A week ago Sunday, my Sister, Daughter, and I went to the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies, having enrolled in Bootcamp For Goddessess. We arrived with hiking boots, weights and other gear and were pretty wet from unloading bags in the rain, even before we checked in. While we were looking forward to the week long workshop, we weren’t looking forward to the predicted rain all week. Our dorm rooms were small, 6 x 8 I think, very clean, all we needed. All the food in the dining hall was vegetarian or vegan.. tasty. For those who wanted some meat in their meals, they could visit the cafe where food and sweets were available.

As the name of the workshop implies, the bootcamp was for women only. There were 63 women enrolled and while most started out the week as strangers, that quickly changed. By the end of the week we were all Sisters. In the group were lawyers, doctors, social workers and those from many other professions, a variety of lifestyles, races, histories. In the end none of it mattered at all, shed of our labels, our true personalities and spirits were able to shine.

We learned how to embrace each other, support each other, how to be strong & caring, love & take care ourselves. We started each day with a morning hike, learned how to breathe, did Yoga, danced in the rain, worked very hard, cried, laughed, sang, learned a lot.

The hardest part for me was the Sweat Lodge Ceremony on Wednesday night. At times it felt like I was breathing fire, but I stayed in for the entire time without leaving between the 4 different parts of the ceremony as many did to get some fresh air or drink some water. In truth, it wasn’t that I was tougher than others, it was that I feared that if I went out into the cool air, I might not go back in! It was an awesome thing, 70 women or so in a dark sweat lodge that appeared to measure little more than 12 feet across.

Because the ceremony was done in Native American fashion, before we entered the sweat lodge we were asked to meditate and call on an animal to guide us. I envisioned a bright green Dragonfly. It didn’t surprise me at all, for me the dragonfly represents my mother. But, I was very surprised when I then went over to a table where cards were spread and with my eyes closed chose the card with the dragonfly on it. When I sat down an emerald green dragonfly landed on my knee and I smiled, felt like saying… alright already mom!… I’m paying attention!

During the previous days I’d learned that I don’t pray enough, don’t give thanks enough and one of the things we were meant to do in the sweat lodge was to pray. Pray I did, in the dark, sweating like crazy.

Along with the Boot Camp workshop I attended a watercolor sample workshop, one I want to try next year. I also got a massage. Each morning on the way to the Yoga building we’d pass the movement studio where you could hear music and some kind of dancing going on. Every evening we went to bed to the sound of drumming and music from the music hall in the distance and closer to our windows, the sounds of a cricket serenade.

I plan to go back to Omega for some of the watercolor workshops, R&R and who knows what else? And I plan to do Bootcamp 2 in the future.

I was so busy all week that I forgot to take photos till the late in the week. You can see more by following the links to Omega and to Sierra Benders website where you can see a bootcamp video..

I woke up with a start at 5am and then realized… something is under the bed. I got up to discover that our dog Krystal was hiding under there. July has been so far, a month of booming sounds, fireworks and lots of thunderstorms. These sounds that didn’t bother her much as a young dog, now at the age of 10 years, turn her into a nervous wreck. Apparently we, weekend warriors that we are, slept right through a bad storm. Krystal is not one to jump onto a bed, so she managed to crawl in between 4 containers full of winter clothing and then found herself trapped in the morning. What a gal.

I have been busy with garden work and natural dyeing using plants from my garden. It generally takes me at least an hour each day to pick the dyestuff from the garden as it is ready and put it to soak, at least another hour to rinse out fiber or yarn from the previous day’s dyepot and to set up a new batch of yarn of fiber, ready for dyeing. I’m mostly solar dyeing and using my crockpot so that I can do other things and not have to watch a pot..

However, I do have to watch little dogs… Krystal’s half sister, Tara is very different from her sister. Sweeter in many ways, but while Krystal does not care if anyone catches her doing something she shouldn’t, Tara is sneaky… See that innocent face in the one photos… another shows a sand/water box. Every chance she gets, she tries to snatch the tray of toys on top of that box. If she gets one, the toy becomes a dog chewy. She also loves yarn, fiber, plants… you name it..

