Day Off

   
Tuesday is supposed to be an Etsy work day but I decided the "staff" needed a day off!  I packed a picnic lunch for me, myself, & I, headed to Belfast for a day out!  I went to Art Galleries and looked at the art very quietly...no Art Walk crowds!  I also, had three great conversations with other humans.  I did not take my camera with me but I have these photos from nearly a month ago when DH & I took a day off... meant to blog about them then but....

We went to the beach!
Then we walked around downtown Rockland, Maine.
Here are some of the sights.

We went to our favorite Rockland gallery, Harbor Square Gallery, that has an awesome rooftop sculpture garden.

Too soon the Day-off ends and the work that needs doing is here to greet me.  Though these respites from work are far and few for me each one is very rejuvenating.  It may be their rarity take increases their impact.  July ends and August begins...really do think I am ready for another beach day...but the beans need picking, zucchinis are invading, photos need editing, puppets want creating ~~~~

A Day Off

Let us put awhile away
All the cares of work-a-day,
For a golden time forget,
Task and worry, toil and fret,
Let us take a day to dream
In the meadow by the stream.

We may lie in grasses cool
Fringing a pellucid pool,
We may learn the gay brook-runes
Sung on amber afternoons,
And the keen wind-rhyme that fills
Mossy hollows of the hills.

Where the wild-wood whisper stirs
We may talk with lisping firs,
We may gather honeyed blooms
In the dappled forest glooms,
We may eat of berries red
O'er the emerald upland spread.

We may linger as we will
In the sunset valleys still,
Till the gypsy shadows creep
From the starlit land of sleep,
And the mist of evening gray
Girdles round our pilgrim way.

We may bring to work again
Courage from the tasselled glen,
Bring a strength unfailing won
From the paths of cloud and sun,
And the wholesome zest that springs
From all happy, growing things. 

Lucy Maud Montgomery

~~~Gratitude~~~ My Body

I have mentioned before in this blog that I am not very much into machines.  I would rather push and pull as much as I can by hand. I am grateful my DH is very mechanical and enjoys doing tractor work for me.  I even push this small tractor cart around by hand then fill it up and push it if I can or wait until the next available tractor drive by.

There is one machine that I do love to use, it is this weed whacker...

This is the tool I use to make and maintain my trails.  It has a brush blade attachment that will go through anything an inch or less.  I use it for what I call "better gardening with weed whacking".  I keep the edges of the gardens trimmed and whiz through cover crops.  I am the maestro with the weed whacker and do the delicate cutting around baby trees.  I have the more hours on this thing than DH.  The guys at the Stihl shop keep asking my DH to have me come in sometime.  They want to meet the woman who puts so many hours on this thing.  

This brings me to today's gratitude~~~ My Body.  I am a woman in her mid 50's, I am just shy of 5'8"...guess that is tall but, I am the shortest in my family.  Like so many American Woman (& other countries where we have more to worry about than survival) I think I carry more pounds than I should.  I will admit I should loses some weight for better health but, I will also admit to some vanity as well.  But, when I snapped this selfie of me in my weed whacking helmet I realized that I really liked the way I look! In this photo!! Yes, sweaty & dirty...but happy!  I am grateful for my body that allows me to run this machine and do 4 tanks of fuel without a rest.  I am able to carry a 50 pound bag of duck food without mechanical help.  I grow these big gardens pretty much on my own.  Okay, I am sore some days...like yesterday when I found early blight in my summer potatoes and had to pull them after a day crunched over weeding.  With a rest and a stretchy swim I am fit and ready to go again today.  My body is just right for me and my life.  So to my big, beautiful, healthy, body that carries my soul through this wonder FULL life---I thank-you!

LOVE this SONG ~ especially for the highlighted lyrics!

Folding Chair

Regina Spektor

Come and open up your folding chair next to me
My feet are buried in the sand and there's a breeze
There's a shadow you can't see my eyes
And the sea is just a wetter version of the skies

Let's get a silver bullet trailer
And have a baby boy
I'll safety pin his clothes all cool
And you'll graffiti all his toys
I got a perfect body
But sometimes I forget
I got a perfect body
Cause my eyelashes catch my sweat
Oh
Oh

Now I've been sitting on this abandoned beach for years
Waiting for the salty water to cover up my ears
But every time the tide comes in to take me home
I get scared and I'm just sitting here alone
Dreaming of the dolphin song

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
Oh Oh
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Maybe one day you will understand
That I want nothing from you
But to sweetly hold your hand
Til that day just please don't be so down
Don't make frowns
You silly clown

Just, come and open up your folding chair next to me
My feet are buried in the sand and there's a breeze
There's a shadow you can't see my eyes
And the sea is just a wetter version of the skies

There's a shadow you can't see my eyes
There's a shadow you can't see my eyes
Ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-eyes
Ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-ey-eyes

Weed Whacking Fashion~ Helmet with ear and face protection

 Steel Toe Boots ~ Yes, son, your mother wears army boots!

Before & After Weed Whacking

One Trail Entrance

