It's my birthday weekend!

Happy Saturday friends!

Tomorrow is my 57th birthday, although in reality I'm only 27 :-) What age are you? Back in my 20s my family was at my grandparent's house, Mom's parents. We were getting ready to go out for dinner or something and Grandma and I were in the bathroom, putting last touches on our beautiful selves. She was in her 70s. I looked at us in the mirror, her 50 years older than I was and said, "How old do you think you are on the inside?" And quick as a bunny she said, "18." It was one of those important moments in my life—no one is who they look like on the outside. Mom always thought she was in her mid 30s. Ask your elders and find out how old they are :-)

And now, at 57? I'm 27. I've been 27 for a long time. It was the year I started whitewater kayaking and I started remembering who I was:

  

••• 

Ever since Mom crossed in 2022, this time of year feels a little bit like molasses. That was the last birthday of mine that she attended and just barely. Things started going downhill more quickly and she wasn't even able to have a birthday party for her September 12th birthday or her sister's (Aunt Katy) September 14th birthday. This is the time of year that the tears come quickly when I see a photo or video of her. Speaking of:

 

She's be annoyed at me for posting pics of her with messy hair, no makeup, and jammies but these are the pics that make me cry when I see them. This is her, loving her only grandchild SO MUCH.
 

I will come out of it, I always do, but there are lots of big feelings right now. I think about how much she would have loved what I'm doing in the farm gardens. She's where I got that passion from. I know she's near and giving me little tidbits of advice when I have questions. Sometimes gardening knowledge just pops into my head, and I know it's not mine, it just arrives.

This year for Mom's birthday, I'm going to a little event at a farm down the street in New Hill. The guy's name is Rick Lawless and he's a certified permaculture design consultant. He's going to teach about slowing and trapping rainwater and reducing evaporation. Should be fun and I know Mom will be joining me :-) she would have loved learning about that kind of stuff.  

I was talking to ManChild last week when we were headed out to go see The End of Oak Street. I said I wanted to get popcorn and candy and asked if he did too. He's trying to be good with that kind of thing so I said let's split a Peanut M&Ms. He said he liked Plain. That's when it hit me, I used to as well. But Mom liked Peanut best :-) So now I do too. I told him, "Someday, a million years from now, when you're older, I bet you switch too, just from remembering that I loved them because Mom loved them." Of course tears sprang to my eyes because, that's mid-August for me!

And wow, that movie. I'm still trying to figure out why it got such good ratings, it was ridiculous and not in a good way. Darn, I thought it was going to be fun and instead ManChild and I were trying not to snort soda out our nose.

•••  

Goodness gracious, I've been spending time in the Matrix for several weeks and I need all these things: 

I decided to migrate my entire online world (blog, website, contacts) elsewhere and even with a TON of help with Claude's Cowork (AI), it was stressful and left me feeling like I was going to jump out of my skin lol. Just before I started writing this post, I was scanning thousands of lines of code for a tiny snippet so I could get the "Join the Herd" sign up system on the bottom of the page. This is NOT what my brain likes to do. This is Brad's domain. Back when he was working, I would walk in on him staring at a screen of characters, just the whole damn screen, just like the Matrix movie, and just like what I was looking at. And that was normal for him. 

Arrrrggggghhhhhh!!! Where are my watercolors? Where is my garden? I need my herd!

I do have to say though, I'm pretty proud of myself! I was often confused, but I just kept plugging along, sending screenshots to Cowork and the words, "Break this down into baby steps."

My entire blog is here now, well it's in the drafts folder anyway. But it's on this site so that's huge since my old platform (Kajabi) didn't allow you to export it. That's a fun way to keep you on their extremely expensive platform forever. Especially if you write a lot. I had almost 400 posts being held hostage! 

I know, I know, I'm contributing to the downfall of the planet to save my work:

I had been using Kajabi with the intention that I would create an online library of art classes. Wouldn't that have been great! It's been SIX YEARS you guys...😳🙄 So this was the year to move. I started the basics back in March but the thought of having to manually copy all my blogs over was daunting and made me want to cry and then business picked up and I stopped dealing with it. 

