Random acts of Love

I'm still amazed at this story in it's wholeness... how my path is coming together...so full of love and gratitude.

Last week my amazing friend Aaron (for some reason it's hard for me to call him Dr. unless its followed by buttface...lol I'm obviously never growing up! So I can check that off the bucket list!) has a Patient Appreciation event planned for his Chiropractic patients (Apex Chiropractic) where he's going to have a few vendors and snacks and chair massage then later a dinner at a local restaurant (Wisconsin Street Cafe & Bakery). But he doesn't have a therapist to do the massage, so of course instantly I say, "I can probably do it...but we need a chair." It just so happens that his open hours worked right around my class yesterday, perfect! Also another syncronicity...I had just learned chair massage last Thursday, talk about perfect timing! And they found a chair!

I was getting a bit nervous we had practiced four 15 min chair massages in a row on Thursday night and I could definitely feel they were more taxing than a regular massage on fingers and fore arms, and now I had two shifts where I could be doing chair massage for hours in a row... It's like learning to run on Thursday and then running a half marathon on Monday! Ok, not that bad ;)

The patients were amazing, I was a little nervous for the first one as my chair massage routine sheet got to go home with someone else on Thursday night... I remembered enough to leave people with sleepy relaxed faces when they got up :) ❤ Everyone was so gracious I felt rich in kindness and appreciation. I loved hearing the relaxed tones and slowed pace of their voices when they were talking to me. Some had never had a massage. There was a trio of patients that I connected with and I told Aaron on our way to the Appreciation dinner. I was exhausted sitting by myself at a little table just enjoying the sounds and faces around me and in walks the trio from earlier in the day, Kirby, Mary Lou and Wayne. One of them said to me that I didn't have to sit in the corner by myself, so I followed them up to a table and plopped right down.

To summarize our conversations we were preaching to our own choirs! We talked about me and massage school, how we have a respect for money and realize it's usefulness but don't place much value on it, how much we love connecting with people and helping make things really anything better, and smiling. Kirby said he is drawn to talk to people by their smiles, and Wayne had mentioned something about seeing a creative spark in my eyes, and Mary Lou she was just sweet as heck!

Amongst the talking we got to hear Aaron talk about some of the successes of the the patients who did the 30 day Maximized Living Challenge. In particular a 61 year old man lost 20 pounds and reduced his tryglycerides by astonishing amounts like 290s down to 192 or 92.. and even lowered 20 points in regards to his diabetes, all by changing his diet and exercising! Amazing!

I was feeling so full of love, my arms were heavy and tired I was feeling sleepy and inspired. I always love hearing Aaron talk about the spine and wellness I felt the love he was sharing. I also felt the love from my new trio of friends. I have a hard time describing it other than we all just connected, lovers of life and lovers of sharing that love! You know how you just feel connected to some people, these were my people. I was so grateful just to be around them but Wayne saw something in me or felt he had something to offer. I caught him out of the corner of my eye writing a check...I got nervous and almost thought please don't I hope thats not for me...I have a hard time accepting money, even from my parents unless its my birthday or a holiday.

He slid it near me, I didn't touch it until it was time to go and he said, "Don't forget that." I took it and folded it in half and stuck it in my purse without looking at it. I didn't care if it said 4 cents or 40 dollars. The fact that he wanted to give me something was beautiful, I would have been thrilled if he'd given me a rock. I would however have a problem if it was an exorbitant amount. It wasn't exorbitant though was much more than I thought. I stepped out to use the restroom and came back and gave all three of them a hug, and told Wayne his gift would go directly toward school.

I was amazed, so much love just flowing in and out and around. Those three are trouble, but the good kind, the kid you want to be in :) Three perfect strangers, who are not strangers at all, universal love.

 A poem from a favorite book The Moon Appears When the Water is Still

"A wise saint once said,

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap."

If we plant seeds of anger, jealousy or hatred

we will harvest only weeds of sadness and misery.

Such is the universal law of nature.

Day follows night. Fathers beget sons.

The apple not only falls close to the tree

the apple is the tree.

Seeds of kindness watered with smiles

must produce flowers of happiness and joy."

Thank you Kirby, Mary Lou and Wayne, for watering my heart with generosity kindness and smiles. Surely the cycle continues. :)

Much love and light

Lindsey xoxo

Messengers

I feel I have always had what I call a soft spot for animals whether they are two, four, six or even eight or million legged. They capture my attention and fascinate me....beautiful beings. I have started to learn they are bearers of messages. Reminders for us to be aware. Reminders and guides. Their intelligence is not one from books it's inherent, intuitive and wise. I don't feel yet I can share with you their magic maybe soon. For now I will share my encounters.

Butterflies

I met this beautiful Monarch at a butterfly house at Beaver Creek Reserve. It wasn't the best day for butterflies I was told. Of course I decided to venture out anyway. I locked right onto this one struggling on a plastic sign cover. I stretched my hand out and it crawled right on. We spent quite some time together before it decided to fly over to a nearby milkweed plant. I remember the great sense of power I felt as it crawled on my hand. For such a weightless creature it had an incredible grasp!

