False Spring

I am sitting here doing too many things. I am currently writing down another home remedy a wonderful Mayan woman told me to use for my father who has prostate cancer and diabetes. Don't worry too much, he says the cancer is in remission, but I don't know how I feel about that. So if you could send some loving healing energy to my father!
But anyway the home remedy is Apricot seeds! Marina says that if you take the pit of the apricot and dry it and then take out the little seed inside the pit and dry and crush it, the powder will help. When she worked on an apricot farm, she said drug companies used to ask for the pits to use in caner medication. I am gonna try. Anything that will help save some money and maybe help heal my dad I am willing to do!
But back to the post!



As many of you know the groundhog told us on the holy day of Imbolc that there was to be no more winter! It was going to be spring soon and we would enjoy a warming trend. At least that is how I interpreted it. Well I hate to break it to the council of men who now control when winter ends, but you should have checked with the snake.
Just like Brigit did in times of old, the snake was the indicator for when spring would be over. And I think that this year the snake has not come out of her hole yet. Once she does then I will be ready for spring time!

As the title of the blog says in my opinion we were experiencing a false spring here in Northern Arizona. For about a week it got warm and the plants and animals were starting to come to life again. Their activity excited me and was getting me ready for the upcoming spring, but my partner ruined my feelings when he said that the week of warm weather was just a false spring. I did not want to believe him. I kept telling him you are wrong the groundhog said it was going to be spring and as day after day passed without more snow or horrible weather I was sure he was wrong.

WELL...it turns out I was wrong and he was right! Darn you universe!!!!
It was a false spring. About 3 days after we had this conversation a snowstorm hit Sedona. Luckily it was not horribly bad, but it covered everything. I was very concerned with my garden because we had planted garlic and onions and they were sprouting. I didn't want them to die but I also knew that if I went and removed the snow around them they would not be hardy and might not survive later if cold comes.
A few days after the snow I went out to make sure the plants were fine and they were. Some have taken a bit of a hit and weren't growing very fast, but the ones that were tall enough started to poke through the snow or reach above it. I was surprised to find that even the smaller ones that had snow around them seemed to melt the snow. Just right around the 2 leaves sticking up, it looked amazing. I wasn't sure if plants had a heater system that they each carry around or if the energy from the plants was causing the snow to melt.
If you know please let me know. I am going to do some research but nothing to big.

The good news is that the snow has melted, even though I fear we might get more, and the plants are fine. I am happy to say they survived and are growing again. It was quite a joy to see the onions poking through the snow. The contrasting colors of bright lime green and white snow was beautiful.


How is the weather where you are? Do you plan on planting this year? We are starting our seeds this weekend so we can get a jump, but I have to be ready for the idea that we won't be able to put them in the ground for a while.
Oh well.

Blessed be!!

PS
OMGoddess. I forgot to say. The NPA had a meeting last night and we have 10 people there. It was amazing! There are new people showing up all the time and I am so happy and blessed that they are coming!

Fall Cleaning

This past weekend Bobby, Rafiki and I went to work on our gardens and yard. When Bobby and I started our new garden in the spring we new it wasn't going to be easy but I personally felt that we would receive some sort of crop from it...and we didn't. Well that is not entirely true becuase for the first time Bobby and I both cultivated our first crop. Our sunflowers grew big and strong this year and when they died we happily collected the seeds to plant next year. This was a learning experience for me because it is another reminder that nature and the natural order of things takes time. A garden is not something that can be perfect in the first year, especially when we are taking clay like soil and working to turn it black and full of life. The garden we planted in will be much better next year and the years to come. Using Bobby's permaculture knowledge and our combined hard efforts we hope to have some crops next year. For fall cleaning in that garden we chopped down the stems of the sunflowers and mulched them. Then we raked leaves from the yard into the garden. We have been doing this for a couple weeks now and there is a nice layer of decaying mulch that is adding to the nutrition of the soil! We have also been burying compost in that garden. I have seen the wonders of composting and am hoping that this soil will really enjoy what the compost can do for it and help the plants to grow strong next year.
Once that garden was done we moved onto the garden the Bobby created 4 years ago. It is a more native species garden. There are species native to AZ and species that survive in the desert climate. In Sedona it does get cold so he had to keep that into consideration and he must have done it right because the plants he picked have grown wonderfully! One of the best growers was the thyme plant. It turned into a field of time. This is a pic of Rafiki playing in it!