Strangely, the whole problem didn't just disappear... 

Enter AI. I've been using, first ChatGPT and now Claude, for about 18 months. The business was not looking good when I started and I was wondering if we needed to give up the farm and go back to suburbia. 

Brad told me about ChatGPT and I, as always, was hesitant. He's an early adopter of all tech and often drags me kicking and screaming out of the garden and away from horses and art, and into that world ;-) We downloaded the app and played around. Huh. In a very short amount of time I was using it as a way to organize my ADHD squirrel brain. I would stream-of-consciousness type or speak into it and it would give me back my thoughts in an organized format that I could use to move forward.

What a gift. 

I always say, I didn't and don't use it with my art or writing, it's me doing that because it's who and what I am. But as a small business owner, it's useful for all kinds of other stuff. Like Claude wrote me a little script to resize all my photos I use in my blog each week. In the past, it would take me 45-90 minutes to resize my weekly pile. Now, I take my photos and put them in a special folder on my desktop and copy this little piece of code into my computer and, ta-da! Two seconds and the whole thing is done! So much time saved! Have I taken a job away from someone? No, I would never have outsourced it. I would have just kept plugging along and doing it myself. 

Recently my friend Sara introduced me to Claude Cowork. I had told her that Claude couldn't get my blog posts off Kajabi. She was running Cowork and asked, and it said it could indeed do that for me. 

Oh. My. Gawd. Do tell.

Anthropic's Claude is a chat assistant, where you can type or talk back and forth (you get more thorough answers if you type it seems). Anthropic's Cowork is a desktop app built for handing off bigger, multi-step jobs, like migrating a blog :-) And then there's Anthropic's Claude Code, similar to Cowork but built for programmers.

I have been working with Cowork and it has scrubbed all 400 of my blog posts off Kajabi, my 7,500 photos, watermarked only the ones that were mine, and put them all back together again in the correct format so they could be on this site. Have I taken a job away from someone? Still no, I thought about outsourcing it, but it was too hard to explain what needed to be done and I had resigned myself to the horrible yearly payment instead. 

As a small business, where I wear ALL the hats (equine partnered coach, reiki master, neurofeedback practitioner, women's circle facilitator, artist, teacher, marketing pro, social media pro, writer, youtube pro, bookkeeper, IT and web admin, photographer, videographer, brand strategist, farmer/livestock manager, equipment operator, garden designer/head (only) gardener, event planner, plus mom and wife), to have this giant, horrible, expensive project hovering over me was, well, stressful. I am beyond thrilled that it was taken off my plate! 

So that's really what this tech as been for me. Not doing the work instead of me, but doing the parts that were making me cry and standing between me and getting my work done. I'm thankful.

•••

THE RANCH

I can't even with this precious little peanut. My brother got so lucky with Princess Penelope! 

 

 

Yep, it did happen! Brad flattened out that big bed for me so I could start planting!

Unfortunately it was so ungodly hot and humid that I only got the elderberry planted, and not even in that bed for fear of them taking it over:

 

I mean, come on, isn't this the most exciting, full, garden bed you've ever seen?? Ugh. Darn it. I managed to get 2 canna, 2 crested mountain mint, and 5 Blue Fortune Agastache in, while drinking my weight in electrolyte water before giving up. But this week will be in the 80s!

 

But look how full the bed I planted in the spring is getting:

In the jungle of house plants that is my front porch, my two monsteras continue to grow like crazy things, how fabulous. I love watching the new leaves unfurl:

••• 

Latest YouTube videos:

Why, why can I put up with animals chewing but not people? 

I caught a squirrel eating a fig in our fig tree! 

And a deer swimming in the pond! 

And got a message from a dragonfly :-) 

•••

HOW TO WORK WITH ME

Equine Partnered Coaching! With horses (early morning appointments in the summer), without horses, 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. These appointments are in my climate controlled office.

Reiki Another way to facilitate relaxation, calm, healing. If the weather is nice, you can choose outside in the herd (this is an early morning appointment) and of course in my office is always available :-)

And Women's Circles! I've updated my website yet again so read up and then contact me if you want to talk about joining a Women's Circle!

