A Woods Walk (much tiny beauty)

Since I have been sick the whole month of june (with suspected parasites from my pond, still waiting for test results to come back) .... i haven't been able to really walk much in the forest. I have been resting my body alot. The anti parasite herbal remedies i took made me half better, so today i went for a walk to see what the forest floor would behold. Cause if you look real close, there is always something going on - no matter how tiny the patch of ground you choose.
I found wild red bee balm, and mannnnnny mushrooms pushing their way up from the dirt...
Mushrooms hold some kind of magic, and no i don't mean the hallucinating and poisoning your enemy kind.... i mean, the way they always look like something in a fairy tale. Always manage to be beautiful, mysterious, and a sign of nature at it's best.
I saw alot of these tiny white flowers, which hang like bells or rain drops... or a saddness that is stunning in it's beauty.

I always get supremely excited when i see these mushrooms that look like underwater coral! I love when sea and land are so similar.
Tiny red wildflower.... growing near the red bee balm, but is not bee balm. Just a disguise.
XoxOXOX

Cha Cha Cha Changes

Sometimes I want to change my life. It's possibly a habit I have developed over the years... made worse by changing seasons (which I did not experience growing up in the tropical south.)
But on this rainy PMS day, i have no clue what the change is i desire. Or no real way to plan it out.
When it is something simple like, 'i want to move' then i can look for a new house. When it is vague and lingering, almost nagging - it has no rules, it has no plans, it's only a strong desire that hasn't found a form.
*
I want things, that I dont know if i can have. And if I can have them, I dont know how i will get from point A to point B... although usually the dominoes keep falling on their own knocking the next day into the next without any effort on my part.

Xoxoxox

Trees VS Solar

I have an sustainable issue that maybe ya'll can help me with...
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I moved into the forest, and there is only scarce amounts of sunlight coming to the Luck Cabin. While I would love to get off the grid entirely, when it comes to doing anything solar related... well the trees are blocking out the light. It seems crazy to me to cut down trees to have solar energy, but which option really is the most environmentally sound? I mean, how much is destroyed when I use up all the electricity... more then 10-20 trees?
I have a small hot water heater, run by electricity - it's small enough to fit under the kitchen counter. But I long to have a solar tank, that uses the sun to heat up the water. I have a stove and fridge run by electricity too... but I use maybe 30-40$ a month total, so switching to solar should be somewhat easy.
That is, if i had sunlight (and $).

I would love to open a discussion here where people can share their ideas of better ways to live Off Grid without using electricity generated by the electric company. Do I even need solar panels (sunlight heat), or is there a truly efficient and realistic way to live with no electricity year round without solar energy?
My suggestion box is open!
***
Here are steps I have already taken to be sustainable::::

• Gravity fed spring water
• Organic gardening (planting fruit trees, herbs, veggies etc to feed myself)
• Using wood to warm the cabin (also can cook on the wood stove too)
• Building my gray water system, instead of a septic tank
• Composting toilet
• My donkey! (using her poop as garden fertilizer and I plan to train her to take long rides, carry pack saddles, hike etc...)
• Rarely drive a car (i have a bike too, but don't have the strength to ride it in my area)
• Wear only organic, vintage, fair trade, used, thrifted clothing and shoes

Xoxoxox

Ready, Aim, CHoP!

It's that time of year again, when a few chilly nights are the wild's warning of the soon to come winter. My source of heat is wood, in a Treemont wood stove that was already here at the Luck Cabin when I moved in. I lucked out cause it holds a coal overnight, and that means I won't have to start a new fire every morning, which may be one of the harder things about heating with wood.
but not the hardest.
The hardest for me would be splittin' those logs into firewood! Remember last year when I was just learning how to really do it right? Weighing in at about 100 pounds (that would be me) made splitting wood with an ax something of a zen practice more then force.
I set up the log in a stable place and take a good look at my aim. I don't have tons of extra energy to waste on missing my mark, I have to make my swings count.