We trimmed all the plants in the garden getting them ready for the winter so they can grow back big and strong. We also added layers of mulch to this ground to help further the growth of the garden. Rafiki was helping out by digging a hole for us. He was very proud of himself. One of the plants I was happy to see get trimmed was the rosemary plant. I don't have any fresh homegrown rosemary in my witch cabinet so I thought that cutting the rosemary with a spiritual intention and drying it would be a good chance for me to experiment with herbs more.

While Bobby was busy trimming away, I was working on the weeds. The weeds have gotten a little out of control in a part of the yard so I decided that I was going to get at them. They needed a good talking to. I pulled them out for an hour or so then when I was done I had to make a decision. I wanted to compost them somehow, but as Bobby reminded me since they have stickers and are weeds they could grow back and would benefit no one. So I decided to throw them away, but as I did this I said a blessing over them. I wanted to make sure that I sent the intention for the weeds to grow and multiply in the landfill. I wanted them to help break down all that garbage so that one day instead of toxic waste in the landfill there will be a luscious garden waiting to burst through.
Next come the house and I can't wait to get on that so we can have a safe haven inside durin the winter months!!
I hope everyone is staying warm if it is cold where you are or if you are in the Southern Hemisphere (*cough* Nydia *cough*) enjoy the weather. I hear it is nice!

Blessed Be!

The happenings of Litha

I know its kinda of late but I wanted to update on what I did for my Litha celebration.
I actually celebrated a day early but that is ok because at the time I really thought it was solstice, but anyway, I was in a bad mood because of my uncle and decided that I needed to spend time in my garden and create something.
I actually created two things this Litha, 1. is a wonderful god figure that will be my next post and 2. is I planted a new garden. Unfortunately my other garden in Sedona has been a slight failure. The corn and sunflowers are wonderful and have helped to ease the pain but I can't help but want a full garden. The truth is that since it was the first year for the garden of course it wasn't going to be a huge success especially with the soil there, but the goddess always has something planned.
There was already so much life in the backyard of my inlaws that while creating my figure I had to plant seeds. I found out that you should plant seeds by solstice because something about the seed knows that now it is heading towards cold weather. I learned this from a Hopi man so I am hoping that he knows what he is saying.
To get ready for the garden I cleared the space of mulch, because I like lines and no mulch unlike my partner, but I will eventually put the mulch back. I drew up a map of where I wanted to place the seeds and after that I started planting them.
I planted spinach, lettuce, collards, broccoli, basil, dill, mustard and and edible flower!!!
I also planted garlic all around my garden hoping that they will help to protect the garden from bad bugs, but I am not sure if they will or not.
Here are some pics to update after one week of growing.
Here is the little spinach growing with all its might!


The broccoli


Collard Greens, they look the same as the broccoli right now.


The lettuce is doing amazingly well


Here is the garlic and the fence I put around it!



I wish things would have started growing sooner, but I know that Vegas stays warm till about October. So hopefully we will have a bountiful harvest this year!
Next update will be the god figure!
Blessed be!

Garden Starters Update 2

Tragedy has befallen the garden starters. I had to go out of town for a show (only a night and came back the next day) and I came back and the starters were all DEAD!

I had one tomato plant that was alive and now from the picture you can see that the tomato is dead as well. I have learned a valuable lesson. I think that I planted the seeds to early. But when Bobby and I went down to the garden in Sedona what I found made me very happy. Most of the garen was still just dirt, but in one area was teeming with life. The bend where we planted the Three Sisters was full of life
. We also added sunflowers in the area and they seem to be doing marvelously. The base of the stalks have a very beautiful purpleish color. I believe the sunflowers will have some different colors in them! Can't wait to see what they look like!
Bobby and I decided to plant a whole new batch of seeds because we think a frost must have killed the previous seeds.
Hopefully they will start growing soon so we can see what this garden will really look like!




