Summer Solstice: Work With Plants & Bring Your Herbs Home

It's that time of the year. Time that many pagans and paganism inspired and nature based religions and spiritual paths consider the most magickal time of the year. And, so do I. It' s Summer Solstice time.

I grew up with Summer Solstice being the most magickal time of the year. The night of the solstice was time when the neighbors came together to spend the shortest night of the year all together at a bonfire, all women were wearing flower crowns, and everyone merrily eating and drinking, laughing, occasionally playing games or going into wet meadows to search fireflies. all being together to meet the sunrise. It become the night of the year I was waiting for the most. Staying up all night, dwelling through darkness, playing with other kids at night with a flower crown on my head - what's not to love about it?

But the greatest magick of the solstice time for me has always been plants - harvesting herbs, decorating with flowers, some of them used for decorating specifically for the summer solstice - for blessings and protection. When I was little, my mom was great at keeping the traditions alive and teaching us kids. Gathering and putting herbs to dry still are my main Summer Solstice ritual  I give my time to every day up to 24th of June, with the peak on 20-21st of June which is the time of the longest days and shortest nights here in Northern hemisphere. It's time when nature is in full bloom, vibrantly charged, full of energy and magick. Perfect, to gather herbs from garden and meadows for using them later in the kitchen and steam-bath, for culinary, medicinal and cosmetic purposes. Folklore tells that herbs gathered during the Summer Solstice are the most powerful and hold more power than harvested in any other time. 

Harvesting herbs during this energetically charged time of the year for me is magickal. It's time to be in nature. Not just be, but tune in it. Meditate in and with nature. Thanking. Appreciating. Feeling it. Talking to it. Listening to it. Searching. Finding. Bringing home abundance and setting it to dry for using later. It's ritualistic. This year also falling in Full Moon - perfect for gathering blooming herbs!

When harvesting herbs from gardens or meadows during this time of the year, make it magickal for yourself. Feel it to the bone. It's time of celebrating the Earth, giving nature and Sun that affects everything on this planet. 

A few suggestions to do it right: 

• Spend time in nature before you start gathering herbs. Meditate or just sit in a blooming spot to tune in nature. It helps to notice, see, hear and get connected. 
• Kick off those shoes. Go barefoot, or if it inspires you more - go earthing! It's the same thing. Walking barefoot is known to improve balance and body awareness, foot mechanics, strength and stability in body muscles. And feeling those different surfaces under your bare feet is pure pleasure, massage, joy and reminder of staying connected. Connected with the Earth. You might not want to walk into overgrown areas or crawl into bushes barefoot, but wherever you can - take the shoes off. 
• Before you take from a plant - talk to it. Thank plants for what they give you! Even if you haven' t received their healing benefits yet, thank them already as they have given them to you!
• And keep in mind - no matter where and how you harvest, the rules of ethical harvesting apply to you always and everywhere. Read my short guide to harvesting herbs here: GUIDE TO HARVESTING WILD HERBS: HOW, WHERE AND WHEN (opens in new window). 

And a few of other thing to do with plants during this time for more magick in your life: 

• Decorate your home with plants that are considered to bring blessings and protection. A branch of a rowan tree or stinging nettle are a few of those that in folklore are considered protective, but I won' t give you a list. If you don' t know what plants you need, go out and spend time in nature: you will feel, your mind will create associations and you will find the right plants. Trust yourself. Observe. The properties of plants you can see and feel by touching, their scents, colors and patterns  of them are those things that speak. Your personal associations with their esoteric powers is what matters for decorating your personal  space. You can't go wrong. It's you, your life, your intention and your associations. 
• Brew sun tea: Choose a glass container to prepare your Sun Tea. Pour clean, fresh, cold water over fresh herbs, let it sit in the sunniest spot for a few hours and enjoy the subtle flavors of the season. Drink sunshine & stay hydrated!
• Use sun tea of cosmetic herbs to wash your face and hands. Rose petals, calendula flowers, peony petals are perfect, but you choose  - what speaks to you? What flowers do you associate with beauty and cleansing? Those are the ones you need, of course, if they are not poisonous. 
• Take a bath with plants that have skin healing, softening and soothing properties. It can be also a feet bath or hand bath. Pour warm water over the herbs, let them steep for a while so the healing plant properties, colors and aromas get extracted in water, and enjoy! 

