February Newsletter

In this month’s newsletter we’ll take a look at Spring ephemerals and their folklore and dogwood (which has some fascinating history).

Spring Ephemerals

Flowers that only come up in Spring once a year have their own special name: Spring ephemerals with ‘ephemeral’ alluding to their very brief appearance at this time of year. Amongst the non-native crocuses and tulips, wild Spring ephemerals, which are often seen in woodlands, include wood anemones, English bluebells, lesser celandine, winter aconite and (if you’re lucky) wild daffodil. Daffodils are not only a national symbol of Wales, and will be abundant for St David’s Day on 1 March, but the wild Daffodil is also the county flower of Gloucestershire! According to folklore the daffodil represents hope, folly and unrequited love, so perhaps rather than purchasing African grown roses for yourself or your beloved this Valentine’s Day, go for daffodils instead! If, however, you do decide to buy chocolate, roses or wine, don’t forget to choose ‘Fairtrade’ which will be in the spotlight from 21 February until 6 March for Fairtrade Fortnight. If you're feeling creative this Valentine's Day, then I have the perfect crafty gift for you in my Dogwood feature below.

Back to Spring flowers, other Spring flowers you may have heard of are: cuckoo flower, wild garlic and wood sorrel who make their appearance later on in Spring in the months of March and early April and will feature in my Ecoliteracy for Educators course. If you’re keen to test your wildflower knowledge, the Woodland Trust have a great Spring flowers quiz and you can also find out more about wild daffodils from Plantlife. And, finally, if you really want to get into botany in a big way this Spring, I highly recommend 'The Wildflower Key' by Francis Rose (do you think he changed his surname to fit in with his occupation?!). This is a comprehensive book which will really help you to get your eye in when learning to identify new wildflowers and also help to you learn all about who's related to who when it comes to classification.

Dogwood, or should I say Dagwood?!

I've noticed many wonderful social media posts all about the mighty dogwood and her uses over the past couple of weeks. If you’re hitting the road this half term look out for dogwood’s delightful red stems brightening up our A road verges. You may be familiar with elder, and her pithy properties which allow for excellent bead making. Dogwood is very similar in her characteristics in that her pithy stem can be removed using a strong stick or thin tent peg to create a hollow stem. Hollow stems have a range of uses from beads to bee hotels, and we'll look at how you could share such crafts with others in my Ecoliteracy for Educators course.

Dogwood also has some interesting folklore. When I was doing some reading about this, one source suggested that the name originates from 'dagwood' with the word 'dag' meaning arrow. Perhaps this gives us a peek into the past uses of this beautiful shrub by our arrow-wielding ancestors!! If you'd like to utilise her arrow-like properties in a more loving way, then dogwood, like willow, can also be used to create frames or shapes, such as dogwood hearts. My wonderful Forest School friends Robyn and Emily show us how to create your own in their instagram posts: Robyn's dogwood heart and Emily's dogwood and willow hearts.

January Newsletter

First of all, Happy New Year! Although January's well underway, I want to wish you a happy 2022 and hope that it's going well for you so far.

Looking back to December's newsletter, did you make a festive wreath over the Christmas break for Yule? Thanks to those of you who sent in your photos of your beautiful creations. I absolutely loved seeing how you got on with this lovely practice to mark Yule and the Winter Solstice. If, like me, you felt reluctant to throw away your wreath once it began to look a bit sad, I highly recommend keeping the willow frame and redecorating it with ivy and other foraged finds to celebrate Imbolc.

The next important event in the Wheel of the Year is Imbolc (pronounced Immolc) which falls on the 1st and 2nd February 2022. The word Imbolc originally meant 'in the belly' referring to how the land is pregnant with new life, just waiting to emerge upon the onset of Spring. At this time of the year we start to see Spring bulbs emerging and the first flowers braving the frosty conditions. If you want to know where to see snowdrops this February, highly recommend visiting Wye Valley Sculpture Gardens in Tintern, South Wales. If you live in Bristol, it's well worth the short half an hour journey to see these delicate blooms brave the cold and be some of the first to provide a vital nectar source for bees.

