Kitchen / Garden / Sanctuary - Urban Homesteading to Nourish Body + Spirit
Happy Easter to you today! It’s a quiet, sunny Sunday morning here in Colorado, and this morning it really seems like spring has come. The lawns are getting green, the finches and robins are chirping, the daffodils and grape hyacinth are blooming, and the trees and bushes — though still bare silhouettes — are coming to life again.
May you have a wonderful Easter, however you choose to celebrate the re-awakening of nature in this most welcome and hopeful season!
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What a dear holiday Easter is. I love the sweet, cheerful decorations, the colors of early spring, the smell of hyacinth.
Back in late January, I had clipped some aspen branches and brought them into the house. They’ve been such a nice touch of nature to have around, carrying on with their life cycle of blooming and leafing out, content in just a vase of water.
So naturally, our indoor aspen tree needed some Easter eggs. I do have some blown-out-and-dyed eggs from several years ago, and this year I blew out some brown eggs, which are beautiful just as they are.
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To make your egg tree:
Clip a few branches and place them in a vase of water or sand.
Blow out some eggs by piercing both ends with a sharp implement like nail scissors or a needle or an old-fashioned ice pick; blow the innards into a bowl.
A nice way to hang each egg is to get a length of thin branch and cut it into short bits, 1/2″ or 1″ (2cm) long (or use part of a match stick or toothpick). The branch I used was from an elm tree.
Cut about 12″ (30cm) of thread, and tie a double knot on the branch bit. The knot doesn’t have to be completely centered on the branch. It helps to start a knot with the thread, and then slip the branch piece into it.
Slip your branch bit all the way into the top hole of the egg.
Hang it like this. Tie off the thread about 3″ (7cm) above the egg.
Then decorate your little egg tree! Don’t worry, your cat will help you.
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Happy Solstice, Happy Winter, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!
I hope you’ve all been well. Did you have a nice holiday season?
It’s been a nice few weeks here. Working hard to get my handmade gifts ready, lots of nice Christmas music (Kohala Christmas is a favorite at our place), multiple trips to the local thrift shop to search out wool sweaters — both to wear and to felt for projects — and then after Christmas some nice down time. Getting ready for Christmas I pushed my body further than I ought to have (I was feeling so good!), and timing being what it is, I crashed on Christmas Eve. So most of Christmas Day was spent on my parents’ apartment floor by the tree, pressing my head to a package of frozen lunch meat to try to calm a horrendous headache. Around five I was feeling a little better, and we opened gifts in the twilight (instead of in the morning) next to the glowing tree — which ended being so enchanting that I think we’ve started a new tradition!
And now the New Year feels like a nice clean slate. Since I have survived (which was a question mark in my mind for some time), and am now healing from, the awful disease that is Brucellosis, I’m beginning to think about what’s next in terms of career and life direction and moneymaking endeavors. Those thoughts are exciting and I have so many ideas, but they can be very overwhelming too, on days when the “what’s next” feels far away and out of reach. As I’m learning, it takes quite a while to rebuild a body so completely exhausted and depleted by nineteen months of unchecked infection and then a further ten months of strong antibiotic treatment. I am feeling SOOO much better. But the rebuilding part does take time. Actually I have to keep reminding myself of this — the big picture of what my body has been handling — because my mind gets easily carried away with activities and cool ideas and thoughts of the future and what I need to be doing to get myself there. But then my body yanks on the choke chain, reminding me that getting back to my old self is not instantaneous and everything will happen in good time (as in “not all at once at this very moment“).
So I’ve been keeping a slower, simpler, more realistic pace when possible. You know how if you work really really hard at your job, and it’s really intense work, and there’s lots of stress, and you don’t have any downtime…how you burn out quickly? Well that’s what happens in life too, I’ve realized. Especially with the pace at which our world moves now. Even though I’m just in my 20s, I feel like I’ve lived several lifetimes already. So much stuff has been packed in. Some of it really fun, some of it really not fun. And when you pack that much in, you get worn out and you start burning out. And if you’re very sensitive (any fellow HSPs out there?) you can get overwhelmed and burnt out even more easily due to the sheer intensity of it all. Being very ill is an intense experience. It taxes you physically, mentally, and emotionally. And so what I’m learning again and again is that I can’t get ahead of myself. Even if I have a million cool ideas I want to follow through with, I have to dial it back and pace myself otherwise I will burn out totally. First things first. My first priority must remain my health. (Health really IS wealth. If you don’t have your health, you have no energy to earn monetary wealth!) When I’m frustrated and tired of that being my #1 priority, I remind myself that it’s an investment in my future. I must get fully well NOW, so that I may be who I want to be and do the things I want to do in the future. If I don’t address the physical things that need attending to right now, and let my body fully heal, then things could be a little dicey down the road. Best to address it now.
So I’ve been staying quiet, moving (when I remember to) at a slow and deliberate pace. Doing one thing at a time (like drinking tea and doing nothing else during that time), and taking the time to do things that make my spirit happy. My appetite for anything techie has been minimal, so my computer has been off a lot. It’s been nice. I’ve enjoyed keeping more of a “1972 pace” rather than a “2013 pace” if that makes any sense.
And now, onto some pictures…
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Thanks to an afternoon with my mom and her car (thank you Mom!!!), we’ve got a big beautiful charlie brown tree in the corner of our living room. I think one of the very best parts of Christmas is having a real live tree in the house.
This morning, to the soft sounds of Christmas music I remember from childhood, I strung the lights and laid out the ornaments. It’s cloudy today — a rarity that I cherish in this very sunny climate. Clouds make the day cozy and peaceful.
Tonight my Honey and I will decorate.
Assuming the ornaments remain intact till then…
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I love surprises!
Last night I kept looking out at the streetlight, expecting to see snow falling. We weren’t forecast to get any (that I knew of), but the color of the light and clouds were what I always associate with snow. But I didn’t really think twice because it’s been such a stingy year for precipitation and the weather forecast was nothing but little sunshine icons. And so once again, life is at its best when you have zero expectations!
I woke up this morning and I gasped with a big smile as I saw what had fallen overnight! They were snow clouds!!
The sun in shining though, so it won’t last long.
But there’s nothing like snow and cold to remind you what season it is, and I’m thinking it might be time to get a tree pretty soon…
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Welcome to The Herbangardener! This site is dedicated to nourishing the body + spirit, backyard organic gardening, traditional foodways, and homesteading in the heart of the city. Do come along and join me!
"There's nothing more pleasurable than making things by hand, and nothing more beautiful than handmade things."
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"Only after the last tree has been cut down; only after the last fish has been caught; only after the last river has been poisoned; only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten."
- Cree Nation Tribal Prophecy
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