sunny saturday, gratefulness

~ On my stereo right now is this, I love her voice.



~ There's life everywhere





~ Tiny moments of stillness. Are enough to let you find the place within that is not your thoughts or mind or anything you can or want to label, just a place of stillness and joy that transcends everything else. Sometimes you find it standing with your feet warm in their boots on the cold hard earth, staring at a dead bird.

Live green moss under, catching blood and splintering it off in a prism of beauty. Beauty everywhere. I am not afraid to see. Or hear. Or see. I forgive you for not being who I wanted you to be. I forgive you and I set you free. In the freedom is peace. Mine, yours. Every day that passes I am forgiving.







~ Every scrap of peace shimmers and joins the whole that grows. I have no anxiety. The moment now is the only one I can influence. All life is made from moments. Now and now and now. These are mine. Tomorrow is a phantom. Wellness, wholeness, forgiving, finding beauty. Accepting. With grace.





~ I can even forgive the fox who just now killed our new hens. I forgive you (shit head) now go in peace :) The branch breaks and I see it in it the reflection of myself. It is also whole. If you look the right way. No matter how many pieces it's made from.





~ The mess is beauty in it's creation. I am awed by it. Not overwhelmed. How do I spend my life? Sometimes creating spaces of clean energy. Sometimes walking away and creating the space later. When I have recovered my own energy. I am loving that I am learning to walk away and smile. It's ok to do that.



~ I am grateful for everything. In everything I can find myself closer to the person I really am. I forgive myself every minute for not being the person I sometimes want myself to be. I have no guilt. I have no guilt and I have no illness. The connection is broken. Banished. From my kingdom. I create in this moment this tiny space, here, of the stillness I can find everywhere.





~ *Bowing to you, and to self* (with hands together) Go forth and multiply. Blessed Be. Namaste. Or something.... anything. Grateful hands together, fingertips touching; the ancient position of revered. I sometimes make the sign of the cross when I hear an ambulance. I think my cellular memory acts above my knowing mind. In the middle of the night I cry in a dream and my dh comforts with his true self in the only way that possible, mindless but full, when you are the only ones in the universe. For this too I am grateful.





~ I spent so much time digging and now a sprinkle of snow-dust covers the tiny green caterpillars I turned over. Are they dead, or asleep? Is there really a difference..... when you are a caterpillar? I once wrote that in a dream I lay on a moss hill top and rain streamed down over me, and I was the earth - that I once had a name that was Potato Yin - that I kissed a man I have never met but who I have always know, he spoke to me in a language I have never heard - I was a boy that lay curled up and never ever awoke, never saw the crying eyes of his mother that held him but felt her tears and wanted her to know it was ok. A woman told me I knew things. Could feel things and I thought she was mad. I have seen the woman who was my aunt. And a man. Old and familiar. Who would you tell? Secret knowledge best kept tucked inside a silken handkerchief and treasured. Sometimes you are both everything and nothing at all. Puffed away on a breathe of wind. Anchored so solidly to a reality you might cry. Both are good. Things to be Grateful for.



~ Walking, always a joyful thing, always.





Sunny, today, my favourite day. Saturday.

the colour of winter

Esmé has her own set of muddied colours.



The boys are neater - they wash Peter Paintbrush's hair :) Esmé couldn't care less about Peter Paintbrush and his fastidious hair care and is as rampageous at painting as she is in every other area of her grandiose self-directed life.





Chicken themed.





A multiplication wheel, as seen here on Talie's new home ed blog.



Esmé has her own area - photos of herself and same age cousin, her splodge paintings and bits of glue and sticking. She is hugely proud of all of this and says her name, E-may! and rocks back and forth grinning, pleased as can be.



Outdoor walks, taking in the dry mid-winter.













Home. Girl helped - Thai curried veg soup and 'left over' crackers: sun dried tomatoes, nut pulp from mylk making, garlic, olive oil, fresh ground flaxseed and lots of fresh basil, blitzed, spread on lined sheets and dehydrated.

garden, hens

We have had some sad chicken times this winter. The Fox has been bumping off one a week. While I sympathise with is hunger, if he isn't going to actually eat the chooks (only teeth-dagger then to death and then run) then I feel a bit enraged at him. My neighbour has lost much of her domestic fowl to him and informed me that she has informed The Local Hunt; who will shortly be on the case and bringing hounds to flush him out and take a gun to his greasy red head. Not sure how I feel about it. Apparently its a dog fox not a bitch, and he's been on the rampage for quite some time (and yes the Hunt is still alive and well, I have seen it dash by many times since we have lived here despite laws made to quell it).

Sigh. The last remaining chook, was The Queen. Felix's favourite. She had her back end bitten off and a cracked egg hung out of her. I screamed and told every one to leave her alone, she must be about to drop dead, but no, she plucked away at her butt, my dh cleaned her up with a rough swipe of his hand and lo and behold within three days she was back to laying again, although looking much like a guinea fowl. For several days she followed me. Without a chook friend left in the world, every time I'd look out of a window, there she'd be, standing on one leg. Every time I move in the house I'd look up to find a lonely looking Queen staring at me through a different window.



On the up we went and bought some new friends for her at the Domestic Wildfowl Trust. Only what do you think? Upon our return we discovered that the Fox had taken The Queen too. Huh! I feel I am rather happy to have the sloppy hounds run through here now.









We had much fun picking and choosing our new brood. Our new four are POL (that's Point Of Lay; about 22-4 odd weeks old) and are an odd looking bunch since everyone wanted a different breed, we ended up with one of each: a Sussex Star (white with black trim), a Calder Ranger (ginger) a Rhode Island Red (black, I know, what a silly name) and a.... erm, well she is buff coloured with a spike on her head and lays blue eggs. So. After two days of being locked in their little house and run (which supposedly is designed to house and keep 6 at one time but to me is nothing more that a holding pen) I let them out proper in the garden today where they went wild with glee and fought each other madly. All is well then. I keep checking on them, suspicious and anxious and have shooed the boys out for most of the day to bounce on their spruced up, spring-cleaned trampoline. If their noise doesn't keep a fox away we're surely doomed.





I have had a couple of fabulously happy garden days. I had forgotten what it's like to spend more time out than in, I raked up about 20 barrow loads of slimy leaves from the grass and put them to compost, I dug over four veg beds, chopped back the fruit canes, swept the area directly outside the house, trimmed up the herb bed and generally neatened up. Esmé helped me take the winter-grimed pegs from the line where we washed them (and her) in the sink.









For my grand finale I split wood. With an axe. This is a big deal for me and I was so satisfied. Remember my last post where I bragged about my wonderful dh who chopped enough wood for us, always every day? Well he didn't. And didn't come home until about 10pm, so if a fire was what we wanted (it was) then it was up to me. I didn't chop my foot off or do my back in so it was a major success. While I chopped, The Beauty made a mess.








Chores done in time, just, to watch the sun fading from view. I LOVE being outside in the garden. The sound of the stream, the scents of the earth and damp and dry coldness, still. I am so grateful for the dry days right now, the mud and snow and slush has cleared and the boys can ride in the driveway (which is bumpy and usually slick) and bounce away and we can all just be outdoors. It's amazing a feeling which I had practically forgotten.



Ok, I've just talked myself into going back outside, off to wake The Beauty :) I need more wood anyway.....