All posts by Molly

Muggles on Day Three

Today, the Green Hope Muggles kept reading,

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with some breaks to make Sweet Pea Flower Essence from the Venus Garden,
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and pack up the day’s orders with lots of discussion as we packed about what we have all read so far.

Deb stayed up until one am last night reading and Emily until almost midnight so they had to muster very good poker faces for the rest of us.
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Here Emily practices the “media blackout” look which tells her mother nothing about what is happening on page 478.

Now, with the UPS man come and gone with all the packages for you dear folks, we have scattered to our various homes with our copies to keep on reading. A nice soft rain is falling. I will settle in with a dog or two and a cup of tea and catch up to Emily….. only she has disapparated with her copy therefore making it unlikely I will catch up to her.

Thank goodness she inherited her father’s poker face (good) instead of mine ( very, very poor).

Big Game Berry Picking

A mother has to use every trick in the mother’s handbook to get the berries and other small fruits picked for the family table or freezer.

She must use everything she learned during ten thousand hours of board games like Sorry and Parcheesi, ten thousand hours of free form whine management in places like gift shoppes, and ten thousand hours spent taming the consumer frenzy of her hoard of teenagers.

These situations inform her work to get the berries picked by herself and her children. This is because, as with board games and scenes in gift shoppes, berry picking is all about the translation of the desire to win, have one’s own way, and eat only the berries one wants for oneself into selfless service in support of SHARING with the whole family and the needy freezer.

First, a mother must entrap the children into a confession about which berries or small fruits they cannot live without. Igniting the flame of altruistic berry picking is helped when the child has a particular affinity to the crop he or she is harvesting for the greater good.

Shocked though I was when Emily told me last week that she didn’t give a fig about blueberries, I was thrilled that she went nuts over the sour cherry crisp I made this week. Yes, I managed to make one dessert from the tiny amount of cherries that I was able to collect from our two cherry trees, those trees otherwise completely denuded of cherries by our resident birds (birds, whom I might note, were also having a hard time sharing.)

Why did Emily’s rhapsody over the cherry crisp move me so?

Because a neighbor had both a more selfless bird population and a sour cherry tree laden with cherries AND this neighbor had left me a note to feel free to pick her cherries.

I hauled a ladder down to the neighbor’s house before the ink on her note was even dry and came back with a very large bowlful of cherries. Cherries that needed to be pitted.

I was not worried about the pitting. I was smug. I was prepared. I knew exactly how to get Emily to pit those cherries for me. I had the right bribes for pitting; a dunkin donuts iced caramel latte and a computer loaded with a DVD of the first season of the OC TV show right smack dab next to the bowl of cherries. My selfless service lecture didn’t even need to be put in the queue. Ryan and Marissa did the work for me.

While Emily refused to allow me to photograph her face, I did get this shot of the action. Enough cherries for seven pies went in the freezer. Bravo Emily!

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This left only blueberries, raspberries, gooseberries, red currants, and black currants to be picked.

Rapsberries are not a problem. I know I am not supposed to have favorites, but I do. Come hell or high water and we have certainly have had the high water lately……

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The Rasberries always get picked. I see to that.

Early this morning, before it clouded over for our daily rain, I got out there to pick the day’s ripe Raspberries. Each day I think the raspberry season must be peaking. Today was no different as I picked through the patch.
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May May was in the thick of things, but I have yet to be able to harness her interest in berry eating into berry harvesting for the greater good.
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Once the Raspberries were in the bag, it was time to think about blueberries, because some of the varieties we have are now ready to be picked.

I have noted that famed Tour de France rider William Sheehan’s bike course takes him flying by the blueberries.
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I have also noted that he sometimes pauses with his ever hungry dog friend May May for blueberry breaks during their rides.

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Give me a day and I am sure I will figure out how to translate Will’s pause that refreshes by the blueberries into a bowlful of berries ready for the freezer. Or maybe fate will intervene and fill William with the desire to pick a bowl for me without bribes or speeches about our family’s calling to become good localvores.

It’s stage twelve of the Tour de France today and perhaps William will take the polka dot jersey. All this riding around the hills of Meriden has made him good in the mountains. With a polka dot jersey or better yet, the yellow jersey on his back, maybe handing him a big empty bowl while he races by the blueberries will brings on a bout of post victory harvesting.

Picking blueberries for your mother seems like just the kind of thing a Tour de France hero would do, that and standing on the podium being kissed by a lot of pretty french women.

You’re right. He’s twelve. Standing on the podium to be kissed by a lot of pretty french women is probably a more likely daydream than imagining your mom’s smile when you hand her a full bowl of blueberries.

I think this leaves May May to help me with the blueberries. I really do have my work cut out for me.