~~~

It is my intention, each week, to share something that fills me with Gratitude. 

I write ~~~Gratitude~~~ with the wavy lines to represent the gratitude ENERGY~~~~~! 

I hope you will join me and share your gratitude moments. 

~~~Amen, Blessed Be, Namaste'~~~

---Shop News--- Summer Distractions

I have been trying to spend 2 long days a week only working on Etsy, this has been a real challenge.  There are so many distractions!  I am making headway but not at the pace that I desire.  Here is my Thursday this week...supposed to be Etsy all the way but....

I did get this Vintage Spice Rack photographed and listed...

I sewed some eyes and whiskers on these Seal...something new coming to EcoCutie 
& a start cutting flower puppets

 


Then Runa had to out so I walked up to the garden and found an armload of summer squash ready.  One cannot wait when it comes to zucchinis, and the like, or you end up with monsters.  So I got busy blanching.  This is why I have a garden, to put food by.

I had planned to photograph and list these Buntings and all these Tendrils but I lost the light as well as my steam.  At least you can see I have been busy creating!

So I went outside in the little covered patio we call The Bear's Cave.  I thought I would try to do a little Etsy Teams work on my Ipad while enjoying the cooler evening air...until...

...I noticed this reflection in the table top.  I was so pretty. I began to reflect on reflections.  It was such a nice summer evening.  I just got up and began to wander about.

I spent the rest of the evening watching the light fade.  There will be another day to work.  But I wonder if these moments of reflection could really be our true employment.  It certainly makes all the other busy times more worth "wild"...at least for me!

I leave you with this lovely quote by Wendell Berry~~ Love & Light

“There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” 
― Wendell Berry

☼ Forest & Field Happenings ☼ ~ minty

My summers are filled with a lot, what some might call, work.  I'll let you in on a little secret, I wonder about my Self sometimes.  Do I work too much? What would I do if I didn't do what I do.  When I stop and think about it, it is all a choice and do I love it...I must right?  The question has been coming up more since it is a transition time in my life...post parent...sort of (I think in 3 years when college is done I will feel more finished).  You might be wondering, what has this got to do with mint?  Well, I came across this bit in an online book that I have been reading by Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart.  This discovery happened on the day that I HAD harvested my peppermint along with asking my Self all those questions!  It AMAZES me how these things just "happen" ~ an answer!  

  

Now for my peppermint harvesting tips & story...

It is pretty easy and a wonderfully fragrant task.  I have read it is best to harvest herbs in the morning just after the dew has dried on a cloudy day... so this is my practice... allowing the plant to retain more of their essential oils.  It is also best to harvest before the flowers form and only collect about a third of the plant.  I have this handy hanging drier so I like to pluck the leaves off and then dry them on trays.  I had more than would fit on the trays so I bundled some too.  I sort through and remove any leaves that look questionable so when the drying it complete it will be tea time!

Bent paperclips make nice hanging hooks

Now the story!

I was given a little bundle of peppermint plant by my Mother-in-law back in 1981.  A friend had given it to her.  Ever place that I have lived since I have planted some of that mint.  Of course, I leaving some behind.  I have divided it and tried it in many places.  I have never seen it happier than by the pond! I give some to anyone who has asked.  This is a very minty peppermint.  It makes a tea that will warm you on a cold winters day and refresh you during the sultry summer.  The first place I planted it was around our little log cabin in Western Maine...I wonder if it is still growing?  I certainly am ~~~

☼ Forest & Field Happenings ☼ ~ the first

Starting to really reap the fruits of my labors.  Also, feeling like I might be able to have just a wee bit of a breather (at least until harvest is in full swing). I hope to blog more regularly now and even might clean the house!  Yesterday was all about the beetles but today I celebrated the general good health & beauty of my gardens.  I forgot my camera today.  I weeded, wandered and wondered.  It was so pleasant.  But, I have to confess to a bit of selfishness.  While my guys were at the movies I ate the first ripe tomato all by my Self!  It was one of my favorite varieties, the Heirloom Black Krim.  They are ready when they are still a bit green, you have to give them a gentle squeeze to check for ripeness.  I made a nice dipping oil with Olive Oil, Garlic Scape Pesto, a pinch of Pepper Flakes, Oregano, & Rosemary.  Add a few slices of bread and I had the perfect quiet meal.  Soon, I hope, I will be drowning in tomatoes but, the first is the sweetest. 

Bon Appetit 

Ode To Tomatoes by Pablo Neruda

The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

