love saturday

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love how our lilac evolves from deep purple to the palest lavender as the blooms mature. for the past week, the entire house has been enveloped in a cloud of this bush’s heady fragrance.love that we continue to improve on our little farm, especially as the growing season gets underway in earnest. love the by-now well-ventilated and heated greenhouse making it possible to saunter in after twilight and be overcome by the warmth and humidity.

love our new folding tables which have made it possible for us to lay out SIX tables of starts and trays! love the ache in my back and neck from bending over the trays for hours meticulously planting over thirty varieties of slicing and pickling cucumbers, green, snap, and snow peas, snap, soup, and haricot verts beans, sweet, hot, and bell peppers to name a few… love the tomatoes, peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, and beans already well underway!

love that it isn’t all hard work; among the fruited delights in the garden are a handful of extravagances just for show. like our wild irises growing so thick we are looking for a new 30 square foot plot within which to thin them. love that the day lilies–planted for sonora–may finally overcome the rabbits’ nibbles this year, too.

love that nature will up–in spite of politics and economies, no matter what twists and turns life takes, she reaches, recovers, reignites. our trees and beds are alive with hope, rife with abundance. i love wandering the garden, experiencing their resilience, sharing their strength. like the little himrod grape that was half-off because it was half-dead. it continues to be the first among our grapes to stretch itself to the sun. love that this year it will cover the latter third of the chicken yard with its shady vines, its sweet white grapes hanging precariously over the hens…

love getting caught up on work at the farm and the office. love preparing to paint, remodel, and host a variety of foreign friends and family.

love my husband and farm animal family. love rosie, our angora goat, with her sweet bleat and soft snuggles and angel, her navajo angora pal, with her unending curiousity.

love saturday.

love saturday

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love spring positively erupting all around me!  fruit trees, garden beds, perennials bushes, even the weeping willow–everything is alive and flushing with color as Father Time and Brother Sun pick up their sticks and stretch in earnest again.

love my beautiful black mare, seraphina, shaking off her winter coat in favor of her sleek, shiny summer suit. love grooming her, working quietly on her knots and bumps while my hands lull her into a sleepy dream. love that this powerful, breathtaking horse was once described as “absolutely un-ride-able.” well, that was gwen; this is sera. these days, she is my willing partner. love riding her, connecting with her in the arena. she is not the horse they said she was; she readily remembers everything we’ve ever taught her and she leads with love.

love the din and hum of the neighborhood honey bees fussing over our early apricot blossoms. love the lilacs and irises, nature’s promises kept. love the hint of green emerging below the dry, brown winter “lawn.”

love the sunshine on my face and shoulders, the breeze tickling my neck and shoulders. love the first “garden tour” of the year. (the “garden tour” involves me formulating my list of things to weed, prune, water, pluck, pick, pickle, and put by as i contemplatively meander around the farm.)

love finding beds ready to sow, perennials standing strong, dirt under my nails. love clearing mulch, debris, and overgrowth, making a clean, light line along the visual horizon of our garden.

love waking up and getting out of bed early, muscles aching from yard work. love fresh-baked goods cooling on the rack as early as 9 am. love pear tart and streusel topping. love good coffee, good friends.

love preparing in earnest for the next few months: visits from far-away family, bounty from the garden, expanding our farm, reinventing our home.

love preparing my own oil blends as samples for friends. love the visceral, penetrating memories that grip and shake me as remembered fragrances rise again. love making the time and committing the energy to resurrect my heritage skills.

love chasing tiny seeds with my fingertip, plunging them to a perfect depth before patting them on the head and indulging them with z’s compost tea. love pole beans, soup beans, english peas, four kinds of cucumber, tomatoes, and eggplants all begun under lights.

love my life. love my husband. love spring.

love saturday.

A Few of My Favorite Things

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Much to our delight, our greenhouse is now formally and appropriately heated by thermostat! (Just in time, too, as we have recently been cloaked by multiple, sparkling winter storms. Meanwhile, the thermostat, etc. automatically kept the environment a balmy 69° in the greenhouse.) Within days a ventilation intake and fan will be in place as well. I can barely keep up with images of what now becomes possible!

Such headway on greenhouse projects also means no more extension cords all over our front yard. (Woot!) That also sets us up for our little studio/cottage/workspace having power, too. Did we mention that a hot tub and sauna might go in beside it? Nothing crazy fancy, just some basic comforts to get the ball rolling on providing a retreat experience on the farm. (Even if it is just for us for the time being!) We are thrilled about having such goodness so close soon!

