Water Witches and Dowsing

When I bought my current home it was to no one’s surprise that a large body of water lay close at hand.  I live next to a quarry.  My quarry has many mysteries as most of the water in this area is blessed with.  There are old mine shafts that span literally hundreds of miles between local small towns like Hamburg and Franklin.  This has spawned many excellent interesting conversations among my friend.  He is part Native American and I Celtic…ironically our core belief systems and reactions to the natural realm are very similar.  It is a raw elemental pull.

Upon discussion and meditation we have imagined the aquatic mine shafts teeming with life, darkened dreamy swaying grasses along untrodden paths submerged long ago.  Paths humans blasted through, dug through, sweated through; now preserved and evolving.  Water seeks its lowest point and settles and resides and gathers.

My first exposure to dowsing occurred somewhat incidentally.  I am blessed with many clusters of eclectic friends, whose numbers continue to grow and, like these paths, evolve.

It was a celebration of sorts in my new home where I invited friends dubbed ‘The Vagina Mafia’ to my digs.  The goal was to mirror my new place with the collective energy of our souls.  A cosmic friend; Carol of Beach Haven, brought another friend I like to call Lady Jane.  I did not know Lady Jane well, only in passing and various get togethers, but she is amethyst like me.  And I’ve learned you do not have to necessarily know someone to KNOW someone.  Months and moons pass and this group of friends can find itself regrouped in a matter of minutes and that time away evaporates like the morning mist over the swamp due East of my home.

Conversation soon turned mystic in nature (Thanks to combination of estrogen, wine, and chocolate!)  It quieted down and there was a question posed ‘Any issues here Christine?’  To a normal group this could’ve been interpreted in any number of mind numbing ways; issues with work? Issues with $? Issues with kids??  But we cut to the chase.  And I quietly replied ‘The Kitchen’

In my last home I catered.  Cosmically.  Feeding Folks REAL food.  Simmered for hours.  True Vegetables. Stews. Breads.  My small business’ byline was ‘A Feast for the Soul’.  You would always find me in the kitchen.  

In my new home the kitchen was small.  Galley.  Which is fine because I am small and the kitchen is my jungle – I climb, I dance, I spin magic in sauce… a sorceress with a wooden spoon. 

 I love to cook and I believe the energy you pour into things with your ingredients reaches the recipient and makes all the difference in nourishing the whole person.  Crazy?  Try it.

So I looked at my group and said ‘Everything here is perfect, the water, the children, the energy…but I can’t spend more than 15 minutes in the kitchen…it’s like I’m blocked and can’t melt into myself there.’

Lady Jane said ‘Would you like me to go through your home? Check the energy?’  From these girls this is as completely normal as asking if you would like a teaspoon of sugar.  ‘Yes’

The conversation chatted up again, and in the background Jane had her way with my home with her dowsing rods.  She quietly walked through the rooms upstairs, through the basement/family room downstairs, then the main level and finally settled in the kitchen.  She spent some time there.  When she returned she said ‘There was a block deep in the ground under the kitchen, water flows there and I asked it to redirect its energy.  Let me know how it goes’ and dropped it.

The night ended and the last wine glass was washed.  I turned to look at my kitchen before I shut off the light.  It looked no different.  It felt no different.

I snuggled into my blankets thankful for my friends and their support.  These are the types that see you through serious illness, bail you out of jail at 3AM, help you grow after a divorce and come and pull you out of bed and get you in the shower the day after your husband drops dead.  These are those girls.  

The next morning I grabbed a magazine and brewed tea.  I saw a recipe for lemon scones.  I scanned the ingredients.  I had everything so I made them.  I thought bread with dinner would be a good idea so I started some yeast in a huge glass bowl my mother had given me.  Lasagna sounded wonderful so I browned chopped meat in oil and garlic and started on marinara sauce.  HOURS went by.  I was so caught up in cooking that when I had finally let the bread rise twice and placed it in a stone in the oven my eyes widened and my breath caught.  Aware, very, very aware.  Then energy danced all around me.  My kitchen had been christened with my soul.  I became more ME again.

