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Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts

Wednesday, 13 March 2019

Autumn catch-ups

At last the weather is turning towards coolness.   Things are going on as normal around here, though I am just getting over a crappy cold of snotness.

The chookies are having a nice life as usual. Guinevere went broody again, and since none of her fertile eggs survived the heat while she was sitting, I bought her four day olds. Three Silver-spangled Hamburgs and one white Cochin, which were what the local stockfeeder had hatching that day. I like Cochins, but I think Hamburgs might be a bit flighty for me, so we'll see how they go.

At any rate Guinevere is happy, though she only has three now because one chick died two days after arriving. It was a very hot day. I gave them an ice bottle but Guinevere isn't the smartest chook and she didn't take them over to it.  She's a sweet mama, though.




Morgana and her singleton child Mordred are still hanging out together.  Luckily she hasn't gone back to broody again!  Mordred is quite pretty, a cross of Silver-laced Wyandotte and black Australorp, and a hen thank goodness!       



 

As usual, the dogs and cat are hard at work.


You can see these two are related!  :D 


I've been playing lyre and guitar pretty much every day (till I got sick).  I'm getting a few songs up to scratch ready to join in Bardic circles when we go over to South Australia for Damh the Bard and Cerri's concerts and camp. Weeeee!

We bought a caravan and have been getting it set up to drive across the Nullabor. We've never done it, and it seems like something every Aussie should do once, so we're going to do it.  It's a Jayco penguin camper.  I really like Jaycos and it is the thing we looked at that didn't smell of outgassing plastics.
   
The biggest hassle has been trying to remove all the left over perfumes in it.  We've had to buy new foam to put in the mattress and kitchen seats because the one that was in them had some hideous chemical in it to keep it fresh.  Bleagh.  What a toxic world we are creating. The new foam is European standard and has no chemical outgassing or perfumes in it.  Thank goodness!  This chemical sensitivity drives me nuts.

Not that i had far to go to get there, as the next photo shows.



That's me embroidering my design on my ceremonial tabard.  Jarrah leaves and blossom one side, oak leaves and acorns the other, and the Awen in the middle with the colours of blue for Bard, Goldy-brown for Druid and Green for Ovate.  i love it now it's done but I will not be taking up embroidery for a hobby!  Head torch, 2.5 times glasses, and still I tired my eyeballs out.


Kitty liked to help me. Help me not embroider!  
               

Other current projects include a t-shirt design for the Druids of WA group.  We put out the call for anyone in the group to design a shirt, and i figure someone else will make a more serious one, so I let myself be as twee as i wanted, and this is the result.  Now being watercoloured.


Black swan,  black cockatoo, blue wren, and a non-gendered druid.   :)

We had a fun games night here not long before I got the snots. This pic came just before Thor crashed the Jenga pile.  We'd already played three games of Forbidden Desert by then and died every time. Apparently the five player version is very hard to win, so we didn't feel too bad.


I'll leave you with these pics of a creepy place I found when walking a local reserve I'd found in the street directory.  Turned out it was a whole big old granite quarry area, now abandoned, and it was one of those really weird moments to come upon it all out there when I'd expected just ordinary bush.


It had very odd energy and i found myself Druidly blessing the torn up land, and blessing the restless spirits of those who had laboured here, perhaps the convicts who built the railway lines in the area.    

This was the deep and black lagoon I came across.  A hole cut while chasing the dark granite into the ground, and now full of black water even so late in a dry summer.  It reminded me of nothing so much as the pool at the gates of Moria.  Brrr!   Didn't even dip a toe!   

 
  

Thursday, 13 December 2018

Me bad!


How do you go from blogging twice a week to blogging never in a few short months?  I dunno.  I am still saving photos, but not blogging.   I know I'm going to regret it down the track because I forget stuff and this blog makes me remember it, and take photos of life too.  I like that about blogging.

Ah well, we'll see. Maybe my holiday has done me good. In the meantime, here's the pics I've been collecting...
Druidy meditations with the help of a kitty.  It is not conducive to concentration when a cat comes and sits on you and peers under your hood to make sure it is you before settling in to purr.  

Pretty Cyrano. 

Me blacking out at a burn.  Those Xanthorrea really go up, but soon they sprout new greenery and away they go again. 

Photo taken by local paper to add a local element to an article about a show on cable tv called Bushfire Wars.  Our shire and brigade were part of episode 2.  We were actually blacking out a fire when they came to take the pic, so we were authentically grubby.  Yes that's me dead centre.  Only lady on the fireground at the time!  