Our beloved little Muppet seems to have appreciated the HTA work I started when his daddy was away. He seems to be <d r u m r o l l> potty trained. Now we just have to teach him to put his toys back in his basket. Ohmygoodness, he can empty his considerable toy basket (including some sizable stuffed animals) in no time. Our home looks like we have a two-year old (non-canine) child. (At least you’d have reason to believe the toddler is potty-trained!)

My enormous catalog of essential oils has arrived and boy, howdy! I could not be more inspired! There are a wide variety of single essential oils as well as oil blends from Young Living. I must (unapologetically) confess that I waited to see what arrived in the “big” set before placing a follow-up order to include the outstanding oils I need to make my personal recipes again. With that, some of my favorite blends from 20 years ago will be resurrected.

A thorough roundabout with a cart at a local natural grocer yielded some grass-fed and organic meats, wild caught seafood, and delicious fresh produce to keep us humbled until the greenhouse gets going in earnest. We are incredibly blessed.

Speaking of blessings, we shared one in the form of a couple’s Buddha Treat at Ten Thousand Waves to be exact. We spent more than a few hours enjoying the various amenities and treatments: upgraded tub, massages, detoxifying herbal wraps, salt glows, the works! There are no words for the visceral goodness humming through my body right now…

With the later light, we have “extra” time to feed the farm’s critters before settling into a delicious, fresh organic meal ourselves.

These are just a few of my favorite things…

love saturday

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love last weekend’s list of things to do evolving into a series of delightful and inspired experiences: brunch with a cherished friend at a local farm-to-table diner, an afternoon workshop on ortho-bionomy, and a two-hour conversation with my mom marked by laughter and sage advice.

love being in public, surrounded by people i don’t know and realizing i am not nearly as fearful as i used to be. social situations could be crippling for me once; clearly, things have improved.

love the gifts afforded by silence and solitude; they served me during a challenging week.

love making headway against my personal list. my “career” has dominated my energy, time, and emotion lately leaving little to spare for hobbies, self-care, personal planning, and the like. love crossing off five things that move me closer to personal goals. love how that personal headway will undoubtedly inform said “career”, too.

love signing up for classes, talking to instructors, and otherwise organizing myself around growth and discovery. by the end of the year, i will have learned seven new things. you cannot imagine how much i love knowing that!

love the feeling associated with so much imminent (and immanent) change: the remaining rooms being repainted, an office/studio space, next level certifications in four healing modalities, new furniture, new floors, remodeled closets and kitchen… we could not be more ready to take ourselves to the next level.

love a good cup of coffee, a good book, and our wood stove. love letters from friends and slippers.

love that my cell phone will finally work later today after six months of not functioning. (seriously. why did i do that to myself? is albuquerque really that far away? sheesh.)

most especially, love having my beloved home again after his visit with his family in oregon. my joy and hope are diminished without his company and love.

love saturday.

love saturday

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love making time for myself. self-care truly is fundamental to wellness. (why am i so quick to forget the delight in white tea, dog snuggles, journaling, and yoga? when was the last time you nourished yourself? go!)

love the emotional, psychic, and spiritual thresholds i am exploring. there was a time when so many things were up in the air. today, things feel obvious, imminent… clear, deep, and wide like the new mexico sky.

love learning. 2012 holds a plethora of workshops, seminars, and classes for me! love how every one of them contributes significantly to my skills across a wide variety of categories from energy and body work to candy making. (yes…. candy. truffles to caramels to brittles. my beloved is very excited about that homework!)

love our newly painted living room with it’s incredibly rich and beautiful color. i’ll be honest: we were lucky on this one. we grew impatient to get this done once and for all, so we had a, er, very short turnaround time (and small sample size) between initial test and DONE. you’d never know it. we both love how the color works nonetheless. it is colorful, warm, fresh, clean, deliberate, and beautifully complimentary in a dozen different lights.

love that the bedrooms are next to be painted, whereupon we will also embark on a bona fide “mexican-pine-furniture-purge.” because:

  1. we could not be more over it;
  2. we have family coming to visit the farm;
  3. new furniture and additional storage would be much appreciated; and
  4. we need to organize ourselves around the farm business right about now.

love that plans also include a reset of our ample kitchen making it even more incredible for everything from entertaining to small-scall hobby farming. (cheeses and canned goods and toffees, oh my!)

love saturday.