Coincidence?  Maybe.  But a friend sent me a message this morning.  She is soulfully devastated as we all are when what we wanted to be real…what we believed was real…comes tumbling down like a cheap movie set.  We are left with ourselves.  MM is strong, she will be fine, she just can’t see that yet.  She rented a house…on a lake.  The soul knows what it needs…always.  She feels a spirit there.  It needs sea salt, Sage, Women and wine.  And probably a good dowsing.

 Dowsing has been around since people had the consciousness of the need for water in their souls.  You can see figures on caves in Africa, China, and Egypt with human figures holding rod like sticks, searching for water.  Dowsers, often called ‘Water Witches’ (think Carol & Lady Jane and yourself) tap into a subtle energies of the earth and themselves to locate things, amplify things, or alternate the energy of things through a series of questions and guidance.

Science has often reported this practice as ‘No better than chance’…Interestingly though our own government has employed this practice on more than one account to locate ground water, graves, missing soldiers, and tunnels…hmmmm.  Why report differently?  Is it yet another ploy to disconnect us from that natural realm?

There is a man in the Upstate New York area that MAKES HIS LIVING locating water for old farms being resurrected and new springs for livestock.  He is very successful and the go-to-guy if you need to know where things sit under the unseen.  I bet he and his clients would beg to differ on the ‘No better than chance’ label.  I’ve been invited to attend dowsing ‘seminars’ (think woods, Hazel sticks, and likeminded folk in awe of the forest) and I may take them up on that offer one day.  

So when I received a message from this cosmic yet saddened friend – my reaction was to put out a call to the Water Witches.  They are standing by should she need.  We are water and water heals.

 I leave you with this simple brilliance

Albert Einstein, however, was convinced of the authenticity of dowsing. He said, "I know very well that many scientists consider dowsing as they do astrology, as a type of ancient superstition. According to my conviction this is, however, unjustified. The dowsing rod is a simple instrument which shows the reaction of the human nervous system to certain factors which are unknown to us at this time."

Good Energy to you and your group of eclectic friends – keep that list growing and flowing

Crisynomics

Anyone that knows me knows I am CONSTANTLY at my journal...Hopes (please God another 10 lbs)...Dreams (Chickens, goats, and gardens OH MY!) Quotes (Winston Churchill 'when you are going through hell...keep going...)

Ive been in and out of journals since highschool - Get it out of the head.  Organize thoughts. Plan your life etc...It's been therapy, a friend that will listen and not talk back, a creative outlet, and all out bitch session @ 2AM, an ink clarification, a happiness, a hope, a smile. 

Rarely do I look back, often I just keep going lapping up the paper.  My mother used to say when she would come over 'There's something to write with and write on in every room in this house...even the bathrooms!"  My love affair with words can be directly attributed to the many wonderful teachers I've known - both in and out of the classroom.  There is always something to learn, something to strive for, something to laugh about.  I wrote the following when I was in a strange spot - a grown-up trying to figure things out that I had never learned.  I just opened my brain grabbed a pen and let it go...

Dear Journal - Today I am bummed out...feeling weary at how far I have to go to believe I am financially ok, so I've decided to write this 'list' of things I have learned and things I am grateful for to get me out of this mood.  Forgive me if it rambles...in the end this race is only with myself...

This last month has been an amazing journey for me.  I must always remind myself to stop looking at where I 'think' I should be and instead look at how far I have come over the last 4 years.  

Subconsciously my thought patterns are looking at this over and over and even when I am in a lucid sleep my thoughts play (when I do sleep that is).  I can only hope that this replaying is like the last paragraph of a really good chapter that you re-read a few times because it gives validity to all you’ve read before and perhaps missed.  The story.  My story.

