Big Garden Birdwatch 2018 – My Results

rambling ratz

The RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch took place over the weekend. It was raining and windy which seems to put some birds off from visiting garden feeders. Unusually I didn’t see any sparrows at all this year.

Another thing that may have put some of the birds off was the presence of the sparrowhawk, I captured a blurry image of her on the camera trap.

There were at least 8 different blackbirds.

Rock/feral pigeons = 11

Chaffinches = 3

Collared doves = 2

Wood pigeons = 2

Starling = 1

Magpie = 1

Dunnock = 1

Robin = 1

Wren = 1

Blue tit = 1

Great tit = 1

Black cap = 1

I was very disappointed that the great spotted woodpecker, jackdaws and crows didn’t turn up. Although more than anything I’m wondering what I have done to upset the sparrows as they were the most sighted bird by…

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Love Is

WELCOME TO CRYSTAL'S SITE(ORIGINALLY COUNTRY LIVING)

Another one of those weeks where I racked my brain on what to do for Positive Sparks Monday then wouldn’t you know it, it came to me or should I say the words came to me little by little until they just poured out.

Then I thought would my poem Love Is be a good Positive Spark. My answer came to me right away and that little voice kept saying was of course your poem will work because how much more positive can you get than love.

So this week my Positive Spark is on Love. 

Love Is

By: Crystal Stewart

Love is a Mother and/or Father telling their children things will be alright when they aren’t sure themselves~Love is a parent cleaning and putting a band-aid on their child’s scrapes and then they kiss them on the forehead making things all better~Love is helping the elderly in the wintertime~Love is…

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Childhood. Lyme Journey!

lymexists

Part one:

I was your regular child. Perhaps even “not so regular” since I had everything a girl could dream of.

My friends always envied me, and most of the time it irked me terribly. Like, do people really believe that my life is a bed of roses? Yet at that point, I really did have everything, and I was one lucky little girl.

My parents were well to do, and I was the only child at the time, and they were ready to give me the world if I’d let them into mine…

I did.

I was doted on nearly the entire day, being that I was my parents’ entire world. They loved me with boundless love that only parents could feel for there child.

The thing was that I was an extremely charismatic child. I won everyone’s heart by flashing one of my sunny smiles. Everyone loved me…

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Diary of a Land Healer: January

The Druid's Garden

It is late January. We had a very bout of cold weather these last few weeks, as I’m writing this, the weather broke and I’m out in the land for a longer stay since since the sub-zero temperatures hit. When I came to my new home and new land in the fall, there was so much to do, just moving in and getting ready for winter, stacking wood, unpacking, painting, fixing things, building a greenhouse, and settling in that I didn’t have the time I wanted to spend with the land. But winter is good for such quiet communion, and so, I’ve been seeing what there is to discover.

A snow spiral/labyrinth, one of many I walk during the winter months.

As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, in purchasing this land, I knew that part of my work here would be in documenting the regrowth of this land…

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The Year Begins, Again.

Druid Tree Workings: Connecting with the Tree on the Outer Planes

The Druid's Garden

Tree climbing = one great way to commune!

The trees themselves present much in the way of mystery teachings. This second post in my « Druid Tree Workings » series explores various methods for listening to the voices of the trees and developing methods of communication, like finding the face of the tree. These are various approaches that I have learned to use over time–and most have arisen through my intuition or have been taught as mystery teachings by the trees themselves.  This is my second post, on « outer » messages from trees–that is, messages that re physically present in the world around us (I will follow up this post next week with « inner  » messages).

 

Basic Courtesy when Working With Trees. I think that one of the greatest flaws inherent in our current society is the lack of respect for the sanctity of life that is non-human in nature. People…

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Embracing the Darkness at the Winter Solstice

The Druid's Garden

The period of time around the winter solstice, when the light of the sun is weak and our days are so short, is a period of difficulty for many. Darkness is something that we fear in industrialized cultures; it is something that we work to drive away through our own inventions and ingenuity. We instinctively feel the need to light up our lives every waking moment–our houses at night become as bright as the sun, the various screens projecting intense light, keeping us up and wired late into the night. If a room’s lights aren’t bright enough, we call them « dim » and see this as a deficiency, working to make them brighter. Even as I’m walking down the streets of my town at night, motion sensor lights blind me as I walk past people’s houses on the sidewalk. Consciously, automatically, and unconsciously we are continually working to drive away the dark–and…

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Embracing the Darkness at the Winter Solstice

The Druid's Garden

The period of time around the winter solstice, when the light of the sun is weak and our days are so short, is a period of difficulty for many. Darkness is something that we fear in industrialized cultures; it is something that we work to drive away through our own inventions and ingenuity. We instinctively feel the need to light up our lives every waking moment–our houses at night become as bright as the sun, the various screens projecting intense light, keeping us up and wired late into the night. If a room’s lights aren’t bright enough, we call them « dim » and see this as a deficiency, working to make them brighter. Even as I’m walking down the streets of my town at night, motion sensor lights blind me as I walk past people’s houses on the sidewalk. Consciously, automatically, and unconsciously we are continually working to drive away the dark–and…

Voir l’article original 3 701 mots de plus

Sacred Tree Profile: White Pine’s Medicine, Magic, Mythology, and Meanings

The Druid's Garden

White Pine Towering in a Conifer Forest at Parker Dam State Park, PA

In the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) legend, there was a terrible conflict between five different nations of people. This conflict was rooted in cycles of pain, revenge, and chaos. A messenger of peace sent from the Great Spirit, the « Peacemaker, » sought to unite the five warring tribes. After convincing them to unite, they came together to make peace, but they still carried their weapons. The Peacemaker uprooted a White Pine tree and had them throw all of their weapons into the hole. He then replanted the tree, and the underground waters carried away the weapons. On the tree, the needles grew in clusters of five, to represent the five nations who came to find peace. The roots of the tree spread out in four directions, to the north, south, east and west; the roots are called the roots…

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Embracing the Darkness at the Winter Solstice

The Druid's Garden

The period of time around the winter solstice, when the light of the sun is weak and our days are so short, is a period of difficulty for many. Darkness is something that we fear in industrialized cultures; it is something that we work to drive away through our own inventions and ingenuity. We instinctively feel the need to light up our lives every waking moment–our houses at night become as bright as the sun, the various screens projecting intense light, keeping us up and wired late into the night. If a room’s lights aren’t bright enough, we call them « dim » and see this as a deficiency, working to make them brighter. Even as I’m walking down the streets of my town at night, motion sensor lights blind me as I walk past people’s houses on the sidewalk. Consciously, automatically, and unconsciously we are continually working to drive away the dark–and…

Voir l’article original 3 701 mots de plus