A week of many things

Sometimes it’s all about planting and drying. This week it’s been a little more… let’s say ‘varied’! It’s been a very productive week for our family. Our shipping containers arrived so we now have storage and drying space (albeit temporary until the barn is built).

Neal and Harry have taken turns throughout the week to dig in the water main for the polytunnels, managing to cross our 10-acre field – only another 5 acres to go.

We also squeezed in a folk festival, and a birdwatching coastal walk with Jessica – did you know a gannet has a wingspan of 6ft? Amazing! It’s been a week of learning too.

Back on the land I planted an old cattle trough – ok, that’s not going to feed your bunnies I know, but it will help our entrance look pretty! I’ve also managed to find the last of the ribwort leaves for salads and stews, plant some creeping thyme and make some herbal medicines for the family… bunnies and piggies are never the only ones enjoying our delicious herbs!

On that note… I hope this month’s new subscribers are enjoying the free wooden forage trays. I have some wooden forage trays left if anyone would like to subscribe and receive a free tray. Oh, and how did they enjoy the nettle pellets this month? I’d love to know.

I can’t finish this blog post without mentioning the unusually hot May weather, I hope you all managed to keep yourself and your little ones comfortable. Our guests kept as cool as cucumbers beneath the trees – we are so lucky to have those trees. Have you noticed how trees cool the Earth so well – like when you walk into the forest and say ‘ahhh… that’s better.’ They’re literally nature’s air con! It’s also times like these our cool, wipe-clean flooring is a godsend. I’d not mind flopping out on it myself.

Well, I’ll leave it there. My aim is to keep these blog posts short and sweet for you to enjoy and be a valued part of our Bramble & Bloom world.

Take care everybun and I’ll be back soon xx

(if you'd like to join our mailing list for occasional offers, monthly blend info, and to be notified of future blog posts, you can join me here)

I’ve always felt a strong connection to nature and animals.

As a child, I lived beside miles of country park and, preferring my own company, I’d spend hours wandering. Watching sticklebacks in the stream, listening to birdsong, and imagining what it would be like to live wild in the forest.

I’d often go night fishing with my dad and brother. Not to fish (that was never for me) but to watch the moon reflect on the lake as the sky darkened overhead. To experience the stillness. The peace of those moments has never left me.

For a long time, that connection felt lost. I longed for those feelings again but never quite 'found the time'.

But since buying our 15 acres in the Preseli Hills of beautiful Pembrokeshire, it has started to feel a little closer. Like I’m returning to something I’ve always known.

It’s the slower pace, feeling present in every moment. Just a simpler way of being (although the storms are a little scary). It just feels like home.

I started to notice things.

Which plants return, which appear for (it seems) the first time. Which are reached for first by the wildlife… and which are left behind. And of course which ones are nourishing, tasty and of interest to our little friends at the hotel.

Being closer to nature seems a more wholesome way of living, at least, that’s how it feels to me. Perhaps because we are nature, really, even if we’ve forgotten it.

I’m grateful I’ve had the space to stop for a while and notice moments I might once have missed.

Out on the land, taking a breath of the freshest air, stepping among dandelions and ribwort plantain, or gazing across the valley towards our neighbours at Lammas Eco Village… it all feels a little more real. Grounded.

Bramble & Bloom didn’t begin as a product.

It's come from a knowing that there must be another way... for them, for us, for the planet... to find connection in nature, trust in the Earth and more respect for how animals (and humans) are naturally designed to live.

What might we all choose, if we simply gave ourselves space to be?

Our little ones certainly wouldn't choose a measured bowl of brown pellets - same, day in day out, would they? (Although they might choose it, like many of us would choose fast food over a fresh veg - doesn't make it the best choice).

I value variety, freedom and choice. Because when you watch closely, they don’t eat randomly. They sort, return, ignore, choose - and I think that's how it should be.

Their instinct is still there.

And when you step back enough to really see it, the question becomes harder to ignore: are we truly giving them what is right for them?

Should we trust a little more, and control a little less? I’m not suggesting we all become completely wild… although maybe there is something in that too. But our little ones do show us something simple.

That life doesn’t have to be rushed or driven by demand, or stripped back to convenience.

There is something deeply valuable in honouring nature’s rhythms and welcoming a quieter kind of abundance.

That is what I kept coming back to.

The boxes you’ll receive are just one small part of that; a way of bringing a little natural variety, and a little of the wild, back into everyday life.

But this space, this blog, will be something else - because I'm not writing to promote, teach or sell sell sell. I love to write, and I love to share my reflections. So that's what I'm going to do.

I'll share what’s growing, what we’re building, what isn’t going to plan, what’s being learned along the way.

Sharing a slower way of doing things (hopefully... eventually!) And some honest reflection.

And if you know me, you’ll know this won’t be a “how to care for your pet” kind of space. Because after a lifetime of living alongside rabbits, guinea pigs, turkeys and other animals too, one thing has become clear:

They were never just pets to be cared for...

They have always been telling us something much, much deeper...

we only need to listen.

Louise 🌱 (if you'd like to join our mailing list for occasional offers, monthly blend info, and to be notified of future blog posts, you can join me here)