I went from not having a damn quarter on food shopping days for those frigen hi-jacked force-you-to pay carts at Shoprite.  I had to grab the free carnie cart with the huge baby seat that I could’ve fit my grandfather in.  I’m short so those shopping days would consist of me usually hitting someone, or a display, and hopping randomly to see where I was headed.  Today I have quarters!  I have quarters for coffee, quarters for parking meters, quarters for school lunches.  I will never forget the day I plopped my real estate ‘throwback to my rich days’ Coach purse in that cumbersome baby seat…right in a small pile of baby diarrhea left by another happy customer.  If that wasn’t a metaphor for my situation I don’t know what was.  It’s simple but when you’ve been without and you open your change ($)drawer in your car and it is now filled with 'change' on every level it boosts confidence on the micro level.  Try it.

‘It is difficult to fully enjoy today when you are paying off yesterday’ – Ben Franklin on Debt in the Poor Richards Almanac (Keep it Simple)

I went from late night panic attacks because my Credit cards (Chase being the worst) were at 30% interest and the payments with a missed payment fee would show up $1800 FOR THE MONTH.  I couldn’t even begin to explain the white knuckle gastro nightmare when that little beauty showed up like clockwork.  After tearfully calling the company ‘please help me please help’ – to no avail, something strange happened…I decided the mortgage was more important and didn’t pay that Chase bill for 3 months.  When they would call (and boy did they) I would kindly tell them to choke on it and call me when they were ready to work with me.  Would I ever recommend that to anyone? NO WAY. But for me a psychotic calm showed up.  Finally after three months I suppose someone there looked over the blatant ridiculousness of this bill and realized a normal human would never be able to make a monthly payment of $7000 so they called…and I told them to choke and gag on their own effluence…  They called back.  We were both ready to talk.  I wanted to do the right thing.  They realized a little $ at a time was better than none at all.  So we went from $1800 a month to $7000 a month to a very tight but doable $501 a month.  I’ve made it every month since – sometimes by the skin of my ass.  Every month and now I’m looking at the light which is the end of the tunnel – This account is closed but this debt will be paid.  Never again Never Never Again.  Bankruptcy wasn’t for me at the time.  It was Put Up or Shut Up and somewhere deep down I knew it was time to learn that lesson – pay the piper.  It is 4 years later and I have lived and continued to live on a cash based diet – Yes it can be done – talk to me.

-I paid off other odds and ends  Macy’s (hi! my kids didn’t fit into those clothes 2 months later but boy that bill showed up for a long time)

-Other Master Card (Master because you are the slave!) Vacations went on these – the worst souvenir ever!)

-Medical Bills – These deserved to be paid and I sent a note with every single one.  EXCEPT the emergency vet visit.  They would only take full payment not the 2/3’s I had the night of the emergency – they went to the very bottom of the list Entitled “Choke on it – now you’ve pissed me off and you will wait til I get to it”

In a perfect world my hair is done and I’m writing checks with manicured nails from an account overflowing with money and a teacup Chihuahua rests in my overpriced leather bag…

In reality I think I washed my hair, I’m out of checks – I have no idea what a stamp even costs – I’m praying there’s an 800 # so I can do a direct payment over the phone (and gladly pay the $15 service fee for that)  Forget the manicure I’m hoping that’s not a wart on the sole of my foot and I have a ½ Chihuahua ½ Jack Russell that is rolling in the kitchen garbage like some frigen oversized Brooklyn RAT after which she will find someones underwear to rip into.

Today I have a poster board I keep hidden from the world and cross off and check balances on everything when I come up for air (once every 2 months).  I am happy to say there are more things crossed off than there are left to pay.  I look it over to stay aware then return to the salt mines and just keep shoveling.

I must’ve read every single financial book I could get my hands on…Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, The Automatic Millionaire, The Richest Man in Babylon, Til Debt Do us Part and the list goes on and on.  From each one I’ve learned something staggering to my brain.  Something I didn’t learn in school, missed out on in childhood because I had a vagina, didn’t think about because I married young to a control freak.  I can recite Frost verbatim Coleridge for Breakfast and help you decipher Elizabethan English…Money was never my thing.  It was the only language my ex spoke but I am happily divorced and know I can learn this – I’m learning it every day.

I’ve made a conscious decision to live with less

 and it turned out to be so much more. 

Now I begin saving for trips and activities months in advance and have a limit to what can be spent.  You can live without the almighty plastic.  Some months the timing just sucks.  And when I say ‘it would be so easy if I only had a credit card as an emergency’ I know it is precisely the opposite. 