At a training day, slacking off in the back of the truck. 

Blacking out at a hazard reduciton burn with our wonderful new brigade.

Andrew crew leading on our first fire call of the summer. 

Andrew trying to find the Oxfam trailwalker trail as a crew safety support officer.

My three new Sussex bandits, Blue the Light Sussex, Powder and Puff the Coronation Sussex.  

My way cool new chook shed built almost totally by me!  


Mama guinevere and her singleton chick, a rooster of course. 

That is one scary fierce mama gaze!



Art, of the back yard.  

What i found next to my ear on the back of the shed door when i peered in looking for something one day.  

Jarrah blossom on a tree I planted some years ago. 

The sun setting high above perth at the oxfam trailwalk. 

Neighbours' bonfire, with high winds, in dry spring conditions.   Yep, horizontal flames are ok aren't they? (Answer: NO!) 


Pretty sunset over perth. 

Tuppy in the cone of shame after having a cyst removed from her eyelid.  It looks great now!

More drawing practice.

Gorgeous wildflowers on Perth scarp.

May you all have a lovely Christmas season, no matter what you call it, and to my Druid friends, I wish a very merry and fruitful Alban Hefin! 

Here's your gift from me, a new story.  It is not Christmassy at all, and yet somehow it is.  I hope you enjoy it!  It's called Mistress Munchkin & the Plutonium Dragon. 

 

Friday, 31 August 2018

Life and Dream

The dream was the 17th OBOD Australian Assembly, or maybe the assembly was real life at last.  Not sure.  At any rate, it was bloody amazing, and I can't talk about much of it because it is secret Druid's business (it is a mystery school and it is most fun if you get to learn things in their correct order) however I can say that a weekend with more than 40 people who are all open, heart-centred, nature-loving, creative and just downright wonderful, well, it was life-changing.

Ceremony, connection, laugher, tears, goosebumps, stories, singing, dancing, hugging, meditating, making music, walking amongst the trees with people who love them like I do.  Pure bliss!

Can I show you pics of the lovely people and what we got up to?  Nopey nope!   I wish I could but I can't.  I'll hold the times and the photos close to my heart instead.  To those who were there, just let me say, I love you all, and you are all amazing humans, and may we meet again soon, because I can feel your hearts all the way out there across Australia and New Zealand, and it is something to hold to, but will not be enough forever.

Special mention to Dusty and Jenni, my fellow WA-ites, who shared a cabin with me and made me feel like a kid camping again.  You both rock and I love you lots!     

Here is the hillside beyond the campground with a distant rainbow.
     

Here is me just after my initiation as Druid.  What can I can say about that but, hell yes, if you are an OBODie on the path, keep going, because it just gets better and better, and of the Druids who held space for my fellow initiates and me, I want to say a heartfelt thank you, and may it be so that I one day come to carry and share the joy, warmth and wisdom that you carry and share so gracefully.


Almost the very best thing?  I made it!  No crashes, no bad reactions, I was full of energy for the whole four days no matter how hectic it got.  I had to be careful, especially of what I ate and breathed, but ten years ago, if someone had told me that one day I would be well enough to do such a thing, I'd have thought they totally sucked for teasing me.  Chronic Lyme *can* be treated and managed well enough to have a good life again, and I am living proof, but I will never take it for granted.  I'm loving every moment of it. 

Home is good too.  I'm still bouncy happy Tina.  No post-con depression.  I am every day working to add more of my spirituality into my life.  Seeking to find out who I am at core, and making sure I prioritise those parts of my life that feed that.  We are all works in progress, and I'm working on it.  Always will be, I'm sure.

More time in nature...







More time with good friends, human and animal...






More time doing work of the hands...

The moccs are getting a makeover. 

Druid tabard to be...
       More time doing all sorts of writing and making art and making music...

New kids' story coming soon!


More time doing service for my community at both my brigades, including my amazing new bushfire brigade, Chidlow VBFB...


Shiny new jacket for a shiny new beginning!

More time snuggling you-know-who...


And apparently less time crocheting, because that same you-know-who likes sitting on the current afghan way too much lately.

Blogging is still going to be less frequent, but I miss the diary element of my time here.  I might endeavour to be more regular with it.  We'll see.  Lots else to do these days!

I wish for you all, "a blessing upon your days, a blessing upon your lives, a blessing upon the land."  /|\