It's a wonderful time for ritualistic self-care with the powers Mother Nature generously gives. Take it, soak up the love of Mother Nature and give back! Give thanks and appreciate! 

Truth or just a silly legend? EARWIGS IN EARS.

I’ve read that earwigs crawling into ears is just an urban legend. There is nothing to fear, they said. Obviously, they’ve  never had an experience of having an earwig in the ear, what I can’t say about myself anymore. This is a bit of a personal horror story, or, some parts of it might cause fears, so, please, do not read if this info might harm you in any way:

Midnight Earwig Story

I’m not joking, it was midnight (00:30 am, to be precise), late August, and I was already in bed falling deeper & deeper into pleasure of resting just to get uncomfortamble with the feeling in my ear. There was something moving into my ear. I woke up my husband. Surprisingly, he woke up immediately and followed me to the kitchen without knowing what’s happening. There was something in my ear moving and swirling, and giving me one of the worst feelings I’ve ever experienced – it felt like that creature is getting deeper and deeper into my head. I couldn’t get it out with  tweezers. I couldn’t stand still either. That’s the worst feeling ever.  Here me out: keep an unused syringe at home (without a needle for this purpose!). My husband filled it with water, pushed the water in my ear and I was able to meet that monster. A solid body, 6 legs, two antennas on the head and pincers on the other end! Pincers!!! And they have even wings, carefully hidden. A full set of fears packed into one little creature.

Earwigs are mostly active at nighttime. I’ve been scattering dill around the doors, as I’ve read dill repels earwigs from enetring the house. Although in summer we keep the windows open as well and it’s easy for earwigs to hitchike inside the house on our clothes unnoticed... So, after getting that earwig in my ear, I slept with earplugs in my ears for about a month :D It still has been the only such kind of encounter with earwig in our household, so, I’m just putting it out there for you know that earwigs crawling into human ears is not just a legend. It can happen.

Moving to Woodlands in 2017. Personal story. Part 5

Me & my husband were longing for countryside life, so, here we are now – after 10 years in city moved to woodlands in 2017, and not leaving it. We are staying here. This is our honest „moving to countryside” story & my thoughts from the house, garden and woodlands.

Living with nature in natural environment means a bit more than just enjoying the enormous beauty around. It also means that nature will come in your life in different forms not always in a pleasant way. I’ve told you previously about dealing with mice, you can find that story here: Part 4: Unregistered Household Inhabitants. (opens in new window)

Other parts of the story:

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around(opens in new window)

Part 2 here: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Part 3 here: The main principles of our countryside life. Or life in general, no matter where. (opens in new window)

Living with blood-suckers

Those small creatures and critters are a big deal. Honestly, a big deal.

• Mosquitoes are annoying and impossible to control – they take care of ruining late nights around the fireplace.
• Fleas travel with animals, hide in the grass and are hard to eliminate if they’ve moved into house. Terrible blood-sucking creatures.
• Ticks are carriers of lyme disease and  encephalitis, that can even kill.

Bee stings and ant bites? No, they don’t disturb me that much. I’m disturbed by ants coming indoors and trying to eat my sweets, but even more I’m disturbed by the previously mentioned ones – all of them craving to feed on human blood.

And then there are also our efforts to keep our household methods as nature-friendly as possible. No, it’s not easy. Poisoning one creature might lead to poisoning other beneficial creatures that take care of our wellness without us even knowing it, and bringing toxics in the house just doesn’t excite me. Spraying the house and beds with poison that kills those insects harming health of everyone in the house isn’t what I’m looking for. So, we are on the figt for some time with the main goal of keeping specific insects out of specific zones indoors and outdoors.

Fleas

Those blood-suckers lived here before us and they seem to enjoy our blood, and we haven’t stumbled upon a miracle to ban them from our living space. We have tried cleaning rooms with turpentine like in the old days. Not much of success with that. We have tried putting different herbs in beds (fresh and dried) that are supposed to repel fleas, but not very successful eaither. First habnd helpers are flea repellent straps for cat and dog. Definitely increases their own wellbeing and doesn’t allow fleas to hitchike on them into the house. We can’t really fight them outdoors, they live in grass, so, at least around the house we are keeping the grass short. The method that helps indoors is cleaning beds and sofas with baking sod (scatter on beds, leave for at least a few hours, if possible, overnight, and then vacuum clean, I usally steam clean after that as well). This gives peace for a while. So, we are repeating this procedure regularly and it helps.