 I’ve taught my children that they deserve everything in life but everything cannot always be afforded – and that has not a damn thing to do with self-worth.  Security in knowing you can pay your bills and sleep at night is the most secure feeling ever.  Security in knowing you are building savings every week no matter how small makes you feel in control and smart ;)  Security is knowing that you don’t have to be afraid of tomorrow because you walked this walk and deep down you know God gave you the brains to figure it out and make it all work.  Sometimes you don’t like the answers your find.  Sometimes you cry in the rain then fall in the mud – that’s called redemption in my book.  And sometimes you just fall right on your ass – don’t worry it’s padded.

I’ve learned my grandparents were right…pretty much about everything.  I’ve learned to listen when people that have been around longer than I have give me advice, especially when it comes to the government or finances. Eerily they are usually right in the end... I will be old one day too – and I’m gonna talk til my tongue falls out…And when I can't talk I will write...about anything....about everything....but mostly Hope.     

People need to know there is hope ALWAYS HOPE.

In a Nutshell: 

*I learned to snowball my debt - accelerating payoffs

*I've learned that when you've dug yourself into a hole of any sorts and you want to get out step one is stop digging.

*I've learned that if you need $100,000. you can't get there til you save $10 first

*I've learned to automate my savings every week and a nominal amount goes into automatic savings every Monday and dad was right it adds up.  This totally took an edge off...I now have a little cushion, funny thing is I don't ever want to touch it...not even for an emergency (Christmas used to be an emergency for me!)

*I've learned to say no to the kids a little bit more, realizing financial security is a roof over their heads and taking care of their needs...not xbox...not eating out

*I've learned to look for bargains, I'm no extreme couponer (I prefer a much more elaborate mental illness thank you)  but I do arrange my weekly meals around what's on sale.

*I've learned good shoes are worth the money - they usually last and in turn so does your back.

*I've learned I can cook a better dinner than anything I've ever been served in a restaurant and a cold beer really is better after you've mowed a lawn.

*A firepit is a cheap meditation class

*I've learned to be creative in planning activities with the boys - I rented a cabin for 3 days for $90 because I wouldn't do Disney on credit for $5000.  And the boys learned so much more.

*I've learned to go to Tractor Supply in spring when they get their shipment of baby chickens, ducks, and hens, You've never seen teenage boys so tender... it'll break your heart in a very good way

*I've learned a packed PB&J will sustain you when you can't order out at work

*I've learned to wash my own car every week and I silently thank the Toyota Gods for making a gas efficient reliable vehicle.  (I used to drive a Mercedes then a Jeep - I could've flown around in a frigen helicopter for what they cost in gas and repairs)

*I've learned that nothing beats a glass of wine and Zen music after scrubbing floors.

*I've learned to follow up the cleaning with a steamy Epsom bath and an Amazon purchased book for $2

*I've learned what vinegar cleans...everything

*I've learned that it's the time we spend, not the money, that family will remember

*I've learned that sometimes there is great freedom in parameters

*I've learned that If I can do this...Single mother...stressed but happy...tired but hopeful...willing to go at it

SO CAN YOU!

But above all:

I've learned to appreciate the little things in life

because I've been alive long enough to know

That the little things in life

Are really

The big things :)

Good Energy to you and a journal you may keep!

Stokes State Forest...Night One

Yesterday after work I stopped at my father’s house.  No one happened to be there and I had a folder of old writings that I wanted to go through.  I decided to stay a bit and made a little fire in the old Cast Iron ‘fire-pit’ my brother John and I had found abandoned in the woods when we were barely teenagers.

I found something I had written from my very first ‘camping’ trip with the boys a while after I became single again.  I was talking to my Woodland Spirit friend Michelle one day at work and she told me of a long standing love affair she had with Stokes State Forest.  There were cabins you could rent…I listened….that October I rented a cabin on the lake.  After all went to bed the first night I opened my notebook and this is what I had written…

…So my insomnia kicked in around 11pm.  I was hoping to sleep – Ha!  When do I ever sleep anymore?  I also made the mistake of trying pepperoni pizza in an unfamiliar place.  Oh the grease – I can hear my gallbladder crying!  You were supposed to ‘Keep it Simple Stupid’ on this trip!

