Darkness to Light.

Winter Solstice 2018.

The road to celebrate the winter solstice at the farm was lit by the moon and the night was mild and it was raining.

When there is so much conflict in life, we struggle and become empty. Visiting the nature reserve we had to concentrate on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Shelter, food, warmth as well as this Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper used the terms "physiological," "safety," "belonging and love," or "social needs" "esteem," and "self-actualization" to describe the pattern through which human motivations generally move.

So we practiced meditation and mindfulness to be able to cook food and warm drinks. As a group we bonded and laughed and shared Christmas carols as we waited for the sun to rise and go from darkness to light.We then observed our vow of silence to leave negative thoughts and feelings behind as we all prepared to be positive and peaceful through the festive season and into 2019.

We had a great time and hope you do also, if you choose to come to this magical place at Lime tree farm on one of our Solo days or other events.

Seasons Greetings.

Season’s greetings from all of us at ABC.

Yesterday we were at Lime tree farm,wreath making to brighten up the festive yuletide season.

The holidays are just around the corner and fast approaching.
Decorating your home to get into the festive mood can be a daunting task, and it all starts with deciding whether you prefer natural decorating elements or artificial. In fact when you decide to decorate with fresh Christmas wreaths, it was a great way to get into the holiday spirit in its entirety!

Live wreaths can be a bit more cumbersome and expensive than their artificial counterparts, but they do offer a great number of advantages. It was a great day chatting and sharing about love, life and the year gone by remembering friends old and new and also people who have passed.

What a great day.

We decorated the round house in preparation of our gathering to mark the WINTER SOLSTICE from Midnight of the 20th December through to our planned hour’s vow of silence in the stone circle.

Please contact Darrell 07851448812 to book. The evening is priced at £15.00 all monies go towards self funding our project for events to come and our vision of building a treehouse in the future.

Winter Solstice Event 2018.

ABC Invite you to share in the winter solstice and festive season on Midnight Thursday 20th December to Friday 21^st at dawn for an hours vow of silence.

The shortest day and longest night of the year inspire mystical celebrations, both old and new, in anticipation of the sun’s return.

In 2018 in the northern hemisphere, the winter solstice is Friday December 21st with our gathering at 7.23am in the stone circle with a vow of silence to watch the sunrise at 8.23am and be at peace.

Remember, the days just get longer from here!

A spiritual gathering of like minded individuals who want to mark the festive season in a more natural way with mindfulness and meditation petitions for the coming year, singing, and storytelling are also part of the festivities, so what you can bring to share will be appreciated. 

Your ABC experience will incorporate pagan winter solstice celebrations marked by a small bonfire to burn a Yule time tide log and food. After the solstice, the abundance of darkness in winter often associated with SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, the northern hemisphere will begin to be balanced with the light of the sun and we are gathering to celebrate this.

We will be gathering again for our 3rd year to celebrate this magical evening to say goodbye to the end of shorter days and the victory of light over darkness along with others around the world with other winter celebrations.

We will meet from midnight on Thursday 20th until dawn at

 Limetree Farm Hutts lane Grewelthorpe

 Ripon HG4 3DA.

Please bring warm waterproof clothes and boots.

Priced at £15.00, all monies go to help sustain our conservation work on the nature reserve throughout the New Year 2019 and would be the perfect alternative gift / donations.

 Please call Daz 07851448812 to book.

We would especially like to thank all our volunteers some that are currently oversees for all their hard work dedication in our long term goal of fund raising and building a treehouse and of course Pete and Irene for this special place.

Making way for new growth....

On route to Ripon whilst travelling along a route known as blubberhouses, with the first sign of snow, a beautiful barn owl was seen in full flight hunting at dawn.

It reminded us of the barn owl chicks that we saw, late summer whilst on a Solo day at Lime Tree Farm.

Let there be light.

