Greetings from Claret Ash Farm where Ian and I are in self-imposed “lock down”.
I wanted to take this opportunity to send you all my thoughts on life as we see it here.
Aren’t we lucky to be therapists to have so much knowledge that we can share not only clients, but with everyone around us. This is the time for sharing your knowledge and your love, which I know is so plentiful.
Being confined to our home is not a hardship as we are very fortunate to be able to access all the joys of the farm and the herb garden. We are patiently waiting for the summer drought to break.
We were despondent that our crops of roses and calendula would not be as plentiful due to lack of water. I was wrong! Over the past 3 months we have been gifted with some of the largest and most fragrant red roses ever harvested here. In fact, yesterday I moved the last lot of dried blooms into a 200 litre drum and it is now FULL. Can you imagine the aroma? On top of that, the 200 litre drum of the pink and yellow roses is almost 2/3 full. We have never seen such a large crop of them before either. So we have months of work ahead to create the magic of the tinctures and the extracts for all Janesce products.
Once the rain comes, we will be able to get the soil ready for the next spring planting. One of the first crops we have planted is the chamomile. We found tiny, self-sown seedlings crowded in a channel around our vegetable garden. We immediately planted them out individually into small pots. They were my ‘babies’ and I have nurtured them all through the hot months of January and February. I would always water them with our precious rain water, by hand, at 6 pm, once the sun was moving away from the garden. They are growing so well so I know they responded to the love and attention or perhaps it was just luck? You be the judge…
While we have had no water we had to work very productively, using our compost, cow manure and minerals to prepare the rather dry looking ground. To cover these areas, we have been using the meadow hay from one of our paddocks as a ‘blanket’ to keep the soil cool and to protect it from water loss. This also helps support the amazing work that all the earth worms do. We have all learnt a lot over this time about coping with a drought. This experience may even be a system that we will continue to use even when we have the water.
In fact, I think we are all learning how to cope with a lot of ‘surprises’. I think this makes us better informed people in the long run and better prepared to deal with other situations. I also believe that we rely so heavily on Nature to teach us lessons on survival. Added to this, we have learnt that we should support Nature more, rather than take it for granted. It is an on-going study for me and my team here. Fortunately, the my team has been excited to learn this lesson and there have been many discussions amongst us about all being on the same path.
Apart from the garden, there is a lot of research I have been doing for future products. My creative and enquiring mind has not allowed me a full night’s sleep for many months now. Concentrating on all the positives has opened up so many new channels to explore simply by listening to NATURE.
With much love, support and joy in living to you all,
Jan.
Janesce Founder