Krystal (Fine Krystal) age 10 is shown in a photo when her coat was longer.
Tara (Diamond Solitaire) age 9 is shown in her puppy trim…..

I’m taking photos of dye projects as I do them.. will have some up in my next post….

More than 25 years ago we bought a house in the country. Having grown up as city kids with limited gardening knowledge, we were dismayed to find that with the house came several hundred raspberry bushes at the back of the property. We’d always eaten strawberries, but not raspberries and at first thought them too tart. We quickly came to love the taste of the red caps and black caps and happily shared them with family, friends and customers for almost 10 years.

When we relocated, a handful of the plants came with us. More than 15 years later we are still enjoying our berries and we look forward to having plenty of them for our own use starting just before the 4th of July and continuing for a month or longer, sometimes with a repeat crop early fall.

Right on time the berries started to ripen earlier this week… today I made a berry fields iced green tea and for lunch fresh lettuce from the garden, sprinkled with berries and cheese crumbles with a drizzle of raspberry vinaigrette. Yum!

Interestingly, after we moved to our current home we discovered that a neighbor’s very large mulberry tree drops mulberries into our yard. For years I’ve just swept up what the birds don’t eat, happy that the mulberries start to ripen at the same time as my berries and thus the birds leave ours alone.. Last year the birds pretty much picked that tree clean and I had little to sweep up… This year what a mess… Hmm… maybe I’ll have to find some way to use the berries, use them instead of tossing them…. so far haven’t found anything made from them that I like…

One of the photos shows the raspberries starting to ripen… Another shows my salad….another shows the mulberry tree to the right of my garden sthop/studio. Another shows the mulberry covered garden path to my potting storage area… not pretty at all. Too bad I can’t get them to fall in containers I put out… Hmmmmm….

Some new things at a park where I like to walk. I understand there are 5 of these dragons even though I saw only 2, all are actually large paddle boats.

Other attractions at the park.. lake/pond for fishing, very large and fast carousel, a boat named Jasper, skate board park, Banquet Hall used for weddings, etc., arcade, sports field, walking paths and more..

Along with a lot of other things, tracks and a train will be added in the future.

This is garage sale weekend for us. We started setting up at about 7:30 and before 9am the skies opened up and it started to pour… Good thing we have a large enough garage to be able to set up in. The rain stopped an hour later and we were able to pull things out again. I took a photo as we were setting up and that was only a little of what we had to sell. Our sale continues tomorrow!

While pulling out things for the sale, I found a toy guitar belonging to an older grandchild. A younger grandchild saw the guitar, grabbed it and declared himself a rock star while playing and nodding his head to the beat of the music… shown is a photo of our rock star..

May was a busy month for us, but somehow we managed to get most of our garden work done by the end of the month. Now we mainly have to keep things watered, weeded and occasionally divide plants and transplant or give away our extras.

Shown are some of the things thriving in the garden..

WordPress has introduced a new feature.. posting by email.. thought I’d try it out, including a photo. 
 
I’ve been moving some things into the garden shop including some things to hang on the walls.  I picked up the artwork at the Art Festival in Sayre, PA. I love all the colors in it.  I especially like the way it is made.  Would you believe some hand crocheted items were used to make some of the designs in the piece?
 
And the Star… my granddaughter says the design on part of it looks like knitted stitches.. so of course it will live in there with everything fiber and flora.

While sitting at the table in the new garden shop/shed/whatever,  I looked up to see what at first appeared to be a blizzard.  With unusually warm temps, in the 80’s, snow wasn’t possible.

Knowing  what it was, I went out to be closer to the cherry trees so I could experience the showers of blossoms with every gust of wind.  Some friends and family will sometimes comment that I see things as a child would see them.  When the cherry trees are in bloom, is one of those times when I feel like a child who is seeing this for the first time.  I am in awe of the beauty, will sit or stand under them to gaze up at the blossoms and love to experience the blossom showers. I noticed neighbors will also stop to enjoy the trees.  In fact some have told me that they look for to the trees blooming each spring and if they happen to be walking or driving by when they are raining blossoms, they will stop and experience the showers.