The Wheel of the Year is an historic Pagan and Neopagan calendar that looks o the skies to help us organise our year - from the solstices (longest and shortest days) to the equinoxes (the days when in the Northern hemisphere we see equal daylight and darkness), accompanied by festivals such as Imboc to mark important points in the year which often correspond to the Christian calendar of festivities.

Celebrating a new year on the Spring (or Vernal) Equinox - 20th March - when we have equal daylight and darkness, feels pretty sensible to me. Many animals will also be emerging from their Winter dormancy around this time of year, signalled to awaken with the lighter, longer days. My Ecoliteracy for Educators course is rooted in the Wheel of the Year and will begin in the astronomical Spring on 20th March.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter.

As ever, feel free to connect over on social media: @foxfirelearning or email: hello@foxfirelearning.com

For now, take care, don’t forget marvel at nature and see you next month!

With love and gratitude,

Charly

December Newsletter

Welcome to this bumper December Edition of the Foxfire Learning Newsletter!

The festive season has arrived, along with my cheesy logo additions! Whether you're a grinch (like me!) or Christmas-mad, I hope this newsletter offers you some solace in these darker days as we rapidly approach the shortest day - the Winter Solstice, on the 21st.

In this month's newsletter you will find:

• Some musings about Roman and Gregorian calendars + the Pagan Wheel of the Year.

• A book list for anyone looking for last minute Christmas gifts for Eco Warriors.

Just to give you a heads up, January's newsletter will be out around the 16th so if you read no further than this paragraph, have a very merry festive season and joyful new year's eve!

The Wheel of the Year

Many of us will consider December to be the last month of the year with the 31st marking New Years eve. However, the month following December wasn't always January....intrigued? Then please read on!

The 12-month calendar as we know it was widely adopted in 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII took the rather extreme decision of adding 10 days to its predecessor - the Roman calendar - to ensure that Easter would fall in the Spring months of March or April each year. The Roman calendar was originally determined by the cycles of the moon and the seasons of the agricultural year. This was a lunar year of 354 days but, because of the Roman superstition about even numbers, an additional day was added to make it 355 days long. The 10 months were named Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December, some names you'll recognise from today's 12 month calendar.

The Moon completes 12 full cycles of its phases in about 354 days – which is 11 days short of a Gregorian calendar year. Every two and a half years or so the difference adds up to an extra, 13th full moon occurring during the year and this relatively rare occurrence is sometimes referred to as a ‘blue moon’. Many indigenous calendars still use the moon to mark the passing of time, and the names of each month's full moon are heavily influenced by the agricultural seasons e.g. September's harvest moon.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, here in the U.K we also have a calendar to which we can look to for a more seasonal and nature-based way of marking the passage of time - the Wheel of the Year, an historic Pagan and Neopagan calendar. This intuitive calendar looks to the skies to help us organise our year - from the solstices (longest and shortest days) to the equinoxes (the days when in the Northern hemisphere we see equal daylight and darkness), accompanied by festivals such as Yule to mark important points in the year which often correspond to the Christian calendar of festivities.

Beginning the year on the Spring (or Vernal) Equinox - 20th March - when we have equal daylight and darkness, feels pretty sensible to me. Many animals will also be emerging from their Winter dormancy around this time of year, signalled to awaken with the lighter, longer days. My Ecoliteracy for Educators course is rooted in the Wheel of the Year and will begin in the astronomical Spring on 20th March. If you're interested in hearing more about the course, please leave your email address with me by clicking here.

Books

If like me you love nothing more than cosying up with a good book on these long winter nights, I'm delighted to share with you some of my favourite titles from the world of Ecoliteracy, Ethnobotany and Ecology on my bookshop.org page here. 

For anyone who's excited to enrol in my Ecoliteracy for Educators course, many of these books are also recommended reading so you can get a head start and perhaps ask Santa to gift you one or two titles ;) My nose is buried in the two below at the moment and they're impossible to put down! I highly recommend listening to the audiobook version of Braiding Sweetgrass as Robin Wall Kimmerer has the most soothing voice!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter.

