Children’s Upbringing through planting oaks

On April 21, the children gathered sprouted acorns in the forest. They brought them home and almost forgot about them, but … we didn’t give them a chance to do it.

As they had collected living plants, they should be aware of responsibility. On April 22, My daughter and I went to the forest for the soil. It was raining that day but the more fun it was.

The oaks were growing and gaining strength on our balcony for two weeks, and on May 12 we planted them in the forest.

Nature vs Humans

When in most parts of Russia it is still snowing (though it is already May 12) and the bloggers, one by one, are writing how tired they are from the 7-month winter, we are happy to enjoy flowers in the forest living in 900 km from the capital. Frankly, I have not expected there can be such a great variety of flowers in the forest just at the beginning of May!

 

First Snow. April

19 April 2017

Seems winter has decided to strat again.

Striving for Nature

“The man made a huge mistake when he imagined that he could separate himself from nature and that he might not reckon with its laws“. (V. Vernadsky, Russian and Soviet scientist, thinker and public figure)

We are created according to the laws of nature, and therefore it is foolish not to follow them. Not knowing the basic rules and laws of nature, mankind will not be able to subdue the elements, to manage them and to become excellent in relation to other creatures on earth.

Another Russian publicist and writer said, “Great things are done with great [financial] means. Only nature makes everything for free“. (A.I.Gertsen)

All the ideas mentioned above are especially intelligible when winter comes to its end. There appears a strong desire to become closer to nature for it to clear and balance you.

Thus, it was not an odd deed of ours (mine and my daughter’s) when we tried to overcome the mud and puddles of early spring striving to turn out in the forest. A little bit soaked feet and dirty hands were really worth it! And in such weather when the sun is shining and everything is melting it is even more pleasant to be in the forest realizing that you can hear birds’ singing and not people’s voices as not many of the latter are ready to start for the forest along the muddiest road ever.

From one side of Russia to another through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Mongolia

In summer 2016 a friend of mine covered 23 500 km on him motobike literally speaking from the Western border of Russia to the Eater one. But that was not the whole thing.  The intermediate points on his way were some Asian countries: Kazakhstan with its dusty steppes and the drying Aral Seas, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan with its Pamir Highway, Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia. When one is alone on the road among nature he starts seeing the world just “now and here” and this gives him a renewed understanding…

He has recently started to describe his moto tour. The story is in Russian so far but the photos he publishes can also say much.

The beginning – Russia: http://vladimirkostrov.livejournal.com/827.html

Kazakhstan: http://vladimirkostrov.livejournal.com/1283.html and http://vladimirkostrov.livejournal.com/1719.html

Uzbekistan: http://vladimirkostrov.livejournal.com/2196.html

To be continued… 🙂

Travelling changes our brain

To get of a bad mood doctors and scientists recommend “switching off” your brain. A way to do it is to go travelling.

Researchers observed a group of people who walked about a forest for 1,5 hours. In each of them brain activity decreased in the areas of their brains responsible for psychological illness. Just imagine what can happen if someone spends several days surrounded by nature!

Their level of creative thinking increased by 50%.

So, it’s worth dropping everything once in a while heading somewhere quite beautiful.

The Road of Life

“No one returns from the journey the same as he has been before.”

(Curves on Hightway 1 Northern California)

A Problem or a Motivation to Act? Part 2.

I was trying to remember some example from my life to illustrate the idea raised in “A Problem or a Motivation to Act?” It turned out to be quite a hard task for me as what was a problem for me in the past stopped being it in the present.

