Snippets of Yule

As a bonafide bah humbug, it is useful for me to consciously focus on the parts of Yule that bring me very special moments and memories, and that align with my core values. Here are a few of them......

Lighting my son's hand made tallow candle. In his Pioneers course, they rendered some beautiful deer tallow from a deer that the instructor had taken in as a mercy killing after it had been brutally hit by a car.

A green Yule...... I decided against wrapping paper this year. Everything we wrapped was in re-used stuff: Paper bags, last year's stuff, and extra packaging material from shipped boxes. The coolest ones were the bubble wrap (which my nine year old loves to pop) and the no-longer-needed blueprint paper. The Trader Joe's bags are pretty groovy too.

The amount of herbal gifts I give has drastically reduced from a large basket of maybe 20 goods in it per person or couple, to just one or two. Since working at Great Hollow I just don't have the time to keep up on home made herbal products or inventory for that matter. But I did manage to make a coupe really nice things..... a lovely sacred solstice smudge blend, containing red cedar needles I harvested, rose petals from an organic bouquet my hubby gave me, copal, myrrh, frankincense, lavender, and white sage. mmmmmmm. and the little finishing touch is the shell to scoop it out with.

A delicious and supremely soothing staple is a good quality comfrey salve. This one I kicked up a notch for gift giving - ok fine, for my own guilty pleasure! I put in a little cocoa absolute and clementine co2 and it smells out of this world delicious! The wrap on the left is a wash cloth I crocheted out of some really buttery wool blend yarn, and tied up in it is some good soap.

Now what did I get for Yule? Well, I got a few really special things, but topping the list is a generous antidote to my above stated dilemma...... HERBS! Yes, my Mama herbalist came through with flying colors and granted me a beautiful basket of organic and locally harvested bulk herbs, labeled "to my Medicine Woman Daughter" - almost needed the tissues for that one! Oats, Nettle, Red Raspberry leaf, Peppermint, Sassafras, and Astragalus. Perfect.

Recovery will be a breeze.............
I can sit back for a little while and sip my infusion amidst the boxes, new books and calendars, and watch the juncos collect seeds,

...and the Pileated Woodpeckers as they spiral up the hemlocks in a glorious and rhythmic tandem dance. Happy inbetween days everyone........

new ID

I suppose I'm the queen of almost identifications lately .... the bird has been bugging me all day since only some of the pictures seemed accurate.

THIS: http://agri.state.nv.us/WestNile/maps/SwainsonHawkL.jpg

is precisely the bird I saw - so I guess it's this Swainson light morph hawk? - never heard of it.

Anyhow - my eyes know what I saw! Darn those incomplete birding books!

Back to plants soon - I promise!

Winged year

I've seen more varieties of birds this year than ever. It's amazing... I've seen everything from Kingfishers, to an Egret, Osprey, Hawks which are common, Northern Flickers and Baltimore Orioles, tons of woodpeckers of all kinds, Turkeys, and many more. But this Northern Harrier Hawk on my tree this morning just took the cake. It's invisible call and evasive flight has been the hot topic of our dinner table for a few days now, trying to identify it. When it showed up outside my window I nearly spazed out - but that would have scared it, so I grabbed the camera instead and snuck out. About 30 feet from my face in the blinking eastern sunrise was this magnificent hawk-owl almost osprey looking bird of prey. The binoculars (far better detail than my lame camera) revealed the distinctive feather patterns of the female, (brown head, owl turning neck, amber fluff collar, spotted chest, and brown wings with a "V" shaped spotted decoration on the back when the wings are closed) and in the distance we could hear her mate calling back, the one with a tricky more osprey looking feather fashion.

The picture above is after she flew across to another tree (below)- but she can still be seen with her lighter colored chest helping to illuminate her. Her cries are distinctive, from short succinct flute-like sounds, to percussive, amplified screams, as well as full on long classic hawk screams that trail off into the hills after sending chills up your spine.
The wings are only slightly bent shaped when seen from below while in flight - and OH so grand!! Can you follow the wings down to the tips? They are longer than it seems since the last few inches are dark brown.

What does this have to do with plant journeys?

These are the perks of plant watching :)

Anyone think there is an auspicious totem message here? I've let go of the red tail hawk thing .... they're everywhere here in abundance. But this one and the recent Egret ... now those are special!