As ever, feel free to connect over on social media: @foxfirelearning or email: hello@foxfirelearning.com

For now, take care, don’t forget marvel at nature and see you next month!

With love and gratitude,

Charly

November Newsletter

Welcome to the November Edition of the Foxfire Learning Newsletter!

Happy November! I’m publishing this edition a little late as the short days and winter weather begin to take their toll and the darker evenings make us reach for the hot chocolate! I've certainly been hogging radiator space in my home to try to dry out soggy clothes and shoes, ready to deliver the next dark twilight teacher training.

Did any of you have a go at printing Tataki Zome style last month? I hope you managed to capture some beautiful prints using the last of the summer flowers and the beautiful Autumn leaves. I've had the joy of learning more about edible mushrooms and how to ID them this month with one method being to make a spore print. Want to know more? Then sign up to my newsletter by leaving your details below.

COP26

If like me, you felt disappointed by the outcome of the COP26 climate talks, here are some uplifting ideas for us to get mobilised at individual and community levels to help tackle climate change, even if our leaders continue to bury their heads in the sand:

Some ideas of how we can take action from the Wildlife Trusts:

1. Buying local, eating plant-based and reducing your food miles will shrink your carbon footprint.
2. Making small changes to how you get from A to B will make a big difference! Walking or cycling where you can will help reduce your footprint massively
3. Reducing your household energy use by switching to a renewable energy supplier or purchasing a heat pump will help cut down your energy usage.
4. Recycle, upcycle - and make do and mend! Production of household waste needs to decrease by 33% by 2037 to reach emissions targets.
5. Water metres, water-efficient appliances and water butts are just a few of the things that can help you reduce your water use.
6. Write to your local MP. The more of us who tell our MPs that we demand action to tackle climate change, the more likely policy will actually be debated and created in parliament.

Here's a full list of actions we can take, with links from the Wildlife Trusts.

And if you're interested in finding out more about your carbon footprint, WWF have this handy calculator.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter.

As ever, feel free to connect over on social media: @foxfirelearning or email: hello@foxfirelearning.com

For now, take care, don’t forget marvel at nature and see you next month!

With love and gratitude,

Charly

October Newsletter

Welcome to the October Edition of the Foxfire Learning Newsletter!

Wow! How is it October already?! It feels like time has flown by since the new school year began in England and the seasonal shift into Autumn is feeling very real! If you're an outdoor play and learning practitioner like me, soggy tarps and resources will be a familiarity once again!

Inspiration from Japanese practices is a feature for me this month, through my recent Forest Bathing (shinrin-yoku) experience, as well as being the impetus for this month's foraging feature. I'll be inviting you to get creative, capturing the juicy Autumn colours before the plants go to bed for the winter with an art form known as tataki zome.

Tataki what?! Some of you may have heard of 'hapa' zome, leaf hammering or flower bashing but tataki zome seems to be less commonly known. Up until this summer, I've been calling the technique hapa zome (translating to leaf dying), which produces beautiful botanical prints. Then, along came my wonderful friend, Jackie, who enlightened me with the more accurate name for this printing style, which is tataki zome, literally meaning 'leaf hammering'. It also sounds more precise, with the onomatopoeia of 'tataki' akin to the drumming of lots of little hammers being applied to innocent leaves! With this in mind, I encourage you to do this activity outside if multiple people are hammering, so that the noise can disperse! Want to make your own prints? Leave your email in the box below and all will be revealed!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter.

As ever, feel free to connect over on social media: @foxfirelearning or email: hello@foxfirelearning.com

For now, take care, don’t forget marvel at nature and see you next month!

With love and gratitude,

Charly

September Newsletter

Welcome to the September Edition of the Foxfire Learning Newsletter!

Happy new school term for those of you in England. I hope the return to school, or maybe first time ever at school for little ones, is going smoothly so far. If you're thinking ahead to your own learning for 2022, read on to find out more about a course for parents and educators which I'm launching later this Autumn.

In last month's newsletter I shared some news about international bat night which was celebrated on the last weekend of August. Were any of you lucky enough to spot our winged mammalian friends? Or even build a bat box? If you did I'd love to see your photos. You can email them to me or tag @foxfirelearning on social media.