Red Spotted Purple

This is another friend from the butterfly house. I collected another of its kind in my garage. My mom had pulled out her car to give it a scrub, and in its place were two treasures. One perfect little Pink Edged Sulfur and a Red Spotted Purple, who was a little worse for the wear. They unfortunately had met their end, though I touched the Purple and it began to flap its wing, slowly open and closed. I stayed and watched quietly as my parents shuffled about, my dad peering over obviously wondering what I was doing. I showed him the flapping butterfly. He commented something about a butterfly healer haha. I would be so honored! After I was sure the Purple had passed I picked them up and inspected. I couldn't believe the Purple had been able to flap...only had one good pair of wings on one side the other side was crumpled as well as I believe it was missing many organs....a special moment.

Aphrodite Fritillary

 I was out for a bike ride with my Auntie the other day, and of course as always had my animal spotting eyes on. After about 10 miles I hadn't noticed much. Then on my way down the hill I saw what I thought may be a Swallowtail traipsing in its bouncing flight pattern across the road. I sailed closer just to  have a friendly collision on my shirt. It really didn't seem to noticed and continued on his way. We should all be so calm and accepting of surprise situations!

Cope's Gray Treefrog

This little friend my mom found hanging out on our house. Just a little bigger than a quarter.

This is my parents resident Gray Fox. It lives in the back yard, we've seen it often leaving the den and returning about two hours later near dusk sometimes with prey. So beautiful. My dad also had a Fox and pups living under a shed at his auto shop! Maybe he has a fox totem animal? They sure seem to like him. I let my dog Jack outside one morning about 4:30 am and heard the strangest "Arf" noise...it was the fox with its territorial call!

Jack also woke me up early to see the mist burning off the lake. He's a great friend :)

Have you experienced any animal magic lately or do you have a totem animal? I would love to hear about it!

xoxo

L

Big Garden Changes in Less Than a Week!

Our 'mid leafing' shot

We sat outside eating breakfast in the sunshine one mornoon( we tend to sleep in so we eat breakfast around 11 sometimes haha!) looking at our straw covered beds. Dorian wasn't too convinced anything would really grow in the straw. We, after all, have only experienced plants grown in dirt, so the straw is a bit of a foreign concept. I started poking around and found a surprise! Straw was growing in the straw! So our passions were re-ignited! We shifted back into "bulk materials collection mode".

We had used much of our straw and needed some more bulk material to lay down... so we headed off in search of leaves! According to the books I read on sheet mulching the leaves are supposed to be chopped up, but it also says that sheet mulching is very forgiving, so we just went for whole leaves! 

The 'leafing' is finished!

We poked around a neighboring subdivision on super bowl sunday and decided to rake an empty lot! We chatted with the neighbors  that walked past (who were harassing me that I wasn't watching the game...hahah), picked up some trash, recycling, and about five bags of leaves that we packed into my truck. Dorian also picked up an obsession with collecting bricks to border the beds in. The beds look much cleaner and more organized, but we still need a bunch more bricks! We found a gold mine of bricks in some old empty lots with houses that had been demolished. The Truckalier was looking more like it was fully equipped with hydraulics and they were set to looowww! (cue "Low Rider" song,    doot doot doot doot doot doot doot, doot doot doot doot dooooooot!)

On Tuesday we went on some more adventures looking for bricks, after we got some letter stencils so Dorian could make a personal training sign for the front yard. We were tooling around good ole fayetteville, as we stopped at a light eagle eye (yours truly) spotted some bags of leaves! HA! Perfect, we didn't even have to rake them! We stopped by the house and they had a table there too! I had mentioned a day or two ago that we needed an outdoor table to have some space to do seeding and transplanting. It was so amazing, our brick hunt had turned into finding the perfect table and  more bags of leaves than we knew what do do with! Yet another example of how life unfolds perfectly :)

We had eyed up some awesome composted mulch at our local yard waste facility, but as you know a bulldozer load of composted mulch probably won't fit very well in my Chevy Truckalier....(remember this??) We felt a little frustrated and unequipped, and antsy, wanting to get our beds ready.

Recently I had a family contact me about baby sitting (don't worry this actually relates I'm not going on a tangent....). They live really close so its very convenient and the family is so sweet! I happened to mention to the father that we were trying to get large amounts of mulch into our back yard and he immediately offered his truck and help!! I've only met these people for a total of about 3 hours! He let me know that Friday the 18th he didn't have to work and would have time to help us out! (Ok this whole unfolding life things is getting a bit blatant.....These people first SEEK me out, provide me with a wonderful job, and then offer to help us haul a bunch of compost!!??)

Dorian it looks like you are planting nothing...

AH! ok, Yellow Wonder Wild Strawberry seeds! So tiny!