Before the boys and I embarked, I bought some ‘things’ for this trip.  Being a single mom, I wanted the boys to have a safe but total guy experience – hence this foray into the economical world of Survival Man!  3 days+2nights=$90 in October for an Autumnal Adventure they will remember!

Taking a cue from Michelle, I hoped to invest in a bit of gear each year.  We took stock and had a kind of crappy sleeping bag so we headed to the store and got 2 decent 20degree sleeping bags for the boys, A Hatchet, Rain Ponchos & some organic nibbles. 

So there we are in the store and my oldest looks at me...  ‘What’s the tote for mom?”  (Not the Gray $4 tote you buy for bulky sweaters.  I was holding the next size up, the $8 one.)  It was maybe 3.5ft by 1.5?  I looked at the floor and avoided his question.  “What’s it for mom?” O the unrelenting tenacity of children! “It’s for the gear’ I replied.  “yea yea ma we don’t have THAT much gear!’

“Well the cabin doesn’t have a tub.”…They are so accepting of my insanity.

We pulled up to the cabin with the crunch of drive stone.  It sat quiet. It was, in my estimation, the best spot with a huge Autumn Lake in all its glory stretched out behind it.  The trees and brush that surrounded it seemed to hug it.  I hoped it would be hugging us as well.  I pushed away thoughts of 70’s slasher horror flicks and hoped for the best.

They used the Hatchet immediately (I prayed for a trip without stitches) for kindling and soon we had a fire among a circle of stone.  They loved the Marshmallows.  I thought they were pretty much YUCK.  I never did like them.  

So @ 1AM when insomnia again came to call, I positioned the blue tote-tub in the open corner of a small powder room which sat at the end of the structure.  I filled the tub with tap water boiled in pasta pots on the small stove.  I imagined the water was springing up through the ground right from the huge lake that lay outside the window of the cabin.  I got into a routine with the water; fill, heat, empty.  

When the tote was ½ filled I took a pot of cold water and poured it in to temper the boil.  I cut and squeezed a lemon over the steaming water and sprinkled in sea salt.  I had a lantern with two settings…I used low.  I found a few wayward votive candles and lit them.  I stacked fluffy towels…and proceeded to have one of the best baths ever!  It was citrusy and steamy and the tote had some give so it relaxed with me.  I’m not even 5’ tall, so I was able to recline comfortably and rest my head on a folded towel.  I had a bottle of cold water to drink with a slice of cucumber.

I was in some sort of Rustic Nirvana that Thoreau, in his wildest imagination, could’ve only dreamed of!  The boys were snoring in a rhythmic cadence and I sat in that ‘tub’ for well over an hour.  I let thoughts dance in and out of my mind…I would watch them…and let them go.  With the small bathroom door opened I had a 15’ straight path to the gray lake stone fireplace and the blazing orangey ember fire in the little stove.  Never had I worked so hard for a bath.  Never had I enjoyed one quite the same since.  I learned something very important – luxury is something that you carry inside you and with you and can be had for $8 and a bit of imagination!

 No Jacuzzi in any resort I had ever traveled in my former wealthy life could’ve compared with that lemony sea salted soak…staring at a fire I made.

It’s almost 3 now and many call this the witching hour.  Time ticks on.  And it does prove true that it is darkest before the dawn.  I feel a strange contented loneliness. I remember feeling like this a few times before, somewhat nocturnally vigilant…almost having to stay up waiting for the first light’s safety in order to rest…I step out of the bath and towel off.  I’m so warm there isn’t even a chill to me.  I put one more good sized log on the fire and that should carry us til we all wake up – ready for breakfast.  Pretty good for a first night…

Good Energy to you and an earned bath!

Im sorry, tell me how broke I am again...I keep forgetting :)

Heading into work very early today - but I pretty good tale I must tell you when I get home tonight...

Stay tuned...

