The Cascades: Virginia. Trip one. 6/22

My (totally awesome) friend Paige came to visit, she lives nearby in Harrisonburg, VA. Upon her arrival Neville and Michael decided that it would be an excellent day for the crew to take a zero day (in hiker terms a day off so you hike 'zero' miles). Well on our 'zero' day we hiked 2 miles in and 2 miles out in this gorgeous gorge! I managed to leave my nice camera back at the hostel for this adventure....silly me, luckily I still had my phone camera.

We had stopped to get some food in town and the above was the resulting food coma....mmm napping at a waterfall, what could be better? Also noted, apparently we were the crazy people of the woods... everyone who were there when we arrived vacated shortly after we starting jumping in off the rocks! We honestly didn't smell THAT bad!?

Got ya!

Congrats Cascades, Best nap ever list achieved!

Mountain People: Evan, Neville, Michael, Paige and Shad

Professor Evan giving us a lesson on the mushroom "Chicken of the Woods". Hilarous....

Trip to town anyone?

slack packing and building demolition

hi.

Well, I just arrived in DC, where I shall meet up with my Auntie Jolene and Uncle Kelly, their son Adam and their foreign exchange student Christian (Who is from Chile) And also where I am updating from! Anywho stay tuned for those adventures next....onto the adventure recap

SLACKPACKING!!! yup, for those of you who don't know, this Appalachian Trail (AT) term it means as a Thru Hiker you have your heavy backpack toted to town by car and you take a daypack and some agua on the trail. More like a day hike.

This was the awesome crew that convinced me it would be rad to hike to town with them. And it was. 10 miles in 5 or so hours left my knees feelin' decrepit and my side butt sore for a couple days! IT ROCKED Thanks crew! You can keep up with what's left of this crew here at Wren's Blog.

From left to right: Neard, Old Spice, Lauren, Wren, Josiah, So Far, and Birch

We trekked thru some awesome Rhododendron forests (I love that word because it sounds like a dinosaur! You can guarantee I was holding my arms t-rex style as I bounced on thru) and saw some awesome Mountain Laurel flowers...that I didn't photograph. I encourage you to google it...ha Ooh and a Scarlet Tanager, electric red feathers!

This was an overlook entitled "Power Lines" where we stopped to have a snack and pee on stuff! (I've really come to enjoy peeing outside...its just so convenient lol!) What a fun group.  Magic Mix is the one with blue hair who picked up a kitten in Demascus, Va and is now hiking with him. The kitten's name is Sir. Night Walker is the other man on the right who enjoyed my "slow"pace until he commented about it!

The Deconstruction Project

Ranger Cabin Before Shot

Sunlight on an old mattress

I strolled into the cabin after carefully maneuvering the rusty nail obstacle course of a deck and found a treasure inside. Im not sure if I can describe to you why I love such old and dilapidated things. They just have such a profound stillness perhaps, they have just been there still, enduring the weather not wanting just there.

Shad, Neville and Michael taking it to the roof!

Evan or "Easy" ripping off the siding. 

A butterfly visitor.

Aumakua with her stick of course...
she has an addiction...

Michael throwing popcorn!
It looks like its in his beard!

Rocky and Bookworm

The wrecking crew back row:
Aumakua, Scrubbs, Easy/Evan Bookworm, Shad/Scar, Five Stones
Front Row:
Neville, Michael, Rocky, and myself

All in all it took us 3 days to take down the old ranger cabin. I was on the de-nail crew. Which at some points I was not entirely thrilled with, but it was still really fun! Evan tore down the old privy too, and now all the wood we saved from that has been turned into siding for the pig pen! There should be three new little piggies to meet when I get back to the hostel!

VA, yup made it.

So I made it to Virginia....a week ago hehe. It is amazing. Just what I needed. As I drove up the rode turned into a tunnel of trees a welcome hug from nature. So far I have planted peppers, pulled some weeds, set tables, folded laundry, meditated, hiked 10 miles, "moved mountains" also known as doing some trailwork building stairs out of boulders, drew some signs, petted dogs, smiled and laughed a lot, and met many amazing people, and learned much everyday.