I am constantly being reminded that there is always a good that will come out of the bad. Even though my trip to France did not work out the goddess had other plans for me. Now is a time for grounding and enjoying my summer. I have many new plans this summer. I think I will post a list so I can check them off as I go.
The Neo-Pagan Alliance had our celebratory ritual this past Monday so I will be posting about that very soon.
I invoked the goddes NORTIA. It was such a fulfilling ritual!

Garden

Last summer I worked at a summer camp as the nature specialist and the farm manager and I loved it. I had worked at this camp the previous summer as well but just as a counselor. Going back to camp for a second time was different because I was much further on my path than the first time I left. I had some goddess work to do, you could say.
My first mission was to revamp the entire programs and put a focus back on reconnecting with the Earth (they should never pick a pagan for a position like this lol). My first step was to make sure my animals were in order and once that was done move onto the gardens. I learned to garden from a very special woman named Suna. She taught me all I learned this summer and she really inspired me to make mu own garden at home. Her garden at her house is just too amazing for words. So at camp, we made 3 gardens all of which I got to see grow beautifully ( as many plants will do in Massachusetts weather). Also, at camp besides just starting to the gardens I wanted to start a compost pile. I thought it was not right to be wasting all the food that campers would not eat. So Suna and I came up with a compost project. The project had to get approved by my supervisor and once that was handled ( which was not easy by hte way) we formed our pie out of chicken wire and started making compost. I will not be going back this year which is sad enough, but I also will not get to see the progress of the compost pile. I will have to call someone and see how it is.

But back to my blog!
When I came back from camp I felt like I needed to continue growing plants. I missed looking at my gardens everyday and seeing what was ready to eat. So I talked with my partner Bobby, and we decided to plant our own garden. Bobby is a huge plant enthusiast and wanted to plant some native plants as well as herbs and veggies. Before we headed down to Sedona to start the garden ( Bobby's family has a house down there) we went to the Native Plant and Seed shop and bought our seeds. Most of the seeds we bought were from this man named Thunderfoot. He self pollinates his own plants and they are all organic. I was really excited to plant and see the results.
So we headed down to Sedona and got started the next day. Let me first state that the gorund is not very nice around these parts and we denfinately had to put a lot of work into getting the soil ready. First we had to take the weed barrier out.

That was not a very hard part but next came turning the soil. We didn't dig to far down becuase 1. the soil was very clay like the further you went down and 2. I learned from Suna that soil has a certain structure and it is good to try and keep it if you can. After digging up the entire thing, Bobby starting at one end and me starting at the other. It took us about an hour and a half or maybe 2 hours. But we did it. After digging up all that ground we decided to take a break and get a snack. I believe it is very important to stay hydrated but also to eat because when someone is working out in the garden it can be an all day thing. So after out break we did a run through of what still had to be done.
1) put the compost in
2) put the top soil down
3) put the mulch down
4) plant some plants and seeds
As you can see we had a lot to do still.
Next we took out our organic compost that we bought when we purchased seeds and we put the compost over the turned soil. After lightly raking the compost and natural soil together, we added top soil to that. After lightly raking those soils together we added mulch on top of everything. It was a long process that resulted in a beautiful garden.
Bobby and I then planted some of our seeds into the ground. We wanted to plant some (mostly because I was so excited to have a garden) and also because the frosts were over for Sedona. We also added some bigger plants that will help to shade some of the herbs that need shade and also to add some more like to the garden. I am used to a garden being very lined up and having rows with signs in them saying what they are. But with Bobby he is not like that. He is a permaculturist as well as a do nothing gardener so when he was planting the seeds he didn't put them in rows or in any order and I almost died. It was a good lesson for me in other types of gardening and also helped me to realize that there isn't just one way to do something.
After we finished I called Bobby over to the middle of the garden and asked him to say a blessing over the garden. He said his blessing and I then I said mine. It was very nice to close the day with the goddess. She was the reason for my passions in gardens and she brought Bobby and I closer than ever.
All thats left is to start the other seeds in the starter set at home.
Blessed be!