 Mosquitoes

That's my "mosquito cape"!

Mosquitoes are inevitable here. We live between the river and woods, and these flying creatures are annoying. Truly annoying. Since childhood kids here know that in order to stay protected they have to spend a lot of time on swings on Easter – that’s a folk wisdom, that unfortunately isn’t very effective against mosquitoes and mosquito bites. There are different sprays that we sometimes use, depending on the amounts of mosquitoes trying to suck our blood. I have a summer cape that I sometimes sprinkle with essential oils like eucalyptus, lemongrass, peppermint, lavender, cloves. The cape (from a thick yet light fabric) itself actually is pretty useful protection against mosquitoes.

I tried cloves pinched into lemon slices and palced them around fireplace for a night with frieds. We had been eaten a lot by the mosquitoes before that night,  but that one night on Midsummer we really weren’t disturbed! The problem is that I’m not sure my cloves into lemons were the thing that helped. Because starting from the next day mosquito wave was gone and there were noticeably less of them everywhere.

For the next year I’m planning to plant a lot more lemon balm in resting spots as they are supposed to repel mosquitoes. The issue here is that they also attract other insects. It’s nice to party and rest with butterflies, but not very nice with vasps... i’m still thinking.

Another thing – I need a little pond for frogs as they eat mosquitoes. We are also trying to befriend birds by placing close to home and garden birdfeeders with food, and in spring we are planning to put at least a few birdhouses around to invite birds staying with us. They also feed on mosquitoes and other insects.

If you have a proven homemade mosquito repellent recipe, please she in the comments! I’m really eager to find what works!

Ticks

There is vaccine available for tick encephalitis, but ticks unfortunately can be also carriers of lyme disease that doesn’t have a treatment so far and there is no vaccine against that as well. We can’t keep ticks out of woodlands and we can’t keep ourselves out of woodlands as we have chosen to live here. So, we have to make ourselves invisible, unattractive and unavailable to ticks. I’m on a mission to finding a natural  solution for repelling ticks and I don’t have a miracle potion yet.

Our natural solution here is proper clothing for going into forest. We have no cute pictures of ourselves half-naked in forest – that would be a clear invitation for forest insects, including ticks to feed on us.

Talking about ticks, here is an article FYI: Lyme disease is set to explode and we still don’t have a vaccine 

I mean, I can surf the internet looking for solutions, but most of the solutions for these trivial issues posted online don’t help much. They are obviously posted online for the sake of posting and getting views for the page, not for the sake of helping. I can experiement until I find what works, but sometimes I just need a break with something that REALLY WORKS. Of course, life itself isn’t harmless and we all will die sooner or later,  but I kind of wish to stay strong and protect my loved ones. For that reason: always remove all your clothes and check yourself carefully after returning from woods to make sure none of them is trying to find a spot for sucking your blood. We still are looking for a strong, natural tick repellent, if there is any.

That’s the reality, and blood suckers aren’t the only critters to intervene with our daily lives.  There are ants stealing our sweets and vasps drowning in our sweet drinks. There are flies, that don’t allow leaving any food on table uncovered. Spiders are friends in helping to deal with flies. There is no spider that has ever done anything bad to me (and we don’t have poisonous ones here), and they eat flies. We let them feast. And then there is another creature that now gives me chills: earwig. The next blog post (a short one!) will be my earwig story. And thanks to the changes of season, now in winter we can  have a rest from almost all of them. In some fields of well-being winter colds come with a relief! 

I could shine the light on everything what is great and amazing in coutryside (and I am and will be doing that!) and pretend that the unpleasant part doesn’t exist. It exists and it is faced here not just now and then, but every day. And it’s fun as well, as it makes you to become a researcher of things you never cared about and a kitchen alchemist mixing things you’ve never mixed together before. It doesn’t allow you to sit, but always pushes for seeking solutions.  

Find the previous posts of "Moving to Woodlands" here: 

Part 1: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around(opens in new window)

Part 2: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Part 3: The main principles of our countryside life. Or life in general, no matter where. (opens in new window)

Part 4: Unregistered Household Inhabitants. (opens in new window)

You are welcome to leave your questions, ideas & worries in the comments, as I'm curious about what you have experienced and what solutions you have found! 