There are so many wonderful people I have met here and learned so much from each of them. And plus I get to live in a tent! Oh and I forgot to mention the amazing home cooked meals! uh well this is a short one but I figured a few people might be wondering what crack I had dissappeared into. Ill be back later hopefully with photos and more stories.

With greatfulness for the interconnectedness of life,

Much Love!!
Lindsey
xoxo

Transitioning and Painting

It seems life is almost always transitioning, at least in my experience. Well, yet another transition is happening. I am moving to Virginia for a spell to help a wonderful woman whom I met at my Vipassana Meditation course named Neville. She and her husband Michael own  Wood's Hole Hostel which is located 1/2 mile off the Appalachian Trail. So they host lots of those thru hikers! For those of you who don't know, a thru hiker hikes from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail (AT) which usually takes around 6 months! Pretty amazing! One friend I met while working at Emandal, Dave, completed a thru hike a few years ago doing it entirely (as far as I know) in Chacos (hiking SANDALS!?). Also very relevant Dave may be nearly done with his first Vipassana Meditation course! I hope he is learning much and working very diligently. Not only do Neville and Michael host hikers but they also feed them, grow a garden, keep bees, teach yoga, and perform massage! I know right!! I am excited to help them with whatever they need and hopefully I get to play in the garden a bit. I hope they are prepared for me! I come bearing plants and an arsenal of seeds! This looks to be a wonderful next step.

With this transition my path leads away from Dorian's. It has been a bit tearful but very important for both of us. I can't speak for him but for me it equates to an excellent opportunity to practice presence and non attachment. Within relationships I tend to become dependent, which suppresses my intuition. I just end up wanting to please the other person and lose track of my path. With that said I can feel the excitement of opportunity and the thrill of not knowing what the universe holds for me in its hands. Taking each step as it comes. Just like flowers, as one fades another rises and blooms, but not after dropping a few seeds ;)

Shifting gears a little, you haven't seen much of my work lately huh!? Well, my favorite neighborhood family was over working out the other day and we decided to see if 5 year old Gage wanted to do some painting. (Dorian and I ended up taking about a million canvasses from his parents over the holidays, and it was a good time to put them to use...so we didn't have to pack them in our cars!)  While Gage was experimenting with color mixing on his canvas (his paintings were awesome by the way...) I was thinking about two furry roommates....one fat and white and the other thin and orange.  I entitled this diptych "Fat White and The Orange One" The cats real names are Sugar and Ginger but ever since Dorian and I moved in Sugar has been Fat White Cat.  And for a while I couldn't remember Ginger's name so I called her The Orange One, currently she is walking across some bare shelves then onto the bed and crashing her head into my arm, licking and biting me. I'm not sure what it is but cats tend to bite me...usually not in a mean way...except for one.... Though she bites me I can't help but feel very relaxed and calm when she walks past and grazes me with her tail and kneads me with her paws though the drooling and sandpaper tongue is less effective at this....

"The Orange One"

"Fat White"

You can see an orangish splotch on "Fat White" I decided not to paint over it because we were all joking that it was a scale representation of the two cats! haha! These masterpieces are going to stay up in the cat's room :) cats should have art too I guess!

This is a shot of one of my fabric cuffs that has a happy new home with one of my favorite farmer's market friend Katy, she also owns the wonderful bag I made for her which I decided to entitle "The Katy bag"

Be Happy & Much Love :)

xo

the buzzing of bees and flowering of consciousness

As I sit here I have the images of our garden flowers etched in my mind. Something about those cute Chamomile flowers reflects this bounding happiness within me. Flowers are somehow very connected to me........ perhaps we vibrate at similar frequencies (if you read this last line about frequencies and are perplexed, think of it this way, all matter is made of atoms right? and those little atoms have electrons zipping around outside of them (yes) so isn't all matter essentially moving or vibrating!?....i know right!?). Like feeling the buzz of bees right down in your heart. I can feel this buzzing sensation easily in my hands, try this: close your eyes, and see if you can feel your hands....not picture or imagine but actually FEEL them ....can you feel it, the aliveness and vibrations?

There is usually a flurry of winged creatures busily dancing about the blooms. Maybe I was a bee in a past life? It could explain my attraction to bright colors and flowers! ha Well I took a few pictures maybe you too can get a sense for my flower love :)

If you haven't you should click on the picture to enlarge them and see more detail.

