The TV informed me this morning that today was ‘Blue Monday’, supposedly the most depressing day of the year. Apparently, this is the time when people’s mood is at its lowest of the whole calendar year, when people book holidays, and try to escape the drudgery of January in a rather cold and grey season. And for us, it was no such thing. Because, today was a day to go […]
It birfday! And what lovely weather I had for it! Possibly better than the weather I had when I turned 17 and had a barbeque on the beach. No chance of that today though with the lockdown in force. But I did get out for a lovely long walk around the quarry in bright sunlight, rather regretting wearing a jumper – which was soon tied round my waist. Yes, this […]
Something I’ve never seen before in 6 years of beekeeping. I have top bar hives, and they stand about 18″ above the ground. Every winter a small pile of dead bees forms under the entrance to the hive. These are old bees that have died over the winter, and are removed from the hive by their colleagues for sanitary reasons. But today something bigger. The large bee on the right […]
Well, midsummer is upon us. I will admit that it’s been a somewhat strange late spring/early summer though. Spring seemed to come late, with many things that would start in April only really blossoming in the second half of May. Of course, this meant an explosion in growth as nature ‘catches up’ with itself by speeding up. Now we’ve had a heatwave, and a week of wall-to-wall sun. And would […]
Those paying attention may notice a few changes to Herbary… there are, and they are quite big. Let me explain what’s been going on, and what it means! I started Herbary 3 years or so ago now when I was finishing my degree and wanted to just dump a stream of consciousness somewhere. A bit like journalling, but with the added advantage of letting others see what I was on […]
Not particularly a blog post in the sense of anything meaningful, but I thought I’d share my list of books, magazine subscriptions and similar to buy for 2017. And because I’m feeling generous (more like because I want to know where to find them later) I’ve included the links to buy these. PlantHealer resubscription + Annuals $120 Dragibus Magazine Back issues $15 Herbal Roots Ezine? $35? Radical Herbalism $29 =$199 […]
So, last Wednesday, I stepped in to give a talk at the Holyhead Centre of Theosophy. I expanded an article I wrote, and which is available here into a talk – and I didn’t know it would be taped. I was given a DVD of my talk at the weekend so thought I’d share it with a few close friends who read my personal herbal blog. Actually, I am seriously […]
The journey of finding a variety of ,herb maps’ online keeps on unwinding. After I discovered that the herb map of Europe was made by Baldwin’s, I went to their blog with the intent of finding out more about it. Didn’t find any more information than I already knew, but I did find some more Baldwin’s infographic herb maps. Here they are… Herb Map of South America Herb Map of […]
A couple of days ago, I wrote about a rather lovely map of America where each state/area was illustrated with the medicinal herb typical of, or grown in that area. I found, and still find it enchanting. ` Recently, another herbal friend of mine on facebook shared an image of a European Herb Map where each area of land is represented by the herb or medicinal plant that it is known […]
A friend on Facebook recently posted a link to an article containing a very interesting poster. This poster is from America, and was created in 1932 for the National Wholesale Druggists Association as part of a promotional campaign. It is a fascinating map of herbs grown across America, and as a herbalist who uses many American herbs myself, seeing them on a map really helps me to place things. It’s […]