Good energy to you today!

Barter. Trade. Swap.

Barter. Trade. Swap.

These are words that I knew from vocabulary as a child.  I knew the definition, but never understood or witnessed the concept in action until almost a year ago.

This lingo began to become common place as I wandered into the world of farm, livestock, and community living.  Each word in this realm loosely means ‘Goods or services of equal value – for other goods or services.’    A lamb (feed your family) in exchange for your help erecting a structure for livestock.  A cache of wood for heating your home (so you will not freeze this winter) if you help me chop wood for a day.  I will mend your torn clothes for 2 apple pies.  I will give you laying hens (which will feed you) for readying my field for spring. 

Barter. Trade. Swap. – These words ran rampant in the formation of our country.  In the wilderness.  Where money was nice but you sure couldn’t eat it. Through financial depressions where people would give labor in exchange for a meal. And, although nice, with the value we give them in our minds;  would silver coins heat your home in the winter – with nowhere to buy fuel? Somewhere along the way we began to value the dollar so greatly that skill sets suffered.  If everything went wrong tomorrow – what skill set do you have to fall back on?

These are strange times we are moving through.  If you don’t have a skill set, or a barter stock, I suggest you think of one.  I am.  I pay highly for a cerebral education for my 2 sons, but I have sat them down and made them consider that in addition to the book smarts they will be wise to have a tangible knowledge or skill set – It’s like $ or goods in the bank.  Fix diesel engines, welder, plumber, forest keep and knowledge, the ability for food, a medical skill set and the list goes on and on.

We as humans need to know the work of our hands coupled with our minds.  Believe me it takes the edge off of the anxiety of where we find ourselves in evolution today.  Think: what are you good at? What can you learn or already know?  Can you take a garden or an animal and turn it into a filling meal?  Do you know what raw materials you would need to make shelter?  If someone was sick and there wasn't doctor to call…do you know what to do?

Our current economic system appears less than desirable for sure.  Perhaps it is time for an ‘underground movement’ to occur.  Perhaps we the people could work on our own system on the side?  We’ve trusted this current one for so long.  Maybe it’s time for a backup?  Go out of your comfort zone.  Start with not buying gifts – start with giving the gift of a home cooked meal, a scarf you knitted, food you canned, firewood you split.  Then throw it out there….I need help fixing a roof – help me and I’ll help you with that retaining wall.  I need you to watch the kids…and I’ll watch yours; Barter. Trade. Swap.

It’s my version of homesteading with a bit of prepper thrown in.  Barter. Trade. Swap.  Hey you never know – Think about it!  Write down what you could do, what you could offer, what you may have of value...both around you and within you…

Good energy to you and the skills you may have overlooked!

The Ripple Effect

The Ripple Effect is known as one action that can create many.  A small intentional gesture of kindness.  A compliment can improve someones day.  A good deed.   I watched a documentary on the scientific effects of stress on the body - it does so much more than we ever thought.  We need to combat this. One moment at a time...

Don't think you have time?  Try this:

3 Deep Belly Breaths will reduce blood pressure immediately creating a calm effect on the entire system.

A kind word to 3 people, you will all reap the benefits - Both of being kind and Giving kindness

3 Positive thoughts sent out into the Universe:

  1) Please help so n so's family - they are going through so much - Think hard, intend love, then let it go

  2) Please let my child, spouse, parent, friend have a wonderful day - Think hard, intend peace, then let it go

  3) Please help our country and it's leaders for the good of all - Think hard, intend peace, then let it go

Eat or drink 3 Intentional good things for your body - Love your body and all it can do even with it's limits

Do 3 long back stretches

Write 3 things you are grateful for

Pick 3 people that seem stressed - strangers in a store and such - send them a quick prayer - some of the best deeds we do no one knows about.

Though these ideas and intentions may seem small - I think you will find, in the end, they build and become truly great.

Namaste

Good Energy toward a Ripple Monday!