Moving to Woodland in 2017. Personal Story. Part 4

Unregistered Household Inhabitants.

The Dog that tried his best
helping to deal with mice.

For those who are tired from the endless run in the city, moving to countryside might sound like the most romantic idea in the world – peace and silence, no crowds, just nature – and that’s how it is. It’s beautiful. But living with nature in natural environment means a bit more than just enjoying the beauty of nature and planting the garden. It also means that nature will come in your life in different forms not always in a pleasant way. 

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)
Part 2 here: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Part 3 here: The main principles of our countryside life. Or life in general, no matter where. (opens in new window)

Life happens outdoors and indoors with or without you willing it to happen. And endless love for nature won’t save you.  Not the most pleasant part of countryside life, especially if you are in an old house that requires looots of renovations that will last for years. That’s our case and we are dealing with it. So, this time about sharing living space with unpleasant household inhabitants. Identifying the first two „enemies” who love living with people was easy:  mice & fleas. So, first things first:

How to get rid of mice living in countryside?

Oh  boy, this was an adventure, and the short answer is you can’t get rid of them entirely. They will always be somewhere around, and that’s definitely not the worst thing that might happen. In natural environment they are food for big birds like eagles and owls, for bigger reptiles, and mammals like cats, foxes and others. Outdoors they will eat from your garden, roots and vegetables make great snacks for them, but that’s not the biggest issue. The biggest issue for us was getting them out of our home indoors. First months of living here I heard them dancing everywhere, especially at night and I have no doubt they were running over me while I  was asleep. I don’t want even imagine that. 

Our old dog was annoyed by the mice as much as we were. He was trying to catch mice, but his size and lack of agility didn't allow him to be a good helper with this. So, we had to go to the war. Against mice.

Block their ways

Firstly, you have to block their entrances into the house. In an old  building there might be more of mice  ways and tunnels than you could expect. Every crack in a wall or floor is their opportunity to get into warmth and to your food kept indoors. If the house is renovated before you move in, great! If not, seek for strong materials to fill those cracks and holes with until you can get to proper renovations. But, if you keep doors and/or windows open in summer (as we do) they will get in unnoticed.

Don’t leave food available for snacking

The second thing, do your best to store your food in containers that mice can’t get through. Leaving cookies overnight on a kitchen (or any other) table is a huge NO – they will feast on them. We also lived through a period where we were washing dishes not just after meals but also before – because the mice shit all around showed that they might love playing on our dishes as well.

The mythical powers of aluminum foil

I was digging internet for natural methods of getting rid of them – those little, cute looking fellas were really disturbing. One of those short-term methods I found online as great helpers where covering surfaces with aluminum foil. Of course, I  had to try, especially because internet told me it works. And it did help. For 2 days. Then the mice learnt that aluminum foil doesn’t do anything bad to them and returned to their old trails without caring for shine and noise aluminum foil makes. They didn’t eat their ways to food covered  with foil in our home, but I’ve heard it’s not a big deal for mice in other households – they just eat their way through aluminum foil. So, it’s a solution for a day.

Peppermint & Cloves

This comes from the depths of internet as well:  peppermint and clove aroma is way too strong for mice and they don’t go where these aromas rule. So, I brewed a strong infusion of peppermint herb and cloves to wash floors with. I generously added peppermint & clove essential oils to the water. The aroma was so strong it was too strong even for myself. It had to work.

That  was the night the mice moved from the floor to walls. And ate a few plants I had started indoors to plant outside later.

I heard them running on walls and from times to times falling down and that was worse than hearing them moving around on the floor.

I also scattered cloves around the places I’ve observed as their highways. Did that help? I don’t know. I was mixing different methods  on early spring because the presence of mice inside the house was pretty disturbing.

Heroes of this War

We won the war with mice through friendship with cats. We befriended an outdoor cat that already lived outside around our house. We really wanted to get him to live indoors with us, but he is such a wild creature that he panics every time he is indoor and the door is closed. Whole summer we were trying to the get that cat indoors. He entered only when he was sure the door won’t close, and those rare days when he came indoors, he was extremely fast bringing out of the house freshly caught mice. That helped. A little bit. This cat didn’t necessarily need our indoor mice as he had a wide world for hunting outdoors.

