"Hello human. Welcome to your healing session."

Happy Saturday friends!

The ponies are really stepping into their healing work in big ways lately. Ever since their first experience with a Reiki client a couple of weeks ago, they are even more engaged in the Wednesday night Women’s Circle. Tori made the rounds and stayed mostly in the center of the circle of women, lining up with several of them, face to face:

"Hello human. Welcome to your healing session."

(Thank you Lauren for the photo!)

I asked later what that felt like and got: intense, sweet, relaxing, calming, steadfast, and the feeling of “I’m here with you.” I’ve had all of those same feelings with her. I’m so glad that she has found her calling and seems very sure of herself. Blu has moments of that and then other times where he stands very close to her, like maybe he’s learning? Or maybe soaking up some healing too? Or maybe he’s adding his power to hers? His background is very different from hers. She has every right to feel grounded and certain, he doesn't and is learning that humans on the ranch are safe.

ACROSS THE RANCH:

My newly planted roses from a few weeks ago have started to bloom! The deer protection is working well and they’ve not been able to reach them, yay!

The climbing roses are to the left of the arbor, surrounded on 3 sides by fencing and one side by holly. So, because of this:

We get to have this beautiful White Eden rose. Imagine it climbing all over that big arbor along with the New Dawn:

Last weekend was a big garden construction weekend. I was finally ready to create and plant a new bed. Brad and I come from the burbs. We've been living on a farm for 10 years now but our first farm came ready made with a bunch of raised garden beds created by the master gardener who lived there before us. All I had to do was maintain. This house was similar, there were already a few beds around—so because of that and being unwell for the past 3 years, I haven't really done much until this year.

It feels like I should have known better but no. I just thought, "Today I'm going to create a bed." 

Snort.

Haha.

So cute.

Step 1: Saturday evening at 6pm (that’s when it’s finally shady in that spot) Brad and I took down an old fence along the driveway that wasn’t there for a reason and boy it just opened up the view! And it gave us space for a cut through driveway so we don't have to go onto our neighbor's driveway to get out when we use the trailer. One night of prybar-ing fence slats off and prying/hammering nails out of 80 feet of fencing was enough for us:

So Step 2 had to wait until Sunday. It was cloudy that day so we could be outside during the day and not fry. Have I mentioned recently how thankful I am for our tractor? Fence posts are usually buried two feet deep and are hard to get out by hand. On a farm they are usually not in concrete, luckily! All we had to do was wrap them with a chain hooked to the loader and they lifted right out:

Step 3: Ok, now it was time to create the bed right? Surprisingly, still no. First I had to de-tape all of my boxes and THEN (step 4) lay them out (to smother grass and weeds, no Roundup here) in some shape. I had a ton and was able to cover a 22'x8' section. 

Not being used to working at that scale, I thought to myself, "Self, all you have to do now is dirt, mulch, and plant! Yay! I'll be ready in an hour!"

So very wrong.

Step 5: Then I used the tractor to lay maybe 12 loads of our homemade compost on top:

The compost is in the back of the lower pasture. This bed is close to the upper pasture. It takes time to go back and forth and tractors aren't known for being speed machines. So pretty yes? Much hand raking (step 6) to get it to look like this:

Ready for mulch? 

STILL NO.

It was too fluffy to plant in.

Oh. My. God.

Come oooooon. JeZUS.

Step 7: Brad took a turn smooshing the compost down with the tractor loader. Then there wasn't enough dirt after all, so (step 8) I had to bring another 8 loads of compost up.

Step 9: raked it smooth.

Done for the day.

Step 10: On Monday I tractored over another, maybe...8 loads of wood chips to put on top. At least that is slightly closer to the bed, behind the parking area.

Step 11: Raked all the chips smooth.

We are STILL using all the wood chips from the 19 trees we had taken down last summer!

7:30 Tuesday morning, it was finally time! 

But then I walked on the bed and realized yet again, still too fluffy. So, step 12, I spent 45 minutes driving over it with the golf cart, packing it down to planting consistency.

And THEN it was time.

Step lucky 13: 27 plants finally in the ground. Goodness! Butterfly bushes, catmint, black eyed Susans, bee balm, echinacea, some sort of reddish succulents that I propagated, rosemary that I propagated, several varieties of yarrow including a wild one I found in the grass under the arbor, and zebra grass:

I have more to plant but I ran out of steam. It felt so good to get some of the things that have been living on my porch in nursery pots, into the ground finally! The geese kept me company:

I ran out of steam for planting I should say. But tractoring isn't hard so I figured I would go ahead and cover the grass by the lantana too. I brought over loads of mulch to extend the bed. Should have waited for more cardboard but decided to risk it:

And THEN I ran out of steam!

After my Tuesday clients, I spent a couple of hours like this. All that bending, squatting, kneeling, digging, I was toast:

Tuesday night was one of those special nights. While doing farm chores, I was joined at various times by 5 different deer. Some of them came close enough to talk to, like 30 feet away!

I don’t know why they are suddenly not frightened of me, but it’s nice to see them up close and to see that they look happy and healthy. Two of them have udders so they have babies holed up somewhere. I can’t wait for the moms to bring them around! I love this pic in particular, if felt like this deer thought I couldn’t see it. See it's eyes just above the leaves?:

I also got to see one of the goat house baby squirrels up close too. Sitting on top of the barn door, eating some of the goat food seeds :-) 10 feet away. They too are getting a little more used to me. Love that so much:

The deer eating saga continues though, they have decided to eat the loriope for some reason, they never have before! It's right up close to the house and they are getting so brave! One evening this week Lucy was screaming, "Deer! Mom! Dad! The deer are in the front yard!":

I zoomed in on this picture and found, not just a deer, but a pregnant deer!:

So the past few nights I've walked out on the front porch and they just look at me, 20 feet away. Not running, just watching me like I'm disturbing them.

"What?"

"You know, I'm thrilled that you feel safe here, you're so beautiful, and can't wait to see your babies but I would love it if you'd stay in the yard, eat the clover, eat all the things EXCEPT what's in the beds."

"..."

And then they sang me this song!

Cretins. Heathens. 

Friday morning I caught this cool shot of one leaving the upper pasture:

And so, when I'm done writing, I will be headed to Lowe's to get some of this:

Google says: Deer dislike Milorganite due to its strong odor. Because Milorganite is a slow-release organic fertilizer made from treated, heat-dried microbes (sewage sludge), it mimics the scent of humans and predator activity. 

Um, gross. But I will try it to keep plants safe. We'll see if it's too smelly for people! I tried the flashing red lights that are supposed to look like a predator, nope. See the song above. If you'd like to try them, let me know, I'll pass them along to you. I have 4 and they are solar.

Last but not least, Brad and I watched Remarkably Bright Creatures with Sally Field in it (who is 79!) and it was really good and very sweet and everyone needs to see it! 💜

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HOW TO WORK WITH ME:

Equine Partnered Coaching! With horses, without horses, in-person, or online, your choice. 

Neurofeedback Train your brain to calm and ease. The most common response I hear about neurofeedback is, "I'm so much less reactive in my life!" It really does smooth out the sharp spikes. Super helpful if your world feels harsh and spiky right now. 

Reiki Another way to facilitate relaxation, calm, healing. If the weather is nice, you can choose inside, outside, or outside in the herd. 

And of course Women's Circles! The Wednesday circle has a waiting list, I will add you to it if you'd like. Newer people do indeed get in occasionally, as sometimes the people higher on the list end up with upcoming vacations, too busy at work, or just life is life-ing stuff. 

•••

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Hope you all have a great week!

Thank you for reading :-)

All of my art and writing is made with human intelligence!

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