September's foraging feature offers the opportunity to go a bit wilder than last month's trip to M&S (!) and I'm sure many of you have already spotted and scrumped several hedgerow treasures in this most amazing and abundant month for wild food.

As promised in August's newsletter I have some news to share about my upcoming nature-based programmes. Since August I've not only been busy brewing medicinal tinctures from foraged elderberries, but have begun putting together a course for anyone interested in boosting their Ecoliteracy (literally ecological literacy). To accommodate different geographical locations, the content of this course will predominantly be delivered online, with 3 optional in person get togethers in 2 locations to share plant wisdom and delicious foraged foods. The course will run from the Spring Equinox (20/03/2022) until the Autumn Equinox (23/09/2022).

If this is something you, or someone you know would be interested in, please register your interest via this google form which will be open to responses until Friday 19th November 2021.

To receive the full version of this newsletter into your email inbox, leave your email in the box below.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter.

As ever, feel free to connect over on social media: @foxfirelearning or email: hello@foxfirelearning.com

For now, take care, don’t forget marvel at nature and see you next month!

With love and gratitude,

Charly

August Newsletter

Welcome to the August Edition of the Foxfire Learning Newsletter!

Hands up who’s going camping this month? Me too! And I’m so excited! Even if you’re not camping in the traditional sense of tent and sleeping bag, maybe you’re staying up late to watch the stars from your garden or holidaying in one of the U.K’s amazing dark sky places.

However you’re spending your August in the Northern Hemisphere, I hope that the offerings in this month’s newsletter offer some inspiration for how you can connect to nature and the elements on a summer’s night.

For last month’s foraging feature I shared my elderflower cordial recipe which offered up the opportunity to identify trees and make some delicious cordial harnessing one of the flavours of summer. This month’s foraging takes you as far as a trip to M&S (for folks in the U.K) which may be easier to identify! That said, you’ll need to forage for firewood (sustainably and with the landowner’s permission of course), and a toasting stick to complete all steps for this mouth-watering campfire treat so there will be a little bit of foraging required.

Suitably intrigued? I hope you are! To receive the full version (including my inclusive s’more recipe) of this newsletter into your email inbox, leave your email in the box below.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter.

As ever, feel free to connect over on social media: @foxfirelearning or email: hello@foxfirelearning.com

For now, take care, don’t forget marvel at nature and see you next month!

With love and gratitude,

Charly

July Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the first edition of the Foxfire Learning Newsletter!

Who?

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. For those of you who haven’t met me, my name is Charly and I really hope to meet you in person soon!

Why and when?

The purpose of this monthly newsletter is to share ways to observe and connect with what’s going on in the natural world. Content could be anything from what edible plants to look out for to information about campaigns by other organisations about different species to observe.

What?

I plan to launch the physical offerings of Foxfire Learning later this year and would love to hear what YOU want from a nature-based organisation. I am really fortunate to have several strings to my bow, including being trained as a Forest School Practitioner and Teen Yoga Teacher, to name a couple! I’m also intensely curious about how we (and our children and young people) can connect more deeply with the natural world, believing that the gifts of nature connection are reciprocal - offering therapeutic benefits for our physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing whilst empowering us to look after nature with more integrity and awareness.

I’ve created a survey to find out more about what YOU feel you or your community needs in terms of nature connection. Everybody’s voices are, of course, welcomed and encouraged here, whether you’re a parent, a teacher, an outdoor learning practitioner or all three, I would love to hear your experiences and opinions so that I can create an offering which is most relevant for YOU. The survey is anonymous (unless you leave your email address at the end!) and should take no more than 5 minutes to complete. 

Complete the survey here: https://forms.gle/y4doAZNfoyZem2eVA

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter and take part in the Foxfire Learning survey on what YOU want to see offered by nature-based organisations.

As ever, feel free to connect over on social media: @foxfirelearning or email: hello@foxfirelearning.com

For now, take care, don’t forget marvel at nature and see you next month!

With love and gratitude,

Charly