Whilst at Lime tree farm we helped the owners clean up some cow dung from the car park to the observatory as some cattle had got loose and were on the road and were shown into the field at Lime tree Farm ,the cow pats were then shovelled into the hedgerows as fertilizer for species such as,

Crataegus monogyna (Hawthorn)

Fagus sylvatica (Green Beech)

Fagus sylvatica 'Purpurea' (Purple Beech)

Ilex aquifolium (Holly)

Along with other species such as blackthorn, field maple, hazel, spindle, wayfaring tree and wild service tree occasionally overshadowed by oak, ash, silver birch and other trees.

Bramble bushes and rose are frequent, together with climbing honeysuckle and wild clematis. At the foot of the hedge, thick herbaceous vegetation commonly includes species such as cow parsley and hedge mustard with coarse grasses, although sometimes woodland flora is found with bluebells and greater stitchwort.

Hedges provide song posts, shelter and nesting opportunities for both woodland and farmland birds such as yellowhammer, whitethroat, bluetit and great tit, birds that we have seen recently at Lime tree Farm. Hedges at the farm offer nectar, berries, nuts and leaves provide food for an assortment of invertebrates, mammals and birds. In addition to providing excellent wildlife habitat, hedges can help reduce soil erosion and water run-off for the Farm.

Stripped bare.

At peace with nature.

So it was great to trim some silver birch trees to let sunlight in to the entrance to the farm and add some brush to the hedgerows knowing our efforts may aid the wildlife at the nature reserve for the future. The rest were placed in a pile to make a bonfire as Halloween and bonfire night looms in this beautiful autumn period we are having.

The bonfire.

Our conservation work passed by so quickly yet so slowly.We always use mindfulness and meditation and breathing techniques that we teach on your Solo day which keeps us fully in the now. This mindfulness and meditation allows us to experience peace and harmony within ourselves and with Mother nature.

Please ring Darrell on 07951448812.
Click here to email for further information,

Return to Lime tree farm...

Autumn marked a return to Lime tree farm and another beautiful Solo Day.

Yorkshire, an area of outstanding natural beauty. (AONB)

Teasel.

On the back of the storm callum, the winds were up and the sounds of the winds thrashing through the trees gave this special place extra magic.

The sun shines through.

To practice mindfulness in such a beautiful environment with the effects of the storm gave us poise, and a special moment to truly reflect in our stilling of the mind and we gained peace. We were in awe at the presence of Mother Nature as the cloud formations blew across the horizon with really unusual mild temperatures 20 degrees despite the rain.

Before.

We managed to clear out some sheds and clad a barn door for the owners Pete and Irene and to help to conserve this place for others to come to this peaceful place.

After.

With our conservation commitment, we keep an eye on everything, from the ground upwards and look after and protect all plants, animals, trees as nature needs to be at its best.
We are never surprised to find man made materials that find their way onto Lime tree farm conservation area. 
As small as the piece of plastic is (above), it can do severe damage to wildlife. We always remove and safely dispose of any foreign materials; such is our commitment to ensuring that this beautiful place is kept this way for future generations and for all of you who come here for a Solo Day or Time and Space retreat.

And nature needs a hand too.

Time.

Autumn Solo Days 2018.

Our new dates for Autumn 2018.

Book early.

October  13th  10am - 4pm.

October  27th  10am - 4pm.

Available to anyone who wants to enjoy a stilling of the mind. 

Lime tree farm and Yorkshire are always beautiful in Autumn.
As the nights draw in and we lose daylight this is a great time to visit the nature reserve for the peace and tranquillity of a solo day.

This mini retreat is to practice mindfulness and meditation through light conservation tasks and would be ideal for anyone from any background.
Our mission statement at ABC is to provide a space for anybody from any background to experience meditation and mindfulness on our Solo day courses.

Both Autumn and nature in this AONB (area of natural beauty) situated in North Yorkshire bring an abundance of natural smells, feelings and an array of colour in which to enrich the senses and raise your spirit.

