Weeding, Weaving & Waiting For The Rain To Stop

Little, large and rainbow bright in progress breakthroughs along the way...

The Garden

Complete novice gardener thoroughly overwhelmed when we first arrived in our rocky, nettle, dock & ground elder filled Highland hilly space. Madly digging up new beds with full moon energy and zero vision, just the need to be doing something. It was hard-going. Buying lots of lovely little plants that just got lost in the sizeable scape or eaten by the then neighbouring un-contained sheep.

Four years later. Four years later! What, didn’t we only just get here? One of the reasons the first three years passed in a flash was because we were enjoying a phase of full-time home-schooling/educating/call it what you will, it was really good fun! Now we’re back at full-time regular school and the world has opened up. In many ways. And I seem to have fixed my health along the way. Ready to Do Things and take on the world again. Maybe a little more slowly & carefully this time, huh?

Some bits of the garden have been lovely despite my general positioning ineptitude –successful seeding of lupins, parsley and aquilegia that keep coming back. Got the hanging of annual seeding sweetpeas, cosmos and poppies. Rose pruning going ok. Snowdrops from Skye doing their thing. And boy have those daffodils done well, all that tough bulb-planting in among the rocky soil – starting to see those dreamy swaying drifts across the space making some real impact Feels So Good.

I now know a weed when I see it. Or rather I know my weeds. The ones here that I am faced with, the obvious docks, nettles and ground elder which in their insurmountable multitude feel impossible and the not-so-obvious to newbies but a little more manageable creeping buttercup weed (we have the prettier meadow buttercup too which I generally leave) and 2-3 others I keep learning & forgetting the names of, but I know to pull. But really what I wanted to say was that this year I am for the first time properly facing and confronting the docks. With a big spade, after finally biting the bullet and digging up and properly placing seven too-close-together little cherry trees I just stared digging them up, whole plant and root, not caring a jot about the huge hole in the grass because we have a tonne of mole hills anyway. I’m 50% of the way through…

The Loom

Weaving my rugs is slow work and I have a year’s collection in mind to make, pinned to the Celtic Wheel of the Year which is going to take… time. Hard for someone who likes to rush her way through everything. Completing slow work is a hurdle and I create all sorts of mental gymnastics and contortions to try and find my way through. The most recent being that I could only achieve anything really worthwhile if I could block out a 2-3 hour block of time. Of course that meant things ground to a halt and my latest rug (started over the Spring Equinox) has been sitting languishing on the loom. So, new approach: as the deadline of April end looms (lol!) to start the next rug in the series, Beltane, how about an hour, or even just half an hour, to be an acceptable approach? Which over this last week has taken me up to just three hours away from finishing. Yes, result. Potentially finishing a whole week early… what? Updates on my rug work over on @unspunrugs Instagram page.

So Sodden

Which brings me to the non-stop deluges of rain we, and many others, have been experiencing. Turning the brisk, bright, up-tempo and really not that rainy central mainland Highland area where we live decidedly west coast. Wet, dreich, damp and feels colder than it is. Until this year year never having had to give long set-in rainy days much of a thought. This year we have had lots of them, and I find myself sitting waiting, hankering, pacing for the dry days again. Light drizzle is ok, but I’m not one to force myself out in the wet and windy. Am still waiting, languishing in anguish, heart beating too fast when the rain is lashing heavily, not at peace with it, unsure how to deal… you?

And finally a word of thanks to Sara Tasker & Keeley Rees whose passion for Substack has finally confirmed mine and got me really going excited going forward … so much useful info and interesting insights on their latest Substack Soiree podcast or I actually watched it as an Instagram Reel on Sara’s Me & Orla page.

Til next time x