When we bought our village house 2 years ago, all the weekends, from morning till night, were devoted to its cleaning and repairing. For example, we spent three weekends repairing the borehole and trying to fit the electric pump there. And finally, by the end of Sunday, everything had been done! There was so much joy when we saw water pouring from the hose without any breaks! We send water off into the air enjoying the rainbow, splashed, watered blackcurrant bushes growing near the house. In a word, we poured water from the bottom of our hearts…
And suddenly something strange happened. The bricks with which the wall of the 2-meter pit (for the borehole and pump) was faced started first slowly and then quicker to go down into the bottom of the pit. In a word, it was a catastrophe! The water, which we had been pouring near the house, went into the ground and the swelled ground began to push the bricks carefully laid by the previous owners of the house out into the pit. Then the soil followed after the bricks. Naturally, we stopped the stream of the water. And it seemed that the process of brick-falling also stopped. But it started raining…

So, what do you think about this problem which happened to us at the end of Sunday after two previous days filled with work? No way could we leave everything as it was as it meant that there was a wide hole leading into our house from outside. We collected all our will and not thinking about the difficulty of the situation and supported by the “second breath” we started digging the ground in the place it collapsed (i.e. outside, near the house). On the depth of 0,5 meter we put metal sheets which we had found in the house and some soil above them. We also made major repairs in the pit. The next weekend my husband made a canopy starting right from the roof for the rain water to fall down at some distance from the house.

Already in a few days we appreciated the true value of the situation we had faced. Heavy rains started then and they could lead to the same situation. And as we were not in the village on the working days, nobody knows what it could have ended up with. And besides, due to the idea to make a canopy, we can make shishkebab when it is raining now. Moreover, my husband and I were so proud of each other for the shown patience, hardiness and determination when repairing the wall of the pit.

So, there is always a ray of light in any situation, isn’t it?

Thought of the idea: “Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today. Don’t make the other do what you can do yourself” (Thomas Jefferson).

photo by the author

A Sunday in May

Heat. Some neighbor has said that it is thirty degrees above zero. It seems Central Russia is the hottest area in Europe now. It is so bewitching to lie on the bedding made of mowed grey-haired dandelions and to look into the blue cloudless sky. High above there are swifts flying and seagulls soaring. What are seagulls doing in such heights? It seems they are just enjoying. Enjoying as they do not need to flap their wings but they can only float on the air streams. Verily, Richard Bach chose the right image for Jonathan seeking the truth.

In the wooden house it is not so hot but the warm air is already crawling here, too. Should I go to weed?.. The sun is burning my hands and warming up my head. “Warmth is great, it is pleasant for the body but still… can it be a bit cooler?”

As it is said, pure desire… (and, I suppose, not only mine). At about six in the evening wind arises. It is heard to bow the trees behind the window. “Something will happen!” When you go to have at look at the nature, you can see a rich dark-blue cloud rising from above the close horizon of the nearest village. The wind is bending birches so strongly that their leaves are turning inside out and because of it the chevelure of the birch-trees turn from light emerald into pale green. And around you there are great numbers of little dandelion parachutes whirling in circles.

The cloud has almost approached us. “Fine, I will not have to water the plants today!”

In five minutes the cloud was driven to the right. The wind calmed down. The sun begins to warm up the Earth and everything on it again. I am taking the watering-can (a small one and that is why I have to go to the beds many times) with a thought: “If one does not water radishes much, they will not become sweet”… I have finished – everything is watered!

And at that moment it starts lightening seriously and properly: a lightning on the right, a lightening on the left, two lightening in front. Wow! It was thundering for five minutes without a break. The clouds gathered from all the directions. Except for the wind and thunder, there are no sounds – the nature stands still. There is a clear feeling that something will happen now not only outside but inside as well.

The downpour looked like a wall. The wind brought coolness – the soul was rejoicing!

***

Though it rejoiced only until the water started pouring from behind the roof into the house. It was not in the main room, just in the backyard but from all the chinks unknown to us till this moment. The decision is taken immediately: we are staying in the village house for the night to patch the roof early in the morning.

It was the right decision… At five in the morning, when you are going with your feet bare along the glade towards the rising sun, the blades covered with dew are caressing your feet, like small brushes, so tenderly.

photos by the author

Weather and Life – much in common

It is the same place (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, the Volga river) which the pictures are taken of.

Watch the time.

At the same time on the other side:

The whole picture was, approximately, like this:

It is like this in life: first it seems that the sun is shining and then that a cloud is approaching (the change of the mood and state takes place very quickly and often). But in nature it is planned so as only having gone through both of them you find what is in the middle – balance, joy and beauty (a rainbow in this particular case 🙂 ).

The pictures are taken by my friend, Ann Myilenkova