An Organic Lifestyle (Organic Growing Pains)

First of all I am so excited by today's post! My gardening by Letter project package arrived from Anna of Flowergardengirl blog. I will do a post about it tomorrow as it deserves a complete post to show and tell! The Met office said we were in for a thaw and the weather would improve so the Minister for Education said the schools could go back today....but we had freezing fog last night and woke today to treacherous roads with black ice, visibility was down for most of the day as fog lifted and then came down again in a blanket as dusk fell. High tides yesterday evening meant a lot of localised flooding (again!)Some areas in West Cork were impassable between icy roads and floods. Today at lunch time as I drove out to pick up the girls I found myself looking down on the Lee Valley bathed in fog!It was like being in an aircraft looking out at the clouds. Top pic could pass for the legendary Scottish village Brigadoon appearing out of the fog once every hundred years!It was a musical...

The snow arrived as forecast this morning, small dry flakes falling on very cold ground means it stayed and is accumulating.Forecasters said we in the south would get 3-5 cms of snow....eh I think we have that now, would somebody please make it stop! There is nothing like the imminent threat of being snowed in to focus our minds on warmth and food.Last night I made a pot of Leek & Potato soup, I had to buy 2 leeks to make it as ours are frozen out on the plot.I also made 2 brown wheaten loaves, now I have always made brown bread from scratch as it is simplicity itself but I had seen a bread mix in Aldi and I have been meaning to try it out so yesterday I did. One pack makes 3 loaves which for 1.49e and a litre of milk is about as good value as you can get.The mix packet would make a good store cupboard standby, the bread tastes as good as anything I have made or tasted so I will be using it again. I would use buttermilk when making brown bread but it is getting more and more diffic...

The big freeze is set to continue for another 10 days it seems.Snow is forecast for tomorrow in the south, listening to the radio this morning I heard that the ground is frozen up to a depth of 30cms!This is having tremendous effects on any crop which is still in the ground and will seriously delay spring crops being put in.I took photos at home this morning of the bird feeder and bird bath (water in a flower pot tray). I think this black bird was hogging the bird bath, the thrush was hopping impatiently on the gate post. One of the bird feeders by the door and the black bird is still hogging the bird bath. I took Kevin and Scott out to the Lough today as Kevin had never seen it frozen over. Yesterday afternoon some one fell through the ice and the City Council broke all of the ice around the perimeter with a JCB. Crowds of people assembled around the Lough yesterday when schools which had not closed due to the weather left their pupils out. The girls were lucky to get out there during...

We are still in the icy grip of Winter but today it was sunny and crisp, a light dusting of snow and we had a winter wonderland. The girls had yesterday and today off school due to the weather conditions so I took them on a tour of some of our local land marks looking totally different in their snow white coat.On the way out to collect the girls this morning I stopped at the Blarney walk to take some photos. A robin hopped over to me while I was snapping, he may have thought I was going to stay for a picnic and maybe some crumbs would fall his way! This is not really a lake as such, the Blarney walk is around a bogland area which is also a bird sanctuary. There are lots of rushes etc growing through the water, not visible today just frozen water glistening in the cold sunshine. Furze incognito under its blanket of white. The Lough was frozen over,this is a big bird sanctuary on the other side of the city. The last time it froze for weeks was back in 1963 when I was a child and we spent...

Just a couple of random pics around at home as I have not been venturing too far in the present icy road conditions.A view from an upstairs window, this was taken around mid day today when the frost had begun to fade a little.Our forecast for the remainder of this week and all of next week is a polar air flow down over the country,temps in some places are hitting MINUS 8 or 9% Celsius! My spider plant may be frost bitten! I did not think to bring it in or cover it as frost is not something we usually have to worry about.It is quite close to my back door and the heat and protection of the house. These are (hopefully will)be a clump of white Lillies, I am not sure of their horticultural name but here they are known as St Joseph's Lillies.They are taken to the church on a specific day during the year to be blessed. This clump was taken from the garden next door when my neighbour who was an old lady died recently.She had gotten them from a friend many years ago..they have probably been...