![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ballintemple.com\/images\/stag.png?resize=300%2C220\")
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\nThe first three months of this year have been marked by weird weather
\nall over the world – unusually warm, or cold or wet or windy in various
\nplaces.\u00a0 It is not easy to recognise big picture patterns since it
\nis so hard to remember what it was really like when you were younger,
\nbut it seems that the biosphere has a fever.\u00a0 And people who grow
\nfood have to be increasingly adaptable to the\u00a0 unexpected.\u00a0 It
\nused to be that food producers could ride out fluctuations but nowadays
\nwith very intensive methods based on high capital, high fossil fuel
\nrequirements and low margins at the producer end, small producers
\ncontinue to be squeezed.\u00a0 Despite that, we have decided to get even
\nmore involved in the land.<\/p>\n
Some people observe that farming is difficult and offers low We asked for some advice: “How to make it pay without spray, meat or We haven’t done much in the garden yet and, as usual, are behind The wind and rain has influenced progress in getting things done Beyond BT, Pam’s yoga remains popular and she has invested a lot of We finally finished a first edition of our book about “the search for truth, the meaning of life and the answer to everything”: Whoops! A big picture story<\/a><\/i>.\u00a0 We’ve put a nominal price on the pdf download, but you can read the important chapters on-line for free. If you like our perspective, you might enjoy the blog.\u00a0 The Linking weird weather to rapid warming of the Arctic<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Farming in the city.<\/a><\/strong> It\u2019s easy to ignore what you put in your mouth.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n We hope you are all springing in to Spring in this the Chinese Year of the horse.\u00a0 Best wishes from us all,<\/p>\n Tom<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Spring has sprung (in the northern hemisphere).\u00a0 Even though you can’t quite tell when the equinox occurs, the calendar reminds us of the solar cycle – equinox and solstice alternating about the 21st of every third month – March, June, September, December.\u00a0 The spring equinox\u00a0 passed last weekend marking the beginning of Spring in some …
\nreturns.\u00a0 That seems to be supported by the data.\u00a0 The Irish
\ngovernment report of farming indicates the the average farm income
\n(including the very rich farm-owners) is only \u20ac25,000 which not much for
\npeople responsible for what we eat and, by some measures, is below the relative poverty<\/a> line.\u00a0 Nevertheless, we’ve decided to plough and sow a field this year for the first time in over a decade.<\/p>\n
\ngovernment?”\u00a0 The response was “Mmmm, that’s not easy…”
\nFirst on government subsidies – paperwork is the number one cause of
\nsuicide among farmers.\u00a0 That’s sad.\u00a0 As for animals and
\nspraying, the situations is ruled by the equation that what comes out of
\nthe soil must be put back, which is done either by resting the soil and
\nallowing natural regeneration every three years or so (traditional
\nrotation explained in primary school) or by adding fossil fuel based
\nsoil enrichment (fertiliser).\u00a0 If you don’t spray chemicals you
\nhave to rest the soil which cuts your revenue capacity by a third.
\nAnyhow, we’re sowing a mixed meadow in the next week or so and are
\nreally looking forward to seeing how the grass grows.\u00a0 If nothing
\nelse we’ll have hay for the horses.<\/p>\n
\nschedule.\u00a0 No seeds have been germinated and plot preparation is
\nbeing held back by the need to “trim the beech hedge”.\u00a0 We started
\nthat a week ago but a branch fell on me and the saw broke and is now
\nbeing repaired.\u00a0 Otherwise, in the garden, we’re lucky to be
\nharvesting beetroot and the last cabbages from last year.\u00a0 There
\nare potatoes still in store and the birds are laying like mad – Easter
\nmust be around the corner.\u00a0 Get in touch if you’d like beetroot
\n(really yummy when shredded and fried – thanks for the tip Joe) or eggs,
\nespecially duck eggs (great for sponge baking) or goose eggs (huge!).<\/p>\n
\naround the garden, field and woods. A lot of timber has been flying
\nabout.\u00a0 Walking through the woods, where ever you look trees are
\ndown.\u00a0 Some lovely ones have been lost, like a huge ash which had a
\ncherry growing out of its side and a rhododendron at the “Asian water
\ngarden”.\u00a0 But it’s a chance to clean up and tidy up.\u00a0 On the
\nsubject of the woods, apologies to those of you who missed the walk
\nbecause we didn’t send an email (only text).\u00a0 It was a great walk
\nand hopefully we’ll be organised to do another around Easter holidays
\n(we’ll let you know).\u00a0 Some photos are on Flickr – check them out!<\/a><\/p>\n
\ntime over the past months in developing a deeper understanding of it –
\nshe is researching an MBA thesis on yoga in Ireland.\u00a0 It looks like
\na lot of hard work, including late nights on the computer, but sounds
\nvery interesting and\u00a0 worthwhile.\u00a0 At the same time she
\ncontinues to train with international teachers which makes her teaching
\nfresh and relevant.\u00a0 Although I’ve never been much of a yoga guy,
\nthe technology behind the asanas seems to be gaining increasing
\nempirical support and can really make a difference to people’s
\nlives.\u00a0 Even the simple exercise of meditating or visualisation can
\nimprove memory and decision making success.\u00a0 Even if you don’t do
\nyoga, try sitting still for ten minutes to reflect on challenges – that,
\nin a strangely magical way, could help.\u00a0 As well as her yoga Facebook page<\/a>, she is updating web pages on our other site here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nHaving finished that unexpectedly challenging project, we’re trying to
\nreboot initiatives in business and education.\u00a0 In parallel with
\ncoaching individuals and mentoring entrepreneurs, we’re researching the
\nprocess of learning which seems to be the keystone to civilisation –
\nwhen people and societies expand their intellectual and emotional
\ncapacities, they become enlightened and enriched.\u00a0 If those ideas are interesting to you check out astraea.net and sign-up for the blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\nsubjects include business but here are some posts from the past few
\nmonths related to nature.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
Continue reading BT – Notes From The Edge – Spring has Sprung<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homenandgarden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4hwcd-zS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2227,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions\/2227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}