~ A Little More on the Tilly Keepers and Playing Catch~Up ~

 How it began.....

 'The Tilly Keepers' now have eyes, and the beginning of grasses and mosses around their roots (now extended).  The cyanotype feather in the centre is Tilly flying free. There will be two moons, one of them blue, as she died in August and it was a blue~moon month.

Sorry about the poor picture quality. The light has been poor here for days.

House sitting at the Willow farm in the Spring.....

Gorgeous and adorable Axle

Zoomed in on lovely donkeys in a distant field

A mini Faerie Waterfall.....

in a mini Faerie Wood

Brand new oak leaves

 

Ghostly underwater world

Lunchtime notice from a colourfull and eccentric shop owner 

in Newcastle Emlyn

Cenarth Bridge

Such a dramatic sky

Apple blossom buds

and flowers

and fruit
from our garden.
Two apples last year, ten this year :~)

The River Teifi at St Dogmaels

From our garden....

Our Boy had friends staying over. I couldn't resist taking a photo
of these shoes.

Clasped in a tight embrace....

An early Autumn visit to
my favourite local Cromlech

We walked through silent woods to get to it, stopping to
absorb the peace, breathing deep.

My Touchstone

So happy to be in this magical place ~
a ring of Beech trees surrounding the
burial chamber

One from the archives
2006

~ willow and weaving ~

Willows are, of all trees, the most mysterious.

It is said that they were the first of trees; 

that before a bird sang or a bee quested for honey

the world was full of willow forests.

Mary Webb

Some of the baskets that I have thrifted, been gifted, or made myself

They all get used for something and I get such simple enjoyment when I grab a basket which may be filled with fibres, needle felting materials, or willow weaving tools.

For many years I wanted to try to weave a willow basket. I find that I have little confidence to try things out by myself, although I am working on that, so I finally found a course and made my very first waste basket....the one in the top photo, right hand side, top. I loved the whole process, finding a primal need satisfied. The teacher gave me this piece of writing she had found, which describes perfectly the feeling many have when they weave:

I sat on the stump of an oak. In my jeans pocket I had only a small wire cutter. I was weaving a basket of bittersweet vines that had climbed up and around a nearby tree and then spilled over onto an adjacent stone wall.
I was alone (not a house or human in sight), yet I could hear the insistent voice of a wood pewee all the while I sat there.
The vines were rough on my hands - and strong - but the basket was beginning to take shape. The air was balmy and cool. A box turtle walked past my stump. The wood pewee continued its calling.


I wove.

I was serene and happy. I was ancient in that I felt more kinship than ever before with my ancestral sisters who somewhere, sometime, probably labored at the same craft (though for different reasons) and perhaps heard the same wood pewee.
My senses were alert to sounds and smells as my hands worked along the vines. I looked ahead to fall, when the plant would yield the beautiful red-orange berries I would arrange in a tall crock that sat by the wood stove.
Hours later, I contemplated the finished basket. It was large, heavy, and crudely woven, but it remains one of my favourite baskets to this day. The finished piece represents a day of pleasantly wandering thoughts when I walked into the woods empty-handed and returned home with a basket.

Isn't that beautiful? I just wish I knew who wrote it.

A few years after that first waste basket, I found myself working on a willow farm, planting, taking care of, weeding around, cutting and weaving willows into tunnels, tipis and balls for rabbits to play with and nibble on. 

Making a tunnel for a rabbit to play in and chew on

at West Wales Willows

I still go back there for soul~feeding visits and stay there when I house~sit

~ Imbolc and dragons ~

A little hearth altar to honour Brigid and the return of the light.

The goddess in the back which was a woodland~walk gift, the crystal and stone friends have a permanent residence there.

I made the cross in the little woven basket ~ which was a beautiful thrift find ~ many years ago, the mini brass anvil was also a thrift find, and St Brigid's Cross I made last week while house~sitting the Willow Farm for a few days again. The sage and rosemary are from our garden ~ brave survivors of the snow and frost ~ they will be wrapped up into a small smudge stick tomorrow.

I always like to honour the return of the light on February 1st and 2nd. It is obviously lighter now ~ yay ~ and I could, if I wished to (always!) or had the time, read from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm without flicking a switch or lighting a candle....yes! yes! yes!

Brigid is one of my favourite goddesses and I love that she is the patroness of poetry, healing, smithcraft, midwifery and the care of animals. She also presides over the hearth and is traditionally honoured on this day. I often ask for her assistance if the fire is being difficult to light....she always answers.

I had such fun making the Brigid's Cross...my first attempt, and I was glad that I thought of it while I was on the Willow Farm and that Willow is the tree for February...LOVE it so much when things fit so neatly. I found this excellent video tutorial, and armed with a bunch of very fine purpurea willow, successfully followed Stella's instructions. The man with her, cracks me up with his 'mmmm's' and 'aaahhh's'!

 Yesterday, My Man and I were in my favourite town ~ Newcastle Emlyn ~ only three miles from the village where I grew up. It's ancient castle ruin ~

taken in September 2010

~ which has quite a history, was the site of the death of the last dragon in Wales....although, since the hatching of that egg I am so very happy to see it has returned ~

~ and was standing guard over the gateway into the castle. I'm glad to say it was very friendly to us :~)

Happy Imbolc ~ from a wet Wales with fire and candles lit ~

Cariad mawr
H x



~ A Month of Rainbows ~

 

Our computer died :~( 

We now have a very expensive light shade, as the body of the Mac Sunflower is perfect for that! We loved our Mac ~ it was so pretty. I was trying to upload a photo of her in her new guise, but, I have just discovered that we had our camera set to RAW and the computer here will not open them :~( Never mind....

here is a friends' (Dave and Billa's) place where we used to work with willows until five years ago. We have never really left though as we often house-sit, or, as at the moment, I am staying here to help Billa, as Dave is visiting his mother in Australia.

It has been a month of rainbows and the above image is the view out of the window where I sit using their computer. As I type, I hear their cockerel crowing ~ it is almost time to go out to feed the chickens and ducks their evening fare. This morning I moved the ten Welsh Black Mountain sheep ~ an easy task ~ with ewe pellets in a bucket as enticement they would follow me anywhere! The matriarch is now very old for a sheep and I feed her twice a day from a small scoop held in my hands. I squat down in front of her and my heart expands when she lifts her head and gently sniffs my face, never once stopping her chewing!

Four dogs keep me constant company and we have such fun walking around the fields or going down to the very large pond. It has a little island for water~birds to nest on and a coracle to paddle around in.

The willows come into their own right now as their summer dresses fall around them to reveal a field full of colour. From the bright orange of the 'Yelverton'* to the palest most delicate green of one of the purpureas*, and the deep plum purple of several of the daphnoides*. Like plums, they also get a 'bloom' which adds even more to their beauty. To see a field full of these intense autumn shades, not on leaves but on slim, tall, rods makes me sing ~ and I do ~ loudly and unabashedly.

* All different types of willow ~ there are hundreds!

I am missing my husband and my son and our little dog, who could not come and stay this time. My Man and I, except for a week when Jac was a baby, have not been apart at all for over 18 years and it is hard. I will be seeing them tomorrow night though....sigh ~

We are not sure when we will get a replacement computer. We are hoping it will be Saturday, or next week.

We had snow today!! That's very early for us here.

Happy Thanksgiving to all you lovely people in America *