Our facilitators and volunteers have experienced homelessness and chemical dependency whilst others have ranges of expertise basic skills training to that of trainers to the international banking industry.

This serves to give us a better experience of being able to understand your needs and that of others, to be able to co produce an environment, to slow down the most erratic and complex minds with your co-operation and participation for peace of mind and deep reflection.

Your participation would aid our attempts to be self sustaining both now and in the future and this would help to aid those on the margins of society to attend in the future. 

This valuable time out from the stresses and strains of life is so rewarding, for those wanting peace and this practical work on your own consciousness with other like minded people, from diverse backgrounds, will improve your empirical knowledge of being in the now and may enhance your life and the lives of others as a result.

We look forward to meeting you and your friends.

The cost is £47.50 per person

 with a fabulous lunch included.

Book now to avoid disappointment.

Thank you everyone...

We would like to thank all participants and volunteers, trainers, John and Beryl the bird ringers and Norman our raw food expert for the dedication in helping us learn about nature.

ABC Solo Days and Time and Space retreats summer dates have come to an end for this summer period.
This was a beautiful time, filled with tears of joy and magical moments as can be read about on our website.

The programme now changes to Winter Solo Days in the Autumn from October and this is for the hardier of participants, who want to experience inner peace and true reflection in nature without going to far into the wild.
So here's to the colours of Nature, stargazing at the observatory.
Along with this is our Winter solstice in late December.

Special thanks to the webmaster for spending time and Space to create our audio visual representations to you our audience world wide and hope that you can help spread the word to others about what we do. 

Our ABC company is a not for profit community interest company,and continues to be our ethos as we are to apply for grant funding to be sustainable in the future.  
We are to start to fund raise to be able to build a tree house at the site. 

It would be great to see you on a Winter Solo Day.

Above all we would like to thank Pete and Irene for this opportunity to practice true mindfulness and meditation through conservation at Lime tree farm...

...and the Bees.

Solo Day.

After morning meditation we tidied up the orchard and removed the pruned branches to the corner of the garden to prepare for a bonfire for the owners.

Tidying the orchard.

Pruning the orchard.

We then fed the birds and the badgers at the bird hide and practiced some deep reflective breathing, to get beyond the personality, as this is a favourite meditation and can be very beneficial over time if practiced.

Bountiful fruit.

Delicious apples.

Nature makes us feel happier and more relaxed...

Our use of the allotment has helped with our project by having time and space. A place to reflect on our mental health and wellbeing by providing us with a space in which to relax, switch our minds off and recuperate. It has enabled us to return to the normal running of day-to-day life as professionals working with the challenges of being in the workplace it has allowed me to return to work energised, and encourages us to study horticulture in the near future by building on the small projects that a beginner can do, for example,window boxes etc.

Come and have a seat and Relax.

For many of us, being out in nature makes us feel happier and more relaxed and various papers have been written about this. We at ABC believe in this natural environment especially at our chosen site Lime tree Farm where the owners Pete and Irene have created such an untouched space. 

Early morning company.

The research into this relationship between the Great outdoors shows evidence that access to natural space positively impacts human well-being ,some studies suggest contact with nature might benefit people suffering from mental health conditions such as dementia or depression and at ABC we have been trialling this and found this to be true.
  

In the sky or on the ground,our Programme helps all.

However, questions which require further investigation include how biodiversity and human wellbeing are connected – would exposure to more biodiversity give us a greater wellbeing benefit to people in Recovery and also that of the people who are connected to this group of people?

This could be family members, carers and professionals who have the client group in treatment?

What components of biodiversity have the greatest wellbeing benefit?

What are the implications for the conservation sector of the growing emphasis on nature for wellbeing?

At ABC we are working in a privilege space in order to gain the maximum benefits to our wellbeing and the wellbeing of participants of all our Solo Days, Time and Space retreats, and individual workshops.

Please take time to explore our site and it would be great to see you here.

Easy when you know how.

