I had some great news this week.
“You and your group are one of our Grow awardees of the Energia Get Ireland Growing Fund! Your application was really fantastic, and we are so delighted to give you €1,000 to help you realise your growing dreams.”
We started a Community Garden at the end of January and I applied for a grant when I discovered the GIY (Grow It Yourself) website. GIY is a global movement of people who grow some of their own food. They are a not-for-profit social enterprise dedicated to supporting people to grow some of their own food at home, school, work or in the community.
The reasons they give for doing what they do pretty well match my own thoughts
“There is no better way to understand and re-connect meaningfully with your food than by growing some of it yourself. Food growing is the ultimate food masterclass that leads to food empathy and is a lever to a healthier, happier and more sustainable world. GIYers are like white blood cells on a broken food system – a positive, disruptive force for change. Cheesy as it sounds, we believe we’re changing the world – one GIYer at a time.”
Anyway for whatever reason we are mighty pleased to have a grant to start us off. As we now have some money I went to a local carpenter to see if he would give me a quote on a wooden fence to go round the new 460m2 plot and he said he wouldn’t as he would do it for free if we would supply some labour to help. I went to a local graphic designer in order to get a design for a sign to help promote our garden and let everyone know what we are doing and she said she would do it for free as she felt it was a great idea and she loves plants.
This community is great and helping out is second nature to people around here, if this is anything to go by we should have a great garden in less time than I imagined.
A view from the Altar in Tormore last evening
I had a strange offer the other day from one of the guys who works for the Goleen & District Community Council as he asked me if we would like to do an audio blog. I must admit I was a bit sceptical (and still am) as I don’t think people will be queuing up to listen to me mumbling on about a community garden but I went for my first recording session the other day and I hope it will be “released” onto the internet soon. If it does I’ll either post it up here or put it on a link to our Community Garden website.
I asked my son, who is really into music, if he would come up with a theme tune for the audio blog and he played me a bit of it earlier today. I must admit it made me smile and I think it’s perfect.
Strange things are going on in West Cork and I am tucked up with my computer as there is a snow storm brewing outside. The schools and colleges are closed till Monday and there has been panic buying in the shops, mainly bread! My wife bakes most of ours so I don’t think we will go short on bread over the next couple of days. But I can only remember it snowing here a couple of times in the last 30 years. The kids are ecstatic and we are all hoping there will be enough for a real snowman.
The snow is coming in from the East while our weather nearly always comes in from off the sea to the West and in typical Irish fashion they have named it the Beast from the East and after the first couple of flakes the whole country has closed down until after the weekend. I don’t mind I have a lot of work to do for my college assignments and this will give me a chance to get ahead of them.
I was supposed to have an oral presentation on Friday and I was going to do a “potted history of gardening,” but it looks like I will have a bit more time to prepare however I seem to be spending my time updating all the various websites I edit for local groups.
I do one for the Mizen Villages which comes under the Goleen & District Community Council that I have been a member of for years. I completely redesigned it recently and I asked a friend who lives locally if I could post some of their stuff from their Facebook Page. Liam’s family ties to this area go back for ever and some would describe him as salt of the earth.
He bought himself a really nice camera and started taking photos of everything that moves and stuff that doesn’t. He’s no professional but he has taken some great photos and they are getting progressively better, he is not really a computer person so I am delighted to post his stuff on our website. I especially like his commentary, so if you want a real taste of life on the Mizen have a read of Liam’s latest tale.
Well that wraps it up for the moment and after a few hours work I am going to treat myself to the rest of the afternoon off. Don’t forget to close the gate.
SOD IT 