Storms on Mountain Road

Yesterday afternoon was a storm of all storms!  I don’t know what possessed me but 5 minutes before it all came down I grabbed my camera and headed for my Mountain Road.  It is my favorite of local raw places.  It’s stormy and sweet, secretive yet giving, and always, always, evolving…It’s a strange kinship I feel with this stretch of town…

Around the bend where the snow melt dives into the earth and reappears on the other side of the road, there is the horse farm.  It was getting that dark cleansing gray out and the sky was swollen.  I remember a very hard time in my life when a storm came upon me out of nowhere.  I stood there and let it wash over me, chill me, cleanse me.  I cried and cried in that rain and no one was there but me and the sky.  No one could see the tears but they fell into the earth with the raindrops…replanted to become something strong and beautiful…reclaimed by the dirt…disappearing...shed sadness.  I gave it to the ground.

I came upon the horse farm and it was as dark as dinnertime in late October.  The sky swirled and leaves dislodged from weak ties to swirl with it.  There was so much energy and movement.  Then I spotted the horses.

Usually they are scattered about…dotted in the meadow.  As the wind kicked from the northwest side of town they formed a group, a close group.  They stood together almost in a formation of sorts.  They turned their rumps to the wind and stretched their necks to the hills.  And they were still.  Very still.  I believe I spotted a bracing for the storm and a weathering of it as well.  I’m no horse woman by any means – but I recognize majesty and fiber of being when I see it.

The drench was wild and fast with a reckless beauty all its own.  And I thought how like them we humans should be.  How much from them can we learn?  They didn’t speak.  They didn’t gesture.  They didn’t think.  They simply were, and had done what their kind has done for their known time.  Perhaps instead of engaging in an argument saying things that take on a life of their own, we can brace ourselves, depend on our herd; our friends, our families. We can weather the storms life whips up with sometimes such short notice.  Perhaps sometimes it is better to get out of our own heads, not overthink things and just let them be…just wait it out…with our backs to the cutting winds and our necks stretched to the sun that will surely rise, as it always does, over the hills.  As if the Storms never were.

Good Energy to you and your herd

Wooly Wooly and away I go!!!

JERSEY WOOLY

A few blogs ago I mentioned Pete & Mary, the old Dutch couple that lived up the road from me when I was a child.  Pete Used to keep rabbits in his backyard (!)  I never knew they were there until he showed me one fall day.  Looking back I smile because this man must’ve trusted me.  We lived in a lake community where there were definite ‘rules and bylaws baby’ about what you could and could not have.  (Ah! to finally get to my own dirt where I can have what I want: bees, laundry lines, chickens, rabbits, goats, naked bonfires – joking ….well you know what I'm saying!)

So here was Pete with these modest cages in the back of his property.  Quiet wabbits!  You never would have known they were there.  He showed me that one had babies.  They were the cutest thing I ever did see.  I think I said something along the lines of – ‘why do you have pets that you can’t play with?’  That was the end of the tour. 

 A few years later I learned he kept those rabbits for meat.  It didn’t bother me so much, but I remember asking my mother when we went food shopping if we could get rabbit meat to try like Pete did.  My mother was dyed in the wool City Brooklyn – A glorious Tomato garden was one thing…Rabbit meat was something else entirely.  I tabled that question for the duration of my childhood.

ANGORA RAH RAH RAH!!!

Fast forward to a 17 year old with a gorgeous ski-looking sweater.  Angora.  Rabbit.  Hmmmm.  Fast forward once more to a grown woman looking at the wool blanket her grandmother made.  Crochet.  Wool.  Hmmmmm.  A visit to a farm –these gentle quiet creatures in pasture on the lawn.  Fiber rabbits – You don’t say?  2+2 equaled 22.  I want fiber rabbits!  Yes! Yes! Yes!

O YES

Joe (My significant other) talks about being a boy and being around rabbits and rabbit stew and breeding and culling.  We talk incessantly about getting our own dirt one day and He said he would love the taste of rabbit stew again – WHOA – FIBER RABBITS.  It began a heated discussion on the Fiber/Food debate – so we agreed to disagree and it seems we will keep both…

Angora’s seem huge and very very fluffed out (I remember high school pal Jennifer carrying a bottle of visine in her purse so she could wear her Angora Sweater to school and not have her eyes bleed out of her head).  We are in a townhouse!  So I stumbled upon a breed called a Jersey Wooly – (AW!)  they are smaller, not as fly-away-fuzzy. They still give wool but a bit less and seemingly more condensed AND they seem like they would not kill our dog (Bella-the Crazy Chihauhau/Jack).

