustainable and shit.

I know. I grew up in this place and I’m still an idiot.

Here’s the truth. Yes the garden is still beautiful and we are beyond lucky to live here. That said...we’ve had weeks of no rain. The ground is cracked and dusty. Empty patches have been kicked and kicked all over the place by Idgie and Ninny who seem convinced they’re about to discover a series of small Roman-built walls and possibly some high status jewellery from the 1st century CE.

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See that? That, my friend, is an early Saxon egg poacher or I'm a Buff Orpington.

So far they’ve only succeeded in killing off a selection of snapdragons, some golden rod seedlings, a couple of lavender bushes and my lemon mint. Give ‘em time. They’re on it.

The lawn is now a mix of parched-looking clover and brown dust that was once grass. But it’s okay. Once I’ve done a poo patrol and cleared up after, yes, those chickens again.

The greenhouse has one roof pane missing from when a high wind popped it out last autumn, leaving huge shards of glass stabbed into the lawn like a scene from The Omen. It has no door because I accidentally pulled it off with the lawnmower. Ditto with the glass. It has some weird plant growing in the bed in there that I think may have arrived as a spore on a comet. Whatever it is, I haven’t the heart to pull it up and anyway it may bite. There are also four tomato plants which go from Bright! And Perky! to Oh FFS about three times a day. There’s no irrigation in there. Unless you count the hole in the roof but like I said, no rain.

The potatoes got their leaves eaten and the spuds we rescued were like marbles except for about half a dozen sweet little baby spuds. I had to unearth them waaay too early.

The courgettes I planted in one bed alongside carrots and french beans are taking over the world and while I love their bright yellow flowers, I feel very sorry for the other plants struggling beneath their leaves.

The beetroot got eaten by whoever ate the spuds. We had some lovely lettuce but didn’t eat them and now they’re all nibbled and overblown.

The sprouts are doing well but the peas suffered from from dehydration and yesterday a strong wind blew over the willow pyramid and most of them snapped off at the bottom.

My lovely geraniums got battered by wind and rain (yay! rain! boo! rain!) yesterday and now they look like crap.

The kitchen garden looks abandoned and despite the days when I break my back and shrivel in the sun to pull weeds out of the cobbles, they just. keep. coming back.

Jackdaws have filled our chimney with sticks until the ones resting at the top formed a nest for them. That’s four storeys and a roof space in height. Of sticks.

You see? A mirror for life. I moved here with huge plans of growth and health and beauty and nature and nurture and sanctuary and enrichment. I had a vision in my head.

The reality somewhat resembles that vision but it’s been battered and starved and dessicated by exterior influences. Before this week’s rain it looked like everything was just going to shrivel up and die. I’ve buzzed around trying to keep it tended and cared for but I took on too much and without thought of how little I knew about the task I was undertaking. I looked at what others had done and thought I could fit it in alongside everything I already had and wanted to keep and I guess this could be seen as a negative thing.

Only it’s not.

I look at my garden now and I see that it’s beautiful. It looks established and yet allowed to run wild in many places. There are weird things in there that shouldn’t fit and yet they’re at home. The new and the old are winding together. There is a rich diversity of wildlife right here alongside us, sharing our address.

I have learnt a lot from what’s happened. I’ve learnt that you can have all sorts of wonderful things growing alongside each other as long as you’re mindful of how you arrange them. That you need to give things time to grow and then appreciate them once they have.

I’ve learnt that a garden is not all about toil and it’s also not just about sitting back and relaxing. The beauty happens when you find the balance. No complacency and yet no panic. Yes, you need to put in some work most days. Also to observe, nourish, feel and just sit and be. Some of it is out of your control and so it should be if you want the real thing.

This is nature. This is life. And its seasons roll round and around.
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