Hello! How are you? I hope you are doing as well as can be during these interesting times.

For us we are doing as well as can be here. Lil is healing and we are really hoping that she won’t be needing more surgery. Over Christmas time I re injured my hand and am recovering from concussion. Totally not what I had planned for the end of the year break.

While Michael went to get something to finish installing the front window I took Honeybee on a tour of the Hot House.

Our neighbour recorded 50.1mm in their rain gauge a couple of days ago, the ground definitely needed a good soak. I recorded a wheel barrow a third full of rain water. The summer crops so far are slow to take off but hopefully the humidity that came with the rain will give everything a good boost.

One of my goals this growing season is to be more organised with starting the Winter crops on time. I may collect seeds like some collect shoes and handbags. It was a fun morning to plant the seeds for the winter crops, Michael filled up the pots, Lil wrote on the plant labels as I planted the seeds. It’s been a quick strike rate so far. Even though the hot house is nearly finished we will still only start our seedlings on the front veranda. The large veranda windows are north/north east facing capturing the warmth from the sun all day. The temperature doesn’t drop drastically over night like it possibly would in the hot house. The enclosed veranda is snail and slug free. We can keep an eye on the seedlings and water them by filling up a jug from the kitchen tap. It’s is all just so much easier to do it this way.

Honeybee & I had a lovely chat on the garden bench this morning.

I know that we are all doing things hard at the moment, it is strange times and I don’t want to focus on comparing who has it worse. Life isn’t about keeping score. I just want to focus on doing the best I can each day. There are no New Years resolutions, no big grand mapped out plan for 2022, no run through of what I should or shouldn’t have done better in 2021. Put it down to accepting myself and knowing what works well for me, sticking to a strict list or timeframe doesn’t work when living with chronic pain after the metal prong of the garden rake went completely through my right hand nine years ago. I just want to focus on practicing gratitude for the here and now. I do have a word to focus on for the summer months though and it is;

Nurture.

Nurture myself.

Nurture my little family.

Nurture the cottage.

Nurture the garden.

Nurture all the wildlife and birds that call our garden home or visit it by providing safe  habitat and water for them.

I’ll start off slowly due to re injuring my hand and the concussion but will still be sharing generously this year. In my heart I know I won’t be on Instagram as much in 2022, I had decided that in December 2021.  This blog and website fairywrencottage.com is where I am wanting to spend my time and I hope that you will join me, you are always welcome. If I don’t have a new blog post when you visit there is always the collection of blog articles that are as relevant today as when I first wrote them, my free ebooks that you can download as well as the community made Greener Alternatives free ebook. The ebooks can also be read on trove.gov.nla.au the National Libraries of Australia website.

The reason for less Instagram? No big rant, it is as simple as people just aren’t seeing my offerings due to Instagram algorithm, that’s ok, I’ll make sure I am more present here so you know where to always find me. I’m also craving less scrolling that Instagram promotes and am looking for blogs to read, I hope that I can be one of those blogs for you.

There will be mentoring sessions available soon, the Garden Postcards newsletter will continue and make sure to subscribe if you would like to receive it and also be the first to recieve new free ebooks.

Until next time, some sweet peas for you.

Jude x