A trip to Farmside Supply the other day showed me I am ready to take the plunge in a big way – They had rabbits and one in particular looked Jersey Wooly-ish.  I asked the young man working if it was indeed a Jersey Wooly and he said flatly ‘No’ (left out the duh lady –thank you.) and told me these rabbits were pets or feed.  Ah-hem I see.  I did get to hold one and it didn’t rip my face off – It was so soft and timid…maybe he had heard the ‘feed’ comment?

So I am currently emailing for leads for my Woolys!  Wish me luck! Chickens and Rabbits and Wool...OH MY!!!

Good Energy to you and your Fibers!

Small Victories!

The other day I enjoyed a victory!  A breakthrough! A milestone!  So great was this that I was alone in my kitchen gut-yelling and giggling like a warrior!  I texted my family, my friends, my significant other – “I am different, I shall never be the same!”

Time researching, reading, youtube watching, longing, wondering, collecting the necessary items…it all came together on that fateful day…

I canned pickles!!!!!

I heeded the warnings...the proper ripeness...Do Not Use enamel...Exact Measurements

It all swirled in my mind and like Shakespeare, I let it bathe my brain intending fluency in its language.

I headed out incognito with a baseball cap on.  I hit Tractor Supply.  The employees are getting used to seeing me (That was my plan!) They nod and say hi! with familiarity (A farm stalkers dream!)  I stumbled upon and 3/4 empty shelf of canning gear.  Ok, obviously I was a 'johnny come lately' but it was my time and nothing was going to deter me!  I scored a canning funnel (!) Some Pickling Salt (because I am an official pickler now) and the new issue of Countryside Stock & Journal.  I paid for my purchases as if I had done this my whole life - learned at the knee of my pappy.  (Actually my Scottish Grandfather was rumored to have a homemade moonshine distiller in a bath tub in Brooklyn - Hey!  Maybe that homesteading bug was handed down??)

I had a beginner canning kit at home, but something told me to buy more Ball Jars and I still needed a non-enamel stock pot high enough for the inch of boiling water that had to go over the tops of the jars and would be my sea to self sufficiency!  I stopped at Farmside next.  No Dice.  Slim pickings.  I asked and got a terse look as to my obvious seasonal delay in obtaining the very necessary canning accoutrements.  Ok.  Thats fine.  I'll be back my friend,  in time next year and with a different hat on- you will never know it was I that made that faux pas...

I hate to admit it but I hit a big box store and scored  both Pint and half Pint  Ball Canning Jars.  I made my way to the pots and pans and braced myself.  My budget would not allow for a major blow ($25 was my limit), I found a smaller stock-type stainless steel pot for $8.94.  HOT DAMN I WAS IN BUSINESS!  

I lined it all up on my counter at home and it all went down like this:

Cleaning and chopping...and chopping...and chopping

Happy Christmas List - A mandolin slicer...one day

Making sure the slices were 'pickle pleasant size'  Off to my right a pasta pot was 

simmering with spices, vinegar, and sugar...

The laptop served me well - I downloaded an Audio On the Hopi Indians 

and Energy Meridians in the desert - Bliss was mine!

Time to 'pack' the jars.  I chose 1/2 pints because if they came out well I would like

to gift them to people.  I only prayed that I wouldn't be gifting botulism...

There are my babies...My milestone..My intention toward self sufficiency!

As I removed them from the water bath canner they began to 'ping' almost immediately!

This is the sign of a good seal on the jar - I giggled!  I danced!  I belly roared like Braveheart.

And then I realized, humbly, I had become a link in a chain...  

I became one more person that would honor the old ways.  

And it may sound silly but I was, in that moment, changed..for the better :)

Two Roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by

and that

Has made all the difference

Good Energy to you and the road you are on!