I am using a "Go Devil" type ax (heavy sledge hammer-ish shape on the back end), which works WAY better then the standard tree chopping ax. I figure if i start splitting a few logs a day now, by the time the real cold comes I will be ahead of the game unlike last year which was a harsh HARSH winter that caught everyone off guard.

It may take me way more swings then I would like (check my swing style I learned last year here) and my wood may still be a lil' green (aka- not totally dry)... but it's way more efficient, good exercise, and saves alot of money to spilt the logs myself. A stack of logs a day keeps da' doctor away!

How do ya'll stay warm for the winter and what do you think is the most earth friendly way to heat your home?

XOxoxoox

Trees In The Woods

I went for a walk in the woods next to the Luck Cabin, here are the trees I saw that made me say WOW, neato, and DAng!

Xoxox

1,2,3

Today is beautiful and sunny here in our little London burb. The air is slightly warm but there is still a chill in it. It is the perfect day to throw on a hat and light scarf, grab a coffee and go sit by the pond. We might just do that!

It would be a wonderful picnic day, those perfect days when you feel the seasons slipping into the next. There is always a magic in the air at this time. Maybe a cupcake will jump into my hands while I pick up my coffee.

These Martha Stewart ladybug cupcakes would be perfect to bring with us, and have a "ladybug picnic"! However, I know I won't be able to find these in my town today, I will just have to face the hardship of settling for a decadently rich chocolate cupcake with a rocky-road topping, or maybe a vanilla cupcake filled with raspberry jam and a swirl of raspberry buttercream and tiny hearts on top. It will be difficult to bring myself to have to eat one of these instead, but I will suffer through and do my best! (he he he)

Wish you were here, you could enjoy a cupcake with me too!

(Ladybug Cupcake image copyright Martha Stewart-click on the image to get her recipe for these cute cakes)

Going on A Twig Hunt!

This past weekend we went on our annual twig hunt for the Easter Egg tree. Normally we come back with a selection of different sized branches, but this year we actually found a fallen branch that looked more like a little German Christmas tree. So, home it came with us to be decorated.

The woods are very slowly starting to come to life. Daffodils are peaking their crowned heads up, polka dotting everywhere with sunshine yellow. We came across 2 muntjacs who were making their way down to the pond to drink, they saw us and leaped and bounded in the other direction. The smaller one, however, stopped behind a tree and just watched us for a little while as we watched him.

It was cold on Sunday, so even though we were bundled up we didn't last long in the woods the damp just oozed in to your pores. But the smell of fresh earth and clean air was so nice after a winter of not being able to walk in the woods, it wasn't too long though before we headed home to decorate our tree.




It was bigger than we thought! The scale of the woods made our little branch look "little". It wasn't until we got home and tried to get it  through the door we realized we had a problem!

After some laughing and cutting down the longer branches and trimming away some of the bottom we finally got it up. It is my first bit of Easter and there will be more to come this week. If the sunshine won't be outside, I can at least bring it inside!

My husband loves to hang the eggs on the tree. The first year we were married I found a German Easter Egg kit to dye eggs with. We searched and searched for white eggs since the grocery stores here only carry brown. Eventually, we found some lighter colored ones and after carefully blowing them out we spent an afternoon dyeing them.

He had never dyed an egg before, as this is not a British Easter tradition and it was such a delight to watch his sweet face light up as he hovered over his little pile of eggs making sure they changed to just the hue he wanted. That is how it should be, the simple things should never cease to please us!

Trees in Inter-Species Relationships

Is this hot or not? This tree hugging, by trees hugging trees of another species is.... well.... look at this! It's awesome.
And this, well it's like watching late night HBO in the late 80's .... this pair is actually....
K-I-S-S-I-N-G! Is it getting hawt up in here?!?
XoXoooox

I See Dead Things

It's not everyday I walk into something like this in the woods, but there was obviously a frenzy of activity up there beneath the trees ... tracks everywhere, holes dug, scat and then I walked almost right on top this fresh skull and jaw bone. Still partly red with blood, still pink flesh hanging off the bone, preserved in the icy snow.
My guess is it's a opossum or raccoon skull. Maybe groundhog or feline too?
Made me think I should stop making those jokes about a coyote possibly eating my face off... which I jest about after hearing them howl nearly 5 night a week now.
XoXo