~~~Gratitude~~~ Zen & the Art of Beetle Plucking

Ahhh, to have the life of a cat...I could really use a nap right now. By the time, I have time it is too late in the day and still allowing for a good nights sleep.  I am sipping Earl Grey so I can write to you all right now.  I appreciate you readers.  I actually have a number of blogs started and a long list of topics I want to share.  It is not writer block that causes me to neglect you all, it plain too much to do!  A yawn and a stretch, now for the latest news.

Vern's favorite nap place in the blueberry patch!

What occupies a lot of my time, lately, is beetles!  We are overrun with Japanese Beetles.  It is hard for me to imagine where they all come from.  On Friday I collected beetles 3 times!  They are on all my berries and my Hazelnut trees.  I turn and there are beetles.  I take off my garden clogs and there are beetles.  I brush my hair and beetles come flying out.  It is enough to make me scream or cry.  But I just take a breath and keep plucking.  This next photo may not appeal to the bug squeamish...JUST be GLAD it isn't video!

I collect beetles so I can have....

I can't keep collecting 3 times a day or I will not get anything else done and I might go crazy!  So I netted my berries and have resigned my Self to collecting once a day and let come what may.  There are really no organic controls for theses buggers.  You see the traps they are not attracting more to my home the are just helping me collect.  We are fairly isolated so the beetles are propagating here.  Gratefully, just a few 100 yards from the house in the big gardens the beetles are few there.

By netting the beetles are easier to collect and they cannot damage the plants as much.  I use craft grade nylon tulle that I buy from Joann's Fabric when it is on sale for half price. I can usually get 3 years use from the netting.  I didn't net last year and my raspberries really suffered.  I have the calendar marked for next year to net before the beetles emerge which was July 9th this year and the 10th last.

What keeps me sane is knowing I am collecting "free" duck food.  I never tire of watch my beauties gobble up beetles!

If anyone out there has any magical mystery cures for beetles, PLEASE, let me know!  I know about milky spore for the lawn.  It is pricey and those who know more than I have informed me it won't winter over in Maine.  

My Zen practice, right NOW, is to pluck beetles without attachment & cleanse my mind each night -- so I can sleep without beetle nightmares -- by creating Rock Relations for my InJoyGatherings shop ~~~ and the beetle beat goes on ~~~

~~~

It is my intention, each week, to share something that fills me with Gratitude. 

I write ~~~Gratitude~~~ with the wavy lines to represent the gratitude ENERGY~~~~~! 

I hope you will join me and share your gratitude moments. 

~~~Amen, Blessed Be, Namaste'~~~