April 19, 2011
It has only been a week but seems like a month since I found out that I was accepted for the scholarship to Earth Activist Training in Canada. I guess since I have waited so long to do this it seems as it has been a long wait and I really feel I have practiced a lot of patience. Since 2008 I have been holding this want and need to take this workshop. Last summer I came into some unexpected money and decided that it was time. I registered for the class and had the money to pay for it in full. I was on my way to the post office to mail my check when I walked into the Cottage and stepped into three inches of water throughout my 80 year old family home I now use as a Spiritual Sanctuary. That set off a whole series of events that changed my life quickly and ended my hopes of going last summer. But between insurance and a good friend Brad Davis, a wonderful carpenter, we completely gutted the Cottage and I ended up with a beautiful new reading room because of it. It was truly a blessing. I was tuned into what the Goddess wanted for me and took it with pure Gratitude. But this is right and I feel the importance of what I am doing. Taking EAT is not just for me but for the many people I will help on this journey. So yesterday I withdrew most all of my emergency money and bought my plane tickets and now have a little more to do to plan this trip. I am also going to spend a week with my old friend Bonnie or as we call her RedMoon Lotus in Nova Scotia. She was also a founding Elder of Magnolia Circle and I haven’t seen her in a few years since she moved her family north. This will also be a working adventure for me, she is setting up readings for me when I am there to visit. And last night as MC was going over our schedule for the next few months I realized, I will be spending summer solstice with RedMoon Lotus on the coast of Nova Scotia. Back in the early days of Magnolia Circle she would host our Summer Solstice rituals at her house in Tallahavana and they were some of the most memorial rituals we did back then. I feel that this trip is so very important beyond what I can even imagine. I will just let the Goddess guide me in my work and see where she leads me for this is her work I do.
So, having said that there are a few things I am worried about, one is money. I am doing a fund raiser at the Crystal Connection raffling off a reading to raise money and looking for other ways to pay for this trip and the almost month I will be gone. I am also concerned about being gone for a month, leaving Noah on the farm in the middle of summer between endless mowing and the garden coming in full force. I am going to ask friends to come in and harvest vegetables and work in the garden. Between June and July I am usually the busiest, wagonloads of fruits and vegetables to be canned, cooked and put up in the freezers. It is a lot of hard work and too much for one person, even me at times. That is providing I have a good crop and I have put in a lot of work in hopes of that.
I have lots of projects going on and today is going to be a busy day on the farm. The weather is warming up but the nights are still cool so the young plants are still just sitting there waiting. Today I am making compost tea and start some biobrew. My friend Rose gave me the recipe last night and I need to get started. I am also going to harvest some worm castings and get it on the young plants to give them a boost. For those of you that haven’t dealt with worms, once you get them established the are wonderful. My bin is now more than a year old and it took work. This was my third attempt but one that has been successful. My first attempt I bought red wigglers from the bait shop and set them up in a kiddy pool, guess what?? Even though I had it covered, they drown. My second attempt I put them in a tub with red wigglers and one day opened it to find nothing but a huge fire ant bed and maggots. Then I took another workshop and asked more questions and took tons of notes and really paid attention. How hard can it be to raise worms? Last January I sat in the compost pile for days and I mean days. I decided I was going to make it work as I sifted through mounds of horse manure to collect thousands of banded red worms, the best kind of compost worms you can get and I didn’t have to buy them. Then I set up a plastic bin with holes around the side and the bottom lined in rocks and dog feed bags to separate the liquid. I sometimes forget to feed them but they seem pretty plentiful over the winter months just skinny and then a few weeks ago I dug around in there and was just excited to see fat healthy worms and they were awesome. So I can successfully raise worms! In the past I have used some of the castings but been very careful not to over do what I was trying to build, now that I got them established and they seem to be happy and multiplying.
How do you harvest them? You know those wigglers love the shade, so you spread out a tarp in the sun. pour our your compost and cover one half of it and go work in the garden, in a few hours they make their way under the shade and you have your compost. Put them back in the bin and add more compost and there you go, worm castings. Mine is not all pretty like what you buy in the store but it is rich. Last year I totally got messy with potatoes sprouting and pumpkin seeds, I just have to be careful what I put in there.
So off to the garden for some fun this morning.