Animal Tracking: Wet Snow Tracks & Scat (and a fun walk too)

It is not often I can walk in the woods this winter, the weather has been the harshest cold & snow I have ever seen in Western North Carolina, since I moved here 9 years ago. The trails on the mountain behind the house where I live don't get any sun during the cold season and are therefore freezing and the snow barley melts... i guess it's north facing? Big Sandy Mush (the area I am in) has virtually turned into Big Snowy Mush. Yesterday was remotely 'warm' in comparison and I could not resist the urge to get out of the house and move my limbs... being inside all winter is driving me bonkers! Bort, my most best nature friend came along too...
At the top of the apple orchard there was a super highway of melting deer tracks, some fresh some old and frozen. Further up the trail was what we thought is a raccoon (pictured below), there were quite a few of these going off to trees and then ending at the bottom of a tree trunk.
On the trail of the raccoon tracks were these GIANT canine tracks, which we assumed is a dog because if a coyote got that big that would be terrifying!
Then there was a bit of this scat (poop) in the snow... raccoon poop maybe?
Due to all the storms alot of trees fell down blocking the trail, and had to be climbed over. Most the trees that fell were locust, which makes really good firewood but makes me wonder if a disease killed a bunch of them too. Living here in Big Sandy Mush with Bort has helped me learn way more about identifying different types of trees (and animal tracks), I will miss this when I move.
Treasures....At the peak of the trail, the view of the half melted snow across the valley and the solid snow topping the balds was freakin' awesome! The white snow, silhouetting the wet trees makes a dramatic, ominous scene.
Once we got to the top the wet snow was melting through our shoes, and making cold squishy wet feet. So basically I hauled ass back down the mountain to soak my feet in a pot of hot water & epsom salt. So nice. :)
XoXo

Oh, Deer! And Hidden Turkey Too...

Deer! Yesterday afternoon me and Bort followed some sounds which I thought had been ducks by the pond. We both slowly, quietly step by step made our way towards the pond in hopes to see some wild ducks, but when we got there we saw nothing at all but water. We decided to keep going up through the orchard into the woods to see if it had been wild turkeys instead...
when we got to the edge of a stream and looked up there were three beautiful deer grazing on the mountain WITH a group of about 5 wild turkeys! All together. Which as I took pictures and moved in closer, it dawned on me that we were also now a part of this moment where deer, turkeys and humans were sharing the same space in nature - where nothing much was going to take place that was dangerous to any of us. My mind stood still and raced back in time to wonder if mankind and deer ever used to sit in the same forest casually, before things were hunted to near extinction for sport... before the animals became utterly terrified that all we ever would do were bad things to them. I imagined there was a time when we humans were more likely not to kill them, and they were more likely to trust in that. When the scales tipped, evolution taught them to run from us. Certainly the deer were not running from the turkey. ;)
In these pictures with the pink stars, I have put the pink star mark above each deer standing in the woods frozen... they are extremely difficult to spot unless they are moving and flip up their tail to show the white in warning to other deer nearby that there is serious danger.
You can't see the turkeys in the pictures, but what was really awesome was the turkeys were taking cues from the deer about safety - walking when they walked, relaxing when they relaxed and freezing when a deer walked then suddenly froze to check out the humans.
After what seemed like 10 minutes or more, the deer began moving along the trail together - but not usually walking at the same time. One would go...pause...another would go...pause... and so on, till they were out of sight. When I heard some yipping and howling right then, I though "oh shit, now the coyotes are coming for the turkeys!" and began moving swiftly away. It turned out to just be a neighbor's dog though howling alone at his house. :)
XoXo

Animal Tracking: Can You Guess Who Done It?

A specific creature has created the holes you see in the tree trunk above. See all the shavings on the ground underneath it?
Can you guess which species it is that does this !?!

Here's some hints:

• It's rarely seen
• It's bigger than your head
• It's not a unicorn sharpening it's horn
  

Ya'll try to guess what it is, and I will tell you the answer in a few days!!!

XoXo