In  October we spotted another cat visiting our household and she moved indoors to live with us. Our new cat turned out to be the greates huntress ever. For the first few days she was catching mice and bringing them to us to show what she has caught for us. And, to be honest, we were tired enough from the war with mice, that we celebrated every victory our cat brought us. Since we live with one cat outdoors and one indoors, we haven’t heard from mice anymore.  We won the war with mice through friendship with cats. I don’t know any better method. The cat turned out to be the greatest weapon.

And as the cat doesn't care for cookies and mice are scared to from the cat we actually can leave a dish of cookies on a table and it will stay untouched :D 

Our heroic huntress

The mice lived around here in countryside and they will always live here, but I want to keep them outdoors. So, I sometimes leave veggies in the fields not too close to the house where they can easily find and feast on them.

Encounters with some especially unpleasant hitchhikers from insect realm are on the way in the next post of this „Moving to Woodland in 2017” series.

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)
Part 2 here: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Part 3 here: The main principles of our countryside life. Or life in general, no matter where. (opens in new window)

You are welcome to leave your questions, ideas & worries in the comments, and I will try to answer them in the next posts.

Moving to Woodlands in 2017. Personal story. Part 3.

The main principles of our countryside life. Or life in general, no matter where.

Living surrounded by the fields of buckwheat. 
This is June. 

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)

Part 2 here: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Moving to countryside at the age of a young adult is a pretty... giddy experience. You find a little wonder to be excited about every single day. After living 10 years in the walls of city apartment, totally dependent on money and directly affected by what others around are doing, countryside life for me feels like freedom. My home isn’t just indoors. My home is the whole old house, the frontyard, backyard, garden, fields around and forests. The sense of home has grately expanded together with the sense of responsibility. So, we had to define the main principles of our life here, we had to give ourselves the guidelines of building this life based on our values, on what feels right to us, on what we want and hope for. There are dozens of ways of doing the same thing while producing different side-effects. And those side-effects are what we care about because they define our health and happiness. After 9 months of life here we are still defining those rules, it’s not that everything is clearly understandable for us since we are here. Some days there are more questions than answers. Fortunately, the sense of life doesn’t disturb me anymore. I’ve got it.

So, the main rules of our countryside life, or just living in general.  I’m pretty sure more will clear out over time, but it will be easier for you later to follow and understand my story if you know our basic principles. Now we are trying our best to stick to these rules. You know, when the habit is settled in, sticking to it becomes effortless. What matters is the direction and healthy ways of getting there, with more or less of success  we are on this road (not necessarily in the exact order):

1) Proper healthcare is the basis of healthy, active life.

Oh boy, majority of what we do is for the sake of a good health, and for us it doesn’t mean limitless doctor appointments, tests, vitamin pills and amazingly rewarding healthcare plans. Since nobody is paying us for sick days and we have a lot to do here, we can’t afford the luxury of being sick and too weak. We really need to stay strong and capable of working productively.  

For us good healthcare means:

The pumpkin king grown in our garden this summer.

+ Eating good food. Organically grown, local, homegrown, foraged, homemade, fresh – food that is rich in vitamins & minerals, valuable for the whole body. First remedies for health issues have to come on a plate or in a cup. Of course, with exceptions of those issues we haven’t dealt with before and can’t take the pain :D . In all other cases – first, search for natural remedies, no, problem with that. Been on the track for quite some time, five years? Maybe more. I don’t know for sure.  

+ Moving. Staying active every day. If not in any other way than at least by hiking in forests around on lazy days. Usually, this isn’t a problem as countryside doesn’t let you sit on your ass for too long. Gardening and renovating keeps us moving every single day, and I'm really happy for that. 

+Boosting immunity. Getting stronger. Food, of course, is one of the greatest helpers, but hardening ourselves helps too. Getting used to climate contrasts indoors and outdoors, regularly heating up  in traditional steam-bath & cooling down outdoors, getting used to colder water and so on. Traditional steam-bath, by the way, is one of the greatest treasures of our countryside life, and every soul working for themselves in the coutryside deserves a good steam-bath. It’s therapeutic and healing on all levels of human being I can possibly imagine. I’m serious about this.