Looking after whats underground too.

Our pictures help you get a feel of this magnificent space. A place to truly heal and take stock of what is truly important in your life through having Time and Space.

Letting go with Love.

A beautiful place.

Time and Space retreat.

We tended to the allotment,
weeding, planting strawberries and making rope out of Sisal under the guidance of Norman (who is also our raw food expert!).

Our varied group of volunteers then  followed owners Pete and Irene to see the farm's three barn owls chicks.... At a very special moment; the chicks are almost ready to leave the nest. In fact by the time I'm writing this they may have flown. 

If you have never been to our retreats to practice mindfulness, learning meditation techniques through conservation, it is relatively easy to do in the peace and tranquillity of nature. This conservation work is so rewarding for the soul and a place to heal.

We camped out and relaxed in the evening.
Camp fires, good conservation, barbeque food and stargazing. We saw Mars visible low in the midnight sky.

Next morning was about having breakfast, clearing camp and only leavening footprints (which is, of course, our ethos).Everyone reported having slept well and we rested up, completed our "vow of silence" and left to go our separate ways.

From seeing a red kite to a swooping buzzard this is such a magical environment for true reflection. 

Solo days are a great introduction for a short taster course in mindfulness and meditation. However a full "Time and Space retreat" gives everyone time for this special place to work its real magic.

So book early to avoid disappointment; we'd love to see you.

John the bird ringer...

A 5.30 am start for enthusiastic nature-lovers (still feels a bit early though after a great night getting to know each other round the campfire).

John the bird ringer, who has been doing this for near 30 years, takes it in his stride and looks for a good place to set his nets. For a lure he uses mp3 players producing particular bird’s calls. We all look into his netting to work out what species are around on the nature reserve.

The first bird is a Wren.

As the Irish song goes.

"The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,

St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,

Although he was little his honour was great"

Then a Willow Warbler and Chaff Chaff. ("Some times hard to distinguish" says John "as cross-breeding leads to hybrid breeds").

Blue, grey and coal tits are here along with a blackbird and many other common species. The Gold crest is a favourite as we marvel at the colourful crown of Britains smallest bird; watching John and his patient, expert work is completely meditative to watch. The birds are painstakingly measured and weighed for British ornithology..... It's a real lesson in taking time and care.

When the BTO Ringing Scheme was established over 100 years ago, the primary focus was the study of bird movements. Bird ringing is used in studies of the populations of different species of birds. Data collected is used for migration information and the study of fledglings produced and the subsequent survival of both youngsters and their parents.

The joy of releasing the birds back into the wild is a thrill in itself but this is essential work for conservationists and Nature reserves like Lime tree farm; the information helps target attempts to reverse declines (if numbers are dropping due to starvation over winter for example).

A Solo Day to embrace.

This weekend's meditation was on patience.

The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.

As we approached the farm we saw a deer cross the lane and stand still in the woods just looking at us. As I tried to take a camera shot the deer wandered off. I wished I had just savoured the moment.

Next we saw barn owl hunting in the open fields; this is always a sight at dusk.We bedded in for the night sleeping by the fire light with the sound of owls and sheep, accompanied by the crackle of the fire and the glow of the moon.First things first, we welcomed the morning sunlight and becoming still to the sound of the dawn chorus.Walking through the field to the garden and negotiating the gate and listening to the sound of the rusty chain.

Filling the watering can, and listening to sound of the water fall on the parched earth, as we watered the plants. Such peace, such pleasure only the sound of the birds is bliss.

Parched.

Watered.

Working in the polytunnel on one of the hottest days of the year was testing.

We fitted a door to the polytunnel as well as enjoying the nature when breaks were needed. Lunch was fabulous.

Looking out from deep within.

It took real patience in the polytunnel to craft a door and to make a lock from bits of spare timber. The meditation was to compose and breathe to be able to absorb the heat and concentrate on the task in hand.

This was a Solo Day to embrace.