It has only been a week but seems like a month since I found out that I was accepted for the scholarship to Earth Activist Training in Canada. I guess since I have waited so long to do this it seems as it has been a long wait and I really feel I have practiced a lot of patience. Since 2008 I have been holding this want and need to take this workshop. Last summer I came into some unexpected money and decided that it was time. I registered for the class and had the money to pay for it in full. I was on my way to the post office to mail my check when I walked into the Cottage and stepped into three inches of water throughout my 80 year old family home I now use as a Spiritual Sanctuary. That set off a whole series of events that changed my life quickly and ended my hopes of going last summer. But between insurance and a good friend Brad Davis, a wonderful carpenter, we completely gutted the Cottage and I ended up with a beautiful new reading room because of it. It was truly a blessing. I was tuned into what the Goddess wanted for me and took it with pure Gratitude. But this is right and I feel the importance of what I am doing. Taking EAT is not just for me but for the many people I will help on this journey. So yesterday I withdrew most all of my emergency money and bought my plane tickets and now have a little more to do to plan this trip. I am also going to spend a week with my old friend Bonnie or as we call her RedMoon Lotus in Nova Scotia. She was also a founding Elder of Magnolia Circle and I haven’t seen her in a few years since she moved her family north. This will also be a working adventure for me, she is setting up readings for me when I am there to visit. And last night as MC was going over our schedule for the next few months I realized, I will be spending summer solstice with RedMoon Lotus on the coast of Nova Scotia. Back in the early days of Magnolia Circle she would host our Summer Solstice rituals at her house in Tallahavana and they were some of the most memorial rituals we did back then. I feel that this trip is so very important beyond what I can even imagine. I will just let the Goddess guide me in my work and see where she leads me for this is her work I do.
So, having said that there are a few things I am worried about, one is money. I am doing a fund raiser at the Crystal Connection raffling off a reading to raise money and looking for other ways to pay for this trip and the almost month I will be gone. I am also concerned about being gone for a month, leaving Noah on the farm in the middle of summer between endless mowing and the garden coming in full force. I am going to ask friends to come in and harvest vegetables and work in the garden. Between June and July I am usually the busiest, wagonloads of fruits and vegetables to be canned, cooked and put up in the freezers. It is a lot of hard work and too much for one person, even me at times. That is providing I have a good crop and I have put in a lot of work in hopes of that.
I have lots of projects going on and today is going to be a busy day on the farm. The weather is warming up but the nights are still cool so the young plants are still just sitting there waiting. Today I am making compost tea and start some biobrew. My friend Rose gave me the recipe last night and I need to get started. I am also going to harvest some worm castings and get it on the young plants to give them a boost. For those of you that haven’t dealt with worms, once you get them established the are wonderful. My bin is now more than a year old and it took work. This was my third attempt but one that has been successful. My first attempt I bought red wigglers from the bait shop and set them up in a kiddy pool, guess what?? Even though I had it covered, they drown. My second attempt I put them in a tub with red wigglers and one day opened it to find nothing but a huge fire ant bed and maggots. Then I took another workshop and asked more questions and took tons of notes and really paid attention. How hard can it be to raise worms? Last January I sat in the compost pile for days and I mean days. I decided I was going to make it work as I sifted through mounds of horse manure to collect thousands of banded red worms, the best kind of compost worms you can get and I didn’t have to buy them. Then I set up a plastic bin with holes around the side and the bottom lined in rocks and dog feed bags to separate the liquid. I sometimes forget to feed them but they seem pretty plentiful over the winter months just skinny and then a few weeks ago I dug around in there and was just excited to see fat healthy worms and they were awesome. So I can successfully raise worms! In the past I have used some of the castings but been very careful not to over do what I was trying to build, now that I got them established and they seem to be happy and multiplying.
How do you harvest them? You know those wigglers love the shade, so you spread out a tarp in the sun. pour our your compost and cover one half of it and go work in the garden, in a few hours they make their way under the shade and you have your compost. Put them back in the bin and add more compost and there you go, worm castings. Mine is not all pretty like what you buy in the store but it is rich. Last year I totally got messy with potatoes sprouting and pumpkin seeds, I just have to be careful what I put in there.
So off to the garden for some fun this morning.
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