+ Slowing down. Having a good rest. If you feel the need to rest, do it. Quality healthcare includes as much of rest as needed. Resting and being lazy isn’t the same. For now, while we don’t have jobs outside of our home, we don’t have kids and work for ourselves, we have the luxury of being the bosses of ourselves and owning our own time. A really precious time in our lives.  So, if we want to enjoy it and use productively, we have to stay active and strong, and without proper rest we can’t do it.

+ Keeping balance. In everything mentioned above. Don’t eat too much, don’t underrate the doctor’s advice, don’t put all of your eggs in the same basket, don’t celebrate for too long, don’t jump twice your limits, enjoy beer for enjoying it not for getting drunk, don’t get overly negative, positive, attached, carelees or whatever else from the same page. I mean, trying things that are out of order is grately appreciated here, but coming back home to senses and realistic world-view is quitely celebrated as well.

2)    Caring for the health of the environment around is caring for ourselves in the long term.

It includes recycling, reducing waste and trash, choosing natural, degradable materials, taking care of the forest, planting & companion planting, natural fertilizers in the garden, natural cleaning detergents indoors (including those for personal hygiene and health & beauty care), long-lasting but human & environment health friendly building materials and methods. We are on a bit of a difficult mission with this, but on the way. While we are not millionaires and love researching and experimenting, we get to make many things on our own. It takes time, a lot of time and patience, but minimal financial resources. Sometimes the lack of easily available (or searchable) info slows us down with this.  

3)   Renovating with the respect to the past is keeping the cultural heritage, honoring those before us and keeping developing the work people did here before us.

Not living in the house that looks like in thirties, fourties or nineties (we have some renewable furniture pieces from these times), but respecting the heritage of the house indoors and outside, and in the garden around. One of the things here, we want to do it using our own hands – it’s a part of the heritage. Investing our time in the house and piece of land we are responsible for is the heritage of this place. And our choice as well. We are crafters. We can do this. We can learn.

The beauty of seasons you can observe and feel in all possible ways. 

4)  Limiting our dependence of commercial products and services is building a firm foundation for personal freedom.

For the sake of happiness. For the sake of healthy nervous system. For the sake of staying out of the run for money. It means we have to learn providing for ourselves a lot. It’s also a good way to sort out what isn’t that necesarry to feel comfortable and satisfied. We can’t go totally shopping-free at least not until the main parts of the house are renovated. For example, I can’t imagine how I could make a proper indoor’s toilet without spending money, as we are starting here with the toilet only outdoors. I will also keep buying a few things other things, for example, culinary oil – making it just for ourselves would cost more time and other resources than we are ready to invest in it. I could simply exclude it from the menu, but I kinda like it there. It suits our kitchen. And we are still willing to pay for the communications. I mean, c’mon, internet is an amazing place if we use it in amazing ways, and phone is pretty handy.

We are not that extreme, right? We are not craving for the most super-modern things, gadgets, services and so on, but we are not also denying their usability in our home. If something brings great value to help us move on with the rest in our lives, our door is open. The main thing is keeping it cool. Keeping the head cool evaluating what we need and don’t need. Breeding the greed is not acceptable, but I doesn't mean we are sitting here denying any kind of money - earning journeys. 

The little wonders from walks in the woods.

 5) If we don’t allow ourselves to enjoy ourselves and what we do, the life is not worth living.

We have seen many people in both sides of the ship – in city and at the countryside stuck in the run, unhappy, physically & mentally broken. There is never enough, never good enough, they breathe and breed greed that kills them in ugly ways. We are pretty aware of the fact that our time on this Earth is limited. We owe it to the evolution: we have to allow oursevles to enjoy all of this. It’s probably only the matter of attitude that we want to keep in the long run. Read books for enjoyment. Watch movies. Listen music – not keeping it as a background noise, but really listening to it. Laugh, experiment, learn, achieve, sleep, go for walks, stop and feel the world around with all of the senses you have. Don’t deny yourself pleasures. Don’t delay pleasures. In the name of love for sleeping I tend to delay alarm clock on mornings, and sometimes I don’t feel guilty about it. I just enjoy sleeping. Especially on mornings.

6)  Never stop learning.

For the sake of brain development, gaining new skills and improving our own lives that cross many roads of others around us. Read books, watch movies, listen music, experiment, try, train, discipline yourself & feel. Never stop learning, it will only expand and improve our knowledge, abilities, skills and ways of living the lives we want.