Of Shingles, Kayaks, and Kangaroo Paws

Ben hammered into place every last shingle of our Flower Essence building back in the summer of 2001. Over the past week, his siblings, Emily and Will, took up the charge to learn the fine art of cedar shingling.

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Morning one and Will used that well positioned bike to put a bit of distance between himself and this project. It is, after all, summer.

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Emily kept at it over the next few days and Jim decided to shingle the peak end of the shed because, “it was going to look shabby next to the shingle roof”. (Jim and I seem to have a harder time than Will remembering it is summer.)

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Emily kept hammering away until it was all done.

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One fine day, a shingling break was taken to kayak on one of New Hampshire’s many lakes an hour northeast of here.

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This micro climate is much more like the woods of the Adirondacks and offered me a chance to visit with Flower friends that don’t live near the farm.

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While some rested their hammering (and biking) skills, I explored the island where we had stopped.

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The Wintergreen was just getting ready to bloom. When you crumple one of Wintergreen’s gorgeous shiny leaves, the lovely smell of Wintergreen oil fills the air. I love Wintergreen. Do they even make candy from it anymore?

When I was a little girl in the Adirondacks, I would pour boiling water over a jar containing Wintergreen leaves to make a lovely pink tea with that va va voom Wintergreen flavor.

In the above photograph, Wintergreen’s white Flowers are just about to open into their bell blossoms, Flowers so good at ringing in vibrational encouragement to be our zesty selves.

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This is Dogberry or Clintonia borealis. It has beautiful lily like yellow blossoms in the spring and blue berries in the late summer and fall. I was a little startled to see its berries already so blue. Can it really be late summer????

Anyways, I think these berries, rising boldly and unapologetically up from the pine duff, dramatically suggest this Flowers vibrational strengths. Dogberry is an ingredient in our Separation mix and also our Outburst mix. It has a very centering, clarifying, and strengthening vibration, making it a support to animals and people to find their strength and sense of purpose amidst chaotic situations.

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Bunchberry is another beloved Flower in our Animal Wellness Collection mixes. The Bunchberry where we were kayaking no longer had its symmetrical four petaled white Flowers, but I think this orderly bouquet of berries and its symmetrical leaves suggest why we use this Essence in our Outburst and Separation mixes along side Dogberry.

While the white Flowers suggest its immense loving vibration, this organized even sheltered and contained arrangement of fiery orange berries suggests how it helps us to know how to contain and manage strong emotion.

Here is another dramatic example of this principle from a new Flower Essence I made this week.

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This is Kangaroo Paw (Anigozanthes) a native of down under. It has pale brown kangaroo paw shaped blossoms emerging from fiery orange calyxes. This one is going to find its way into a lot of the Animal Wellness collection including Outburst, Run & Play, and Animal Emergency Care.

Can you see how its appearance telegraphs its vibrational strengths? The swift transition from fiery orange to soft tan Flowers suggests how it can help us transmute explosive situations into benign ones, move orthopedic injuries or other wounds towards rapid healing and dramatically turn a heated up situation into one of healing and calm.
It is so wonderful that this Flower and its Essence is now available to us on this side of the world, and so wonderful that each micro climate of our dear planet offers so many gifts.

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Rhino Lives!

It’s been too long since we heard from Rhino, that noble friend of dirty dishes and tired mothers.

Good News!

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Rhino not only lives, but he is on the trip of a lifetime.

Rhino has gone home to his true homeland.

Rhino is in Kenya.

And he is not alone.

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He took some bears. Lots of bears.

Rhino departed for Africa with sixteen knitted bears. Once that afghan project was done and the afghans were on their way to Afghanistan, I couldn’t just sit back with empty hands during all the evenings when Rhino and the other men of the household were watching soccer, golf, the tour de france. Yes, yes, I could be in another room reading edifying literature, but sometimes I just want to sit with Rhino and company even when I have no interest in their sport du jour.

Sooooooo, I found another knitting project called Mother Bear. Mother Bear sends these little knitted bears to children in Africa and other countries throughout the world. I started a collection of bears to send to Mother Bear. Then when Ben and his girlfriend Megan got the opportunity to go to Kenya to help build a school outside of Nairobi, I decided to give the bears into their charge to share as they wanted.

Imagine Rhinos delight that Ben’s latest travel plans included Africa.

Imagine my delight at thinking of all the little bears I had knit being given to children by Megan and Ben.
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So here they all were this weekend, right before they left for the airport. Rhino is perched on Ben’s shoulders in his typical supervisory role. Megan and Ben are preparing to stuff the bears in their suitcases.

Can’t wait to share the photos of Rhino, the bears, Megan and Ben in Africa.

Life is good!