September 2009

In my quest for a more gentle life I've been reading Oriah Mountain Dreamer's book The Call. She writes, among other things, about living from a still, calm centre. I thought I'd give this a go and, waking rather earlier than I expected on one of my "days off", I took myself up to the woodland for a bit of reflection. It was lovely to sit in the stillness of the morning, watching the spiders visiting the moorings on their webs, heavy with dew, listening to the birds in the trees and the horses gently chomping the grass and breathing misty swirls into the air. I understood that stillness, I sat for what seemed like an age, just breathing and watching and listening calmly. No need to do anything, no questions to answer or people to respond to, no demands... just me and the day. At some point I felt the desire to move, so I stood up and walked through the very long grass deeper into the woodland (it's a relatively young woodland and we haven't sprayed anything to kill off grassy growth). Some of the trees are doing very well, others are either slower growing or struggling a bit. I followed a wildlife track and thought about the simple log cabin I had sat in during my visit to Holycombe in July. I vowed that on my return to the farmhouse, I would try to connect with this space at least once each day.

The next day, up early to take pigs to the abattoir and the Shogun didn't want to start to bring me home. My still centre was already somewhat challenged as I had a full day of stuff to attend to, days off can leave stuff backed up like that! The weather did indeed buck up and hay was being made, no time to waste with that... it had to be turned ("tedded") and baled and brought in before the rain came down... then there's the chicken who got under the feet of a pig, eager for his supper and ended up with a broken leg. I would have dispatched her, but she was so full of life, I decided to make a splint, bandage her up and see if a few days in the chicken hospital would heal her... seems to be doing OK right now. In the study the printer broke... we careered through deadlines and the Natural Horsemanship Magazine that we publish was painfully late... and I realised that any connection with a still centre whilst running around at 90 miles an hour was just not happening :-(

We had a full a fruitful month of outside events where we took our burgers and bacon rolls on the road, we'd had fun at The Woodland Games and The Brinkworth Show. The little river running through the village of Hindon near Salisbury has been invaded by the American Signal Crayfish. These rather big critters apparently erode banks and destroy the habitat of our smaller native species. Recognising the problem, the villagers got together and went on a big crayfish hunt, fishing out all the invaders they could find and putting them in their freezers! It left Hindon rather short on freezer space, so they held a festival at which we were invited to go along and serve anything at all we could think of with crayfish, we planned a surf'n'turf burger... but actually, it ended up being a stand alone burger as by the time the day had arrived, they were right out of crayfish for us to cook :-( They raised funds for the church roof and helped the local environment to boot.

We have been enjoying the fruits of our labours in the veggie garden this year and as the summer starts to fade, one of our WWOOFers, Debs, found time and inspiration to create a fire pit for us to sit around, a heart (and body) warming activity at the end of a day. We used the dutch ovens to cook beans and beef stew in which went down very well and are planning a cook out for bonfire night with a few friends. At least if the electricity goes off, or we wind up living in a caravan, we now have a way to keep warm and sustained!!!

I know when the nights are starting to draw in... not only is there a flurry of activity around the time that dinner is set on the table, mainly to do with shutting the chickens in, but also Strictly Come Dancing appears on TV :-)) You might think me sad and I don't really care, I LOVE this programme. The thing I like about it is the dancing. I don't know who most of the celebrities are and I don't much mind who stays in or goes out or wins or loses (although I have to admit I'm glad Anton seems to have landed someone who can actually dance this year!). I took ballroom dancing lessons when I was a young girl and I love dancing now, although I don't make time for it regularly. I used to sit glued to Come Dancing watching the girls in their pretty dresses and the boys shaking their stuff... this is my TV time of the week and if anyone wants supper, they either join me round the telly or help themselves!

We hope your September has been a good, sunny one.