Seasons

[Samuel]

Who is the third? Horsethorn? I haven't seen him around for ages

[Dicky Underpants]

Much more interested in the thing called beer.

This time of the year produces many things that can be turned into (sometimes) pleasant alcoholic drinks, if you can be patient. Still quite a lot of blackberries around for wine, and soon the sloes will be ready, for wine - if you like doing things the hard way - or sloe gin if you like things easy. I quite get off on the process of making wine, but don't end up drinking much of it myself. I tend to give it away to friends, who I certainly shouldn't be encouraging into getting rat-arsed.

Bad year for fungi down in the SW, though. A few shaggy parasols and shaggy ink-caps, and the odd puff-ball. But I did see a couple of Amanita Phalloides, and felt strangely tempted to experiment (not on myself, but I can think of a few deserving causes)

[Rhiannon]

My spiced blackberry brandy is legendary among me and a few other people. I've yet to find an ailment it doesn't cure, or at least stop you caring about.

[Shaker]

My spiced blackberry brandy is legendary among me and a few other people. I've yet to find an ailment it doesn't cure, or at least stop you caring about.

I still want to try some of that

Used to make my own wine - very enjoyable drinking the finished product but I did get tired of the tremendous faff involved with the sterilisation of everything, etc. I've always said I'd have a go at brewing my own ale, which is less complicated.

[Rhiannon]

That's why fruit brandies are so good - really easy.

Will put the recipe up on the recipe sticky later.

[Owlswing]

Much more interested in the thing called beer.

This time of the year produces many things that can be turned into (sometimes) pleasant alcoholic drinks, if you can be patient. Still quite a lot of blackberries around for wine, and soon the sloes will be ready, for wine - if you like doing things the hard way - or sloe gin if you like things easy. I quite get off on the process of making wine, but don't end up drinking much of it myself. I tend to give it away to friends, who I certainly shouldn't be encouraging into getting rat-arsed.

Bad year for fungi down in the SW, though. A few shaggy parasols and shaggy ink-caps, and the odd puff-ball. But I did see a couple of Amanita Phalloides, and felt strangely tempted to experiment (not on myself, but I can think of a few deserving causes)

Honey is available all year round for the production of the earliest alcholic drink known to man - mead!

Not, however, recommended for a diabetic such as myself! DAMMIT!

[Owlswing]

Much more interested in the thing called beer.

This time of the year produces many things that can be turned into (sometimes) pleasant alcoholic drinks, if you can be patient. Still quite a lot of blackberries around for wine, and soon the sloes will be ready, for wine - if you like doing things the hard way - or sloe gin if you like things easy. I quite get off on the process of making wine, but don't end up drinking much of it myself. I tend to give it away to friends, who I certainly shouldn't be encouraging into getting rat-arsed.

Bad year for fungi down in the SW, though. A few shaggy parasols and shaggy ink-caps, and the odd puff-ball. But I did see a couple of Amanita Phalloides, and felt strangely tempted to experiment (not on myself, but I can think of a few deserving causes)

Honey is available all year round for the production of the earliest alcholic drink known to man - mead!

Not, however, recommended for a diabetic such as myself! DAMMIT!

It's worrying how many people are diabetic nowadays, I suppose tests are more accurate.

Far too many.

I was 51 when I was diagnosed with teenage onset diabetes! Go figure.

More people are being diagniosed and one of the most widespead causes is obesity. A waist measurement of 37 inches (if you are male) and 31.5 inches (if female) and a blood sugar level check might be a good idea - see your doctor.

[OH MY WORLD!]

I was enjoying reading this thread. Rhi was it you that struggle with growing veggies? Don't ever give up, try zucchini, it will grow in most conditions and is a big producer. Just look up what conditions your veggie choice needs. Soil, light, heavy feeder or light, what pests to watch for.

Rose, start with something tough and looks great. Zonal geraniums(pelargonium) with the wild storms in my area they are a must for me.

I'm in the middle of putting my yard to bed but this was what it looked like this summer but as you can see Rose, I use a lot of geraniums

And hello to you dearest matty.

http://i899.photobucket.com/albums/ac192/JohnCm_bucket/P1020693_zpsh1dwekhc.jpg

http://i899.photobucket.com/albums/ac192/JohnCm_bucket/P1020692_zpsrvogqgcm.jpg

http://i899.photobucket.com/albums/ac192/JohnCm_bucket/P1020695_zpslvto11zq.jpg

http://i899.photobucket.com/albums/ac192/JohnCm_bucket/P1020707_zpsjzppeya3.jpg


I enjoy all seasons, even in at -25 I will bundle up and head down the hill at night and walk the river path. But I never stop growing plants. My begonias for customers next spring will be seeded in my basement as soon as the seeds get here from South Carolina. Thankfully they shipped them just before they got hit with all the terrible flooding.