 The Borage flower is beloved by bees, but check out that iridescent green guy..or gal!

German Chamomile

Candy Stripe Cosmos

Backside of the most beautiful purple Gladiolus!

Here's her face! Ms. Gladiolus! You may
recognize her from my tattoo!

Nodding Borage buds. Just waiting
to flash their blue petals.

Pink Zinnias! I love those
raggedy ones!

White Polar Bear Zinnia

Our Sugar Snap spoils! yum!

Baby Red Bell pepper

Bell Pepper flower, so beautiful!

How many cayenne's do you see?

The Tomato forest :)

Clouds have been very grounding for me....maybe the opposite of grounding. I'm not sure, but they remind me of the expanse of the universe and that I needn't get caught up in trivial matters....we (humans) are so tiny, yet can cause much change.... 

I look at them in awe and then become still, my mind empties.

I can feel the expanse of the sky.

My mind is rendered void and spacious.

Flowing with the currents of the universe.

Liberation.

New surprise friends!

Dorian and I were out perusing the garden the other morning as we tend to do. And we made some exciting discoveries. Dorian had spotted a tiny mantis in our broccoli on day, but on this day we found TWO baby Mantis...mantisess, manti...I'm unsure of the plural...Mantids? This one is so little the silver circle is a nail head.

This is my version of where's Waldo.... Mira Mantis? I think I've been watching too much Dora the Explorer with the tots I get to babysit haha.

 I'm not sure who found who!?

Beautiful.

 Of course we love the Ladybug, because they love munching aphids! This one is hanging out on my bolting cilantro, I didn't mind at all that the cilantro decided to go to seed. Bees love the flowers, and flowers make me giddy! I have buds on my stained glass flowers and a couple zinnia...talk about bugs in my britches, I don't want to pressure my flowers but I sometimes feel like camping out for a few hours to watch them.

 Damselfly hanging out on some lettuce. While I was working at Emandal I had a Damselfly land on my hat and stay there for almost a whole day! I took it into my room with me that night, and upon further inspection I found its wing to be crinkled :( The next morning it was gone. I'm certainly glad it came to stay with me a while. 

Yeah, I know. Super badass....right!? This plant makes me so happy! It's my Darlintonia Pitcher plant. Also known as the Cobra Plant and is native to Califorina whom also has 'cool root' requirements. Its a carnivore, yea it eats bugs! Hopefully not our friends mentioned above! This plant is so well adapted! Check out the windows on the bulbous head, once the ...lets say fly crawls in by that cool looking forked tongue and realizes it wants out, it flies up into those windows and can't find the hole it crawled in! Pretty narly... I am especially pleased because 2 of my other carnivores perished after some hard freezes and cat perils this winter, my beautiful white trumpet pitchers and my california sundew...

 the brassica homies, under their awesome shade structure.

 there she is looking nice and green!

Recently I have noticed my consumerist tendencies. I have also felt a bit of disconnect with my intuition and a general lack of focus. A bit hum drum if you will. Dorian and I made a trip to a local farm today, Raft Swamp Farm. Where Louie the proprietor lead us on a jacked up golf cart tour. It was so inspiring, he was truly a survivalist, using awesome cover cropping techniques, drip irrigation, and running things almost totally off grid! Who wouldn't want grapes, peaches, persimmons, blueberries, strawberries and mulberries! YUM! We also got to taste some purple passion asparagus! YUM, uh the mulberries were so delicious! What a wonderful place. Oh and the birds, he built tons of birdhouses for the birds and says they take care of all his flying insects, especially the purple martins they eat 3,000 bugs a day! Plus he has one of the only 3 registered natural apiaries in North Carolina! Yay for bees! and not using chemicals on them :) He also has I think eight 3.5 acre plots that farmers can come and use! He's a farmer incubator! He is full of wonderful ideas!

Louie was full of wonderful stories and even picked us some sassafras so we could make some tea...which reminds me its ready! Y'all remember what sassafras makes right?? I thought it smelled like licorice, and it does a bit but its root beer! 

Thanks Louie for a wonderful day! And for all you do!!

Much love xoxo

-L