We were hoping to have the mulch a bit sooner but decided that we could look for bricks, and start some seeds in the mean time. We started a bunch of seeds on Friday afternoon, and let the broccoli, cauliflower and spinach out of the greenhouse to bask in the unadulterated rays of the sun for a bit, we were thinking about leaving them outside for the night (they are getting big!). At about 10 or 11 pm Dorian asked me if we had zipped up the greenhouse.......I couldn't remember.......I was feeling confident about our little seedlings and their outdoor adventure, but I checked the weather anyway. EEEK! It was supposed to get to 29 degrees! I ran outside picked up the frosty seedlings, got them back into our chilly greenhouse (which was left unzipped, gar!) and figured that we probably had just killed them...

Red and Yellowish Onions and Ground Cherries!

Peppers!!! Hot and sweet!

We awoke early on Saturday morning to check on our frost victims. Dorian reported they were still frozen and so was the soil in the trays we had just planted....ruh roh.... Since we were awake at such an early hour we decided to get our morning 1 hour meditation in and eat breakfast at breakfast time! 

Almost as soon as our sit was done my phone rang. (this was surprising itself because of my reliance on texting) It was the people I started to baby sit for. I answered and it was the father, he said he would have time today to haul some mulch for us!! (Ok again...the unfolding of life and its synchronistic qualities..... is this becoming more obvious to you too??) So we tossed on some workin' clothes and drank our breakfast (Dorian sometimes prefers drinking his meals in the form of milk, bananas, apple, peanut butter, cinnamon, and oats in a blender...haha!) and headed over to get a bulldozer load of mulch!

Dorian watering the leaves....so they don't blow away!
 "Bella, what do you have? DROP IT! Stop eating dirt!"

We had a nice full load of mulch for just $10! The unloading was the fun part. We have no wheel barrow.... We had cleverly dumped each load onto a tarp and carried it across the lawn and dropped it onto the beds. Woof! We had gotten about half the garden covered and said good bye to the boys, they were in need of lunch and getting ready for the circus later that day!

We were excited and wanted to finish what we started. We had heard that our other friend was in town this weekend and we may be able to use his truck, and as luck would have it, he was headed over to work out! And sure enough he brought his truck, and we had a bunch of other people over at our garage gym that were going to keep those guys busy for a while. Just enough time for us to get a load of compost! (seriously.... do I even have to say it again? I will, synchronistic unfolding!)

Yay! All finished! There's one of our helpers too! Thanks!

Ta daaaaa! We got another truckload of composted trees, and finished up the beds! It was a lot of work, hauling tarp-loads of composted trees around the yard but it looks GREAT! I hope our plants appreciate it!

Thank you SOOO MUCH to our friends for their help and use of their trucks! We appreciate it beyond comprehension, we couldn't have done it without you! Be prepared, hopefully we have some garden skills and will be sharing our bounty with you!

I will leave you with this:

Nice mustache Farmer D.....

Lots of love, happy thoughts, and dirty fingernails!

xoxo L

Kindness of Strangers

I am in AWE today. All due to a stranger.

As most of you know Dorian and I have moved from glorious California to North Carolina to live with his brother Sean and Sean's Girlfriend Stacey.  We moved here not only to live with these two wonderful people but to start our own garden and perhaps infect a few people with the idea that growing your own food is an incredibly useful tool. (Not to mention delicious, rewarding, and way better for you!)

Now we have this glorious blank canvas of a garden that we get to have our way with. We decided to sheet mulch as much as we could. (find out more about sheet mulch here, or check out one of my new most favorite books Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture) Which means we need an absurd amount of cardboard/newspaper, straw, mulch and manure. As well as a boat load of lime as our pH test let us know our soil is 'very acid'.

 With our budget of $0 we were excited for the challenge of "materials reconnaissance" (OH MY! My spell checker just let me know by NOT putting the red line under that word that I have spelled it correctly (side note - I am a terrible speller and am incredibly pleased with myself)). We started out asking newspaper companies for old copies and ended up with a 1.5 foot stack. The local library informed us that they have an internal recycling system, which means sad face for us. But never fear treasure (abandoned boxes) was to be had! We didn't even have to dig it up it was just laying around the neighborhood so we picked it up when we were out walking (we also found a shovel that was a little broken but would still dig holes! Even after these victories we still need much, much more.

Haulin' a load in my truck!

Next step, straw. ( Which is really what this post is about.) We could have purchased them for around $5 a bale, but that isn't much fun now is it?  Right, so on many of our tours through our little maze of a community we had noticed that a few people had straw bales up for decorations! It being nearly Thanksgiving I had a inkling that perhaps these bales needed to be gotten rid of. Lucky them!  I knew just the people who wanted them! After ringing a few doorbells and leaving some notes we ended up with about seven bales. One of those people that was so kind to give us three bales (seen here in our "truck") even offered to ask her friend about getting more! So we gave her a call today, she had said perhaps her friend had seven bales that we could have. She not only brought seven plus two bales she had gone to her friends' house picked them up and delivered them to us FOR FREE! All from a woman we didn't even know. It was such a sweet thing she did, she even said she might have more for us! (sighing in awe and total gratitude, I think this is a little wink and smile from our friend Karma! you reap what you sow! (pun intended!))

Yeah he is that strong!

It's when things like this happen that remind me why Dorian and I are meant to be here. To share in the human experience.  The world is so full of kindness, consciousness and love; we all just have to remember it is in everyone.