Even though we are in the middle of rain, sleet, snow and ice, it will not be long before gardening starts in earnest, so January is the perfect time to start planning your herb garden. The first decision is to decide if you want one dedicated to culinary herbs or […]
Meán Fómhair, the Irish for September, translates as the middle of autumn and is a time when Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) begins to affect many people. SAD is a kind of depression that occurs primarily during the autumn and winter months, when sunshine hours are reduced. While the specific origin […]
We live our lives around the solstice, be it the longest day or the shortest day. The recent Christmas celebrations marked not only the Incarnation but also the relief that the long hours of darkness had passed, and we could look forward to increasing daylight. Our planet’s path around the […]
The act of picking blackberries is ingrained in the minds of most of us: We all have fond memories of carrying our buckets out into the fields and along the hedgerows to collect the luscious black fruit that hung from the brambles. It was usually sunny when we went on […]
June is the height of midsummer, and the Wheel of the Year turns inexorably onwards as the longest day comes and goes for us in the Northern hemisphere. Because the days are still long, with an early sunrise and a long twilight, we take the opportunity to move from urban […]
All of us have an immune system that is made up of organs and cells. The job of these organs and cells is to protect our bodies from infections, viruses, parasites and cancer cells. Unfortunately, sometimes this system decides to go haywire and instead of protecting us, it actually attacks […]