[Rhiannon]

I thought I'd give this thread a revival given the quality of the writing and the interesting points of view here.

It's been a strange winter so far and time is running out for a 'proper' one to arrive - only a handful of hard frosts and no snow except for one blizzard that didn't settle. But so wet which makes walking on the muddy fields incredibly slippy due to the clay. There's definitely something unsettling about not having a winter in which coats and scarves have been necessary. There have been bonuses though - evenings spent at least partly outside under the stars at a time of year that would normally be far too cold for one.

[Shaker]

I thought I'd give this thread a revival given the quality of the writing and the interesting points of view here.

It's been a strange winter so far and time is running out for a 'proper' one to arrive - only a handful of hard frosts and no snow except for one blizzard that didn't settle. But so wet which makes walking on the muddy fields incredibly slippy due to the clay. There's definitely something unsettling about not having a winter in which coats and scarves have been necessary. There have been bonuses though - evenings spent at least partly outside under the stars at a time of year that would normally be far too cold for one.

I'm glad that this thread has been revived - I've enjoyed it very much and, I hope, had something to contribute to it.

While people think of winter covering December to February, the image of a cold, snowy Christmas can mislead - January and February are typically the coldest months of the year (it can of course snow significantly well into April, and I'm referring to the East Midlands here and not Scotland), hence snowdrops (clue is in the name) appearing in February.

I think it was in Watership Down that Richard Adams said that what humans enjoy about winter is not the winter itself but being able to insulate themselves from it - hence the pleasure (to me and like-minded people) of winter overcoats, woolly hats, scarves, gloves and wellies. I'm a confirmed winter lover and actively embrace harsh weather - a mild winter seems wrong, unfitting, out of place; winter is supposed to be cold and gloomy. Even the majority of people who I would say dislike winter and can't wait for it to be over recognise this and are themselves apt to moan about an unseasonably mild winter.

Near at hand on a small foothill of my to-read mountain is a wonderful book called The Seasons: A Celebration of the English Year by Nick Groom*. It's an unapologetically England-centric examination of the English seasons, English weather and associated traditions, mythology and folklore. The ominous thing about is that, being a 2013 book, it's written very much with the shadow of climate change hovering over it and an elegaic tone - Groom's idea in writing the books seems to have been to erect a memorial for a set of clearly-defined seasons and the traditions associated with them, both probably doomed to disappear for ever, and soon.

Sad stuff 

* http://goo.gl/bxexey

[Owlswing]

I thought I'd give this thread a revival given the quality of the writing and the interesting points of view here.

It's been a strange winter so far and time is running out for a 'proper' one to arrive - only a handful of hard frosts and no snow except for one blizzard that didn't settle. But so wet which makes walking on the muddy fields incredibly slippy due to the clay. There's definitely something unsettling about not having a winter in which coats and scarves have been necessary. There have been bonuses though - evenings spent at least partly outside under the stars at a time of year that would normally be far too cold for one.

It has been incredibly mild recently. Mild enough for me to visit some friends at another coven and to work skyclad, in January no less.

When the wind gets up it can, however, be quite nippy even when wrapped up for the Arctic!

Looking at this thread I wonder if Shaker is JC's fourth Pagan?

[Shaker]

It has been incredibly mild recently. Mild enough for me to visit some friends at another coven and to work skyclad, in January no less.

When the wind gets up it can, however, be quite nippy even when wrapped up for the Arctic!

Looking at this thread I wonder if Shaker is JC's fourth Pagan?

We're unlikely ever to find out!

[Gonnagle]

Dear Season Lovers,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrZKZlJV4S8

Why, because this is a nice thread, a sharing thread.

Put yer headphones on and enjoy.

Gonnagle.

[Rhiannon]

#70 Shaker,

I agree so much - like you I love winter (I expect that one reason I love autumn so much too is because winter is heading in) - insulating ourselves is definitely a part of it but so is being exposed to it - it reminds us of our place in things. A winter such as this might be an anomaly - but it may well not be.