Photos taken yesterday…

The first is of the small Weeping Cherry tree.  It is still relatively young and so not yet very big nor dense, but it has the most beautiful pink blossoms.  I’ll be picking, pressing, and drying some of the blooms today.

Under the Yoshino Cherry trees. These are the types of trees you see in D.C.  The blossoms are a little paler than those of the weeping cherry, but just as pretty and the trees themselves are beautiful with that layered branch way of growing.   I’ll be cutting some small branches and taking them to a friend in the infirmary.  Last year she came over often to sit on the bench near the trees to enjoy them.  If she can’t come to enjoy the blossoms, I can take the blossoms to her and maybe make her day a little brighter.

And speaking of children…  last week granddaughter Jess was trying on hats from our collection of vintage hats, to see which one she wanted to wear to Hat Day at school.  Grandson Connor had been dropped off very early as his daddy was having hip replacement surgery.   Connor was upset at not being able to find a boy hat to wear, something other than everyday hats.  I remembered I’d pulled out a chullo hat from a trip to Bolivia so that I could copy some of the stitch designs and use them in a chullo hat I’ll be starting soon.  Connor tried it, and it was perfect!

Looking at that smile you can easilly see why it is that children can smile that way. There is a lot of passion in everything they do… they way they experience a shower of blossoms, they way they smile. We can learn a lot from children. 

I mentioned Connor’s daddy having surgery.   Our son-in-law could use prayers and healing thoughts as he recovers from this surgery and faces the next one.  Hip replacements at his age are not common, but we are hoping that once healed he will be able to do all the things he has not been able to do for quite some time, important things like teaching a son about camping and the great outdoors. 

I also mentioned the garden house…  if you’d like to see photos of it so far visit my studio blog, link in the sidebar.

A friend invited me to a concert, we went yesterday. I knew it would be held in a historical church The Park Church, and I thought it would be like many other church concerts I’ve attended, watching and listening to music being performed.

 I was right about the listening part, but not the watching part. After a very brief introduction by the pastor, we listened to MUSIC for ORGAN/VIOLIN for OUR JOURNEY through LENT (Music for Meditation and Reflection). What a unique experience! Not being able to see the musicians on the balcony behind us allowed us to just close our eyes and listen to the wonderful music, meditate.

Music played:

 - The Eight Station (from “Stations of the Cross) for Organ – Macel Dupre – (Jesus Comforts the Daughters of Jerusalem

- Kol Nidrei (Hebrew Chant for Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement – Max Bruch

- Hymn Prelude on Stabat Mater” – arr. By Alan Viner – Largo (from Xerxes – G.F.Handel – Gammal Fabodpsalm Fran Dalarna (Swedish)

- Oskar Lindberg – An Old tune from Dalecarlia

 Afterwards there was a luncheon where we met some of the church members and visitors and learned a little about the church itself. I’m sure I’ll be back in the future.

Been a while since I’ve updated my blog, but as my friend Sue says … I can be doing or I can be writing about doing. I’ve been doing, little time for writing about it. 

The first day of spring we had a dusting of snow, this came after a week of nice spring like weather and it still hasn’t warmed up much. Yesterday my daughter and I took her grey girls for a long walk around the park, exercise for us, obedience training for them.  We were warm as long as we were moving and we were moving.  Weimaraners love to move fast and have lots of energy so doing a few miles with them doesn’t wear them out. They did very well, for the most part ignoring the ducks, geese and seagulls in the park lake, sometimes needing just a little reminder.  Hopefully our next walk/training session will be on a mild sunny day.  

Today I went to the monastery for Sunday service. It was cool and cloudy and its gone downhill from there, with a few scattered snow flurries. A warm up is predicted for the rest of the week. 

Along with regular spring chores such as cleaning out flower beds, putting out new mulch where needed, trimming trees and shrubs,  I like to check all the bird houses, make sure they are clean and in place for new tenents.  I put this one up and within minutes a pair of birds were checking it out and claiming it.   While I have quite a few bird houses, this is a favorite one, partly because it was a gift from a friend and partly because it has a little front stoop.  The bird house resembles a country store and one bird will go inside while the other sits on the stoop.. very cute.