Back in May, I became aware that the swallows we had seen flying around, doing their finest acrobatics above us and filling the air with their high-pitched liquid tunes, had begun to build a nest in the workshop. How exciting! In the eight years we have lived here, no swallows have nested in our outbuildings before, apart from a couple of unsuccessful attempts in the field shelter out in the meadow a few years ago.

Each year, their arrival from Africa ushers in the long, heady days of summer and I love seeing them fly high and low above the …

A little posy of freshly picked sweet peas, as colourful as they are fragrant, sits on my desk as I write this. I am in the sunroom where, with the door and window open, the sounds, sights and smells of the season waft in and mingle around me. As always, they provide much of the inspiration for these posts and the time of the Summer Solstice, tomorrow in the northern hemisphere, is no exception.

The air is filled with the distant sound of agricultural machinery working in the fields, making hay or silage for winter fodder. A thrush sings a …

Today is the Spring Equinox, the point on the Wheel of the Year that marks the time when days grow longer than nights. We have left Winter behind and warmth is slowly returning to the Earth once more, awakening nature's life force with the vibrancy, aliveness and fertility of the new season of Spring. Right now, we are at the threshold into the light half of the year, when nature springs into action and prepares for growth.

Spring flowers are now blooming in the garden, from highly scented hyacinths and cheery daffodils to colourful crocuses and delicate primroses, whilst in …

It was when I was walking back from the woodshed with a basketful of logs at the end of a sunny afternoon a few days ago that I noticed it. The sun was setting, visibly later in the day, drawing the evening out. In a hasty last burst of energy before dropping below the horizon, the golden ball in the sky was playing hide-and-seek with a lacy veil of dark grey clouds rolling up from the south. I was in awe of this striking spectacle of light, of course I was, but it was something else that caught my attention. …

Today is the Winter Solstice, marking the shortest day and longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere - and the start of a new season. From this point on, daylight hours increase slowly but steadily towards Spring. A weak, hesitant, fragile and delicate light... yet beautiful in all its frailty and presence. I have enjoyed going out at sunset these last few days and watch the light fade behind the hills.

Up to now, since the Autumn Equinox, the dark has triumphed over the light but from today, the seemingly impenetrable obscurity thins a little to let in …

As promised in my last post, and before winter claims what is left of lingering autumn feels, here is a little account of how we pressed our homegrown apples into bottles and bottles of lovely, organic juice.

One crisp and sunny morning in October, we drove our 60 kgs of harvested apples, mainly Bramleys, to Newtown, where we had hired a pressing, juicing and pasteurising facility. A couple of years ago, we had tried juicing at home with a small, domestic juicer that some friends had lent us and the process was slow, messy and very noisy! The machine had …

The Wheel of the Year has turned some more and we have now reached Samhain, the major festival in the Celtic calendar that marks the end of the cycle of birth and growth and the start of the dark half of the year. Summer is well and truly over and the final harvest is all gathered in. The life cycle is complete; it is the point of death and decay. Nature now enters a quiet, fallow period with the seeds of the harvest fallen into the nurturing folds of the dark earth and waiting, dormant, for their time to begin …

We've arrived at the Autumn Equinox, the point of balance when days and nights are just about equal in length for a little while before the darkness gains. We are invited to pause and reflect so we can move into the transitional season of Autumn and prepare for a restorative and rejuvenating Winter.

We now leave Summer behind and step into Autumn. There is a nip in the air and we have had a few dewy and misty mornings. Fungi are sprouting up here and there. The colchicum autumnalis in the meadow are up and counted up for the botanical …

It's Lammas tomorrow, the festival on the Wheel of the Year that marks the mid-point between the Summer Solstice and the Autumn Equinox. The high energy of Summer is now waning and as we move into the month of August nature offers us the very first glimpses of Autumn. Have you noticed any signs where you are?

Here in the Welsh hills, the landscape around the smallholding is dominated by the purpley-pink blooms of rosebay willowherb that mingle with the creamy froths of meadowsweet and the vigorous and abundant green bracken. At home, the fruit trees in our orchard are …

Once again, the gap since my last blog offering is bigger than I would like. I had planned to send a Summer Solstice post out but several things conspired against its timely dispatch. First, I was troubled by some lower back sciatic pain that slowed me right down in the garden at the height of the busy season and I have avoided sitting down at the computer for too long to give my body a chance to recover. Secondly, my mum came to stay with us in June and I made sure to spend as much time as possible together …