Much of the contemporary British nature writing has an elegiac quality to it. And that on folklore too... We seem to be waking up to what we are losing, not just as climate change looms but in the ways the countryside is being destroyed and plundered. We can't imagine what birdsong must have sounded like to John Clare's ears because our farmland birds have plummeted so far in number. I heard a single skylark today - imagine what a sky full of them sounded like.

Where I live three village pubs have closed in the past few months. Each of them offered open mic nights for folk music. Each of them offered their own unique village events. What fills the vacuum now that they've gone? If we sneer at the Morris dancers and the Molly Men who will step up to carry on these traditions once the current generation dies out - maybe some will take the view that it doesn't matter.

[Rhiannon]

Just thinking...this reflects very much the discussion on the sacredness thread. If people can't see that some things are sacred (meaning to be treated with care and not taken for granted) - daisies, earthworms, hawthorn, sparrows, winter - then there is a very real danger of losing so much that we'll go long before the last 'weeds' have perished. And really will we deserve any different?

[Rhiannon]

I hate it when farmers remove hedges altogether, hedges support variety.

They are also the 'highways' by which species move from one territory or feeding ground to another.

[Owlswing]

Just thinking...this reflects very much the discussion on the sacredness thread. If people can't see that some things are sacred (meaning to be treated with care and not taken for granted) - daisies, earthworms, hawthorn, sparrows, winter - then there is a very real danger of losing so much that we'll go long before the last 'weeds' have perished. And really will we deserve any different?

What is a weed? A plant growing somewhere where someone doesn't want it to grow!

[Rhiannon]

What is a weed? A plant growing somewhere where someone doesn't want it to grow!

Got it in one.

[Jack Knave]

Just to note I really liked Shaker's post and I was about to say it is too long to put in best bits but I think I will pop it in when I am not on the moby. That said I have almost nothing in common with it. This talk of nature makes me itchy, give me a bar anyday.

And where would you like the bar put....

[Jack Knave]

Dear Thread,

Must be tough being a pagan in Scotland, did we actually have a summer

Dear Sane,

See those boxes outside the pub, you know, the ones on the windowsill, the colourful things inside them are called flowers

Gonnagle.

They don't even know what fruit and veg is.

[Jack Knave]

Well I am shocked!  Two actual pagans bringing me into the fold!

ETA: Nearly Sane did me the honour of putting my earlier overlong ramblings on the 'Forum best bits' section where Gonnagle wondered what I meant by specifying English nature (rather than nature in general). Rather than derail the thread by answering the question there I thought I'd do so here.

I was specific about English nature not because I mean any disservice to the starker, craggier landscapes of Wales (where I've spent a lot of time) or Scotland but simply because, given my upbringing, it's the English landscape that I automatically think of when I think of nature. It's like word association - nature means England, even my native East Midlands specifically. There are several very (and justly) celebrated explorers and nature writers - Doughty; Wilfred Thesiger; T.E. Lawrence; Edward Abbey, those sorts of people - who fell in love with deserts. By innate temperament, taste, preference, inclination, whatever you care to call it, that's not the sort of landscape to which I would respond as they did, since my tastes run to what I suppose you might call a very European landscape - bosomy fields and valleys, rivers, lakes, woods and the like. Green places, green because of rain in abundance (which I adore), another reason why a desert landscape is the least congenial.

Throw into the mix the fact that - for unknown reasons - all my life I've been fascinated by the Anglo-Saxon era, even to the extent (because I'm fascinated by languages) of trying to learn Old English, without stellar success. It's just something which has always drawn me. Why, I couldn't say for a million pounds; I just know that it does.

Shaker, you always come across as a hard atheist but your showing your soft fluffy side. A few more steps and you could find yourself in the pagan/New Age camp.

[Shaker]

Shaker, you always come across as a hard atheist but your showing your soft fluffy side. A few more steps and you could find yourself in the pagan/New Age camp.

I'd be surprised to say the least but Owly did say (in #8) that there would be a few pagans who would classify me as such!

[Jack Knave]

I think I may be on this sub-forum considerably more often than I have hitherto been. Goodness knows it can do with an injection 

One step closer.....

[Rhiannon]

Few pagans take kindly to being called a) New Age or b) fluffy.   

[Jack Knave]

Few pagans take kindly to being called a) New Age or b) fluffy.   

Well this raises the question what is a pagan?