Our most valuable currency now is time, and, no, time, isn’t money. It’s a lot more than that. 

The part about unwanted & unplanned house guests & inhabitants is coming next. You know, even countryside life isn't just flowers and butterflies. :) 

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)

Part 2 here: Worries for the 2 Months Alone (opens in new window)

Moving to Woodlands in 2017. Personal story. Part 2.

Me & my husband were longing for countryside life, so, here we are now –  after 10 years in city moved to woodlands in 2017, and not leaving it. We are staying here. This is our honest „moving to countryside” story & my thoughts from the house, garden and woodlands.

 Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)

Worries for the Two Months Alone.

I heard I’m crazy when I moved to the countryside alone at the end of February. We are talking about February in Northern Europe. The weather here isn’t very gentle at that time of the year. 

February 2017

Besides that people around me were worried about many other things (and those worries proved to be useless):

1) My relationships. Will everything be still fine with us if my husband stayed in the city for 2 more months?

I have confidence in my relationships. Moving to countryside was what we both wanted. There was nothing to fear about.  

I mean, all those relationship dramas and not being able to trust and so on... Sorry, we are not interested in that.  2 months of living mostly separately definitely can help for both sides to grow stronger together & appreciate each others presence a lot more. And it’s not that we didn’t meet those 2 moths at all. Not every week, of course, but c'mon , it's 21st century. Phone & chat exists. 

2) How will I get on with shopping & daily chores alone right from the beginning?

I don’t  drive a car and closest shops are  15km away, but there is public bus. 2km walk to the bus stop isn’t that difficult. 

There is more: visiting shop once a week by bus and knowing that you will have to carry the bags 2km on the way home helps correcting shopping habits very fast. You bring home what you really need, and that’s a blessing! Oh, strangely enough, there are people in 21st century that still think a woman can’t deal with these things alone. She can. And it is as easy as bringing wood indoors and putting it on fire every single day. When you know exactly why you are  doing something, it’s not that hard to do.

3) Won’t I feel lonely?

I was a bit worried about this myself, although I’ve never been running to crowds, friends & parties, but it had been a strong part of our city lives. I’m pretty much a loner who doesn’t seek social  contacts, but what made me worried was that I had been tortured by some episodes of depression for the past years of city life, so, yes, I wasn’t sure if I won’t step into depression being out there alone, with nobody to lift up my spirits when I’m down. And, no, I experienced no sign of depression or loneliness. I was finally with myself alone, and that’s another blessing I recognized from the beginning. Although... I realized that being in nature & with the dog every day takes away all of the feelings of loneliness. I was with nature. I wasn't alone. 

So here I was. After 10 years of city life, I just had turned 29 & moved into my husbands childhood house for the first 2 moths alone. In February, with wood fired furnace & stove, no running water & washing machine, toilet only outdoors, poor heat insulation indoors, and many other extras. The development of comfort levels in this house had stopped quite some time ago. I have to mention, it wasn’t exactly my first time experience with this kind of countryside life. I lived it exactly like that in my childhood. The difference now was that I had got used to the physical comfort levels of city life and household comfort developments that hasn’t reached this house yet.

So,   those 2 months of being alone in the old house in woodlands, I actually understood about myself a lot more than in the past few years. I proved myself that I can. I started growing seedlings indoors, planning the garden, planting a small greenhouse, I was cleaning, organizing, learning the history of people who have lived here before me & like for the first time in my life discovering the magic of cooking. The wood fired stove  - I never even imagined this was the thing to loop me into cooking (I have been far from a kitchen witch before)! And also I started dwelling in forests a lot more than ever before. The forest here is closer than a bus stop. I don’t go for walks in shops, I go into woods.

The spring this year turned out to be exceptionally cold, but it didn’t disturb me. I was amazed by seeing every single day how the seasons are changing, how birds are returning, how the first greens are sprouting out of the ground... There is some kind of hippie vibe around here, but honestly, this was the happiest spring in my life so far.  I was finally here, starting to live the life I was longing for. Working creatively, developing new ideas, discovering the world around me. My daily routines were changing naturally, together with my weight. Weight-loss wasn’t even in my mind as a part of „the new life”, but it happened, and, oh, I’m not complaining! I also re-discovered my confidence I was lacking for quite some time.

Building the first little greenhouse. April 2017

After the 2 months of me being alone & without attending any social gatherings, on May my husband moved back into his family house & to me – his wife as a person of a whole new level (that’s, of course, my inner feeling, I’m not expecting applause for it). 

May 2017. The beginnings of herb garden.

Now we clearly know that the future is real, ideas become reality and life happens with unplanned & unexpected benefits. (Negative surprises happen as well, but not in this post today, they will come to the surface later).

While such life of being alone every day without much of comfort is a usual thing for many people around here, I’m putting these 2 months in my personal unwritten list of awesome things I’ve done. Mostly because of the fact of dealing with the changes of physical comfort levels alone.

This is more or less how it all started. The beginning. From here we are both together dealing with all of it. Unwanted house inhabitants, leaking roof, first garden & acknowledgments of the work we are up to for the next 20 years are on the way in the next posts of this „Moving to Woodlands 2017” series.

You are welcome to leave your questions, ideas & worries in the comments, and I will try to answer them in the next posts.

Part 1 here: Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around (opens in new window)

Moving to Woodlands in 2017. Personal story. Part 1.

Some call it the world awakening, others say those who seek happiness moving to countryside are crazy or simply following trends  and will run back to the comfort of cities soon. Some congratulate those who leave cities and others fear for them. The movement of moving away from big cities is real, it grows in heads of many people like mushrooms after rain. Me & my husband were longing for countryside life, so, here we are now –  after 10 years in city moved to woodlands in 2017, and not leaving it. We are staying here. This is our honest „moving to countryside” story & my thoughts from the house, garden and woodlands.

That's the house

Planning, Motivation & Obstacles around.

I started this blog living in a rented city apartment  in 2014 in the name of missing the things that from times to times appeared into my head as voices from the past, from the life in the countryside where I grew up. About a year later the idea of moving to countryside started to visit me and my husband (we weren’t married yet). We decided to move into my husbands childhood house in the woodlands  - 90+ years old wooden building that hasn’t experienced much of care for the past 15 years. 2 km to the closest bust stop. 15km to the closest town.  We knew what it would mean – a loooot of renovations and different kinds of physical work. So, we decided to approach this idea as adults. We started to plan.  We calculated that we will need about 5 years to get at least some financial savings to help us start the life in the woodlands. So, 5 years it was.
But we both haven't been very precise planning the future. 

The idea  in our heads grew stronger. We visited the house a lot more often, started  to clean, plant flowers, make minor improvements. We spent vacations in the old house with hopes that it will really happen and we will move in soon. Well, there was some kind of doubts, as we both had proven to ourselves that we are terrible at planning... Besides that we had lives in the city, friends, our routines, favorite bar. I was a ghostwriter , he had a good job, band and improvisation theater, concerts & improv-shows, I started to grow different plants on all 3 windowsills of our 2-room city apartment, including tomatoes. And all of that wasn’t making us happy. We wanted to get married, we wanted to travel, we wanted to move sooner, we were running after money every day, in a wheel where that money was never ours anyways.  We were breaking down  & burning out. 5 years felt way too much before we get to the woodlands.

In 2016 with an idea of moving to coutryside (and knowing that job market there is almost non-existent ), I started to look for some additional hobby-based income, so, I opened an Etsy shop. I’m a crafter by heart, I have always been crafting a bit too much for myself, now I decided to try putting it out in the world. As I’m the marketing dummy, the money didn’t exactly run to my bank account to become a part of the savings for „the new life”, but the time of city life started to run out much faster than expected. We trew out the idea of the 5 year plan & savings, quietly got married in 2016 without guests and parties (it felt right and still does).  We figured out the soonest possible option of getting there & instead of making savings we started to buy tools for renovations, gardening and other countryside needs – things we will need right from the beginning. And at the end of February in 2017 I already moved in. My husband stayed 2 more months in the city to catch a bit of better paying season at work, but I was already here. The future came faster than we thought at first, and here I am now already for  9 months.  With 90 % of my daily life totally different than a year ago around this time.

We didn’t change just a location. We changed our lives.  And we obviously needed emotional breakdown to make our moving to countryside possible sooner. 

My two months of early spring alone in the woodlands are on the way in the next post of this „Moving to Woodlands 2017” series. Part 2 coming soon!

You are welcome to leave your questions, ideas & worries in the comments, and I will try to answer them in the next posts