Wednesday Women's 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. 

Tuesday Women's Circle, runs 11am—1pm,  contact  me if you're interested in the next group, it starts in September.

Monday online art class via Zoom. Ongoing, every Monday, 7:30-9pmET. $35 There isn't a public link for this one but you can contact me for the supply list and link here. I teach you something fun in watercolor or mixed media. It's a low key, jammies kind of class. Right now it's small so you get more one on one instruction if you want it. 

•••

If you want the full post (with all the funnies), sign up for my Saturday morning newsletter here, it's free!

Hope you all have a great week!

Thank you for reading :-)

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

If a friend forwarded you this post, you can subscribe to my full version of the Saturday morning newsletter that will be emailed to you by clicking here.

The fig tree wasn't a dud after all!

Happy Saturday friends!

All kinds of things happening here at the end of summer. We found out that our fig tree isn't a dud after all! What?? All these years it's been stuck behind a wall of trees, still producing and ripening fruit that tasted...green. It was on my list to take out this fall. This year was a bumper crop:

I've always heard that term but had never seen what it meant. It's double or maybe even triple its normal output. And...as I was walking by the tree the other day, I noticed that the ripe fig color was different than other years, kind of pink. Huh. I picked one, squished it open, and tasted it...OMG!

It took me a few days of wondering before I realized that it had been behind those trees the last time I tasted it and last year and this year it was in full sun. I missed out on last year's figs in my ignorance, but I'm doing the happy dance about this year's! Just bought some crackers and chevre, and plan on cutting some figs in half, carmalizing in a bit of butter and having a yummy little snack. Brad wants to make preserves!

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I'm working on keeping my YouTube channel up to date with new videos from the ranch. If you haven't yet, go subscribe so you get notified! Here's a recent one: Summer thunderstorm with the herd

And if you keep an eye on my YouTube, you'll see a deer swimming in the pond, a dragonfly that sends me a special song message, and the sweetest little video (all are scheduled over this upcoming week) with this squirrel eating a ripe fig in my fig tree:

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Last weekend was super productive. I decided to brave the heat on Saturday and pot up all of my water propagations from this year, it was an all day affair:

Sweetness kept me company...kinda:

All my water babies:

Then while I was at it, repotted a bunch of things that really needed fresh new soil and a bigger pot:

Minnie the Ficus was a tree I bought last year on Marketplace. She REALLY needed a new pot...once I got her out of her old one! Brad and I wrestled and tugged until we finally got it out. I was hoping to not have to break the pot, or her, yay:

And as I was loosening the roots to put into the bigger white pot, I found this:

What in the world? I have no idea why anyone would plant a tree on top of an upside down plastic pot...? Poor Minnie the Ficus had grown all the way around it and had I not started untangling, I would never have discovered it!

The huge peace lily from Mom's funeral had gotten so big that I decided to split it into two, still large, pots:

Can you believe she's been in heaven for four years this coming November? Me either.

I've started bringing in some of my plants so I can bring others out and give them a chance at real light too. As I do, I realize, good god, I have another whole round of repotting to do! Maybe, just maybe, I have too many plants? Is that a thing?

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I also finished up the 45x12' hugelkulture bed I've been working on for what...a month I think? Ridiculously large. After 20 tractor scoops of my topsoil and compost mix, smoothing with a rake:

and probably the same amount of wood chips, that part is done:

Now...time to squish it all down so I can plant. Last time I created a bed, I drove over it with the golf cart at this stage, and that was perfect. But this is a taller bed! I wasn't sure what I was going to do, until Brad offered to do it because he thought it looked like fun. Here it is almost a week later...I will have to give him a deadline of tonight (Friday as I write this) so I can start planting this weekend!

I have said "this weekend" for FOUR WEEKS. Will it happen this weekend? Stay tuned...

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The upper pasture is looking a little different these days. This was last weekend:

And now this:

What happened? This whole area, with it's four farms, used to own the big white barn together back in the 80s. Over time, ownership changed with the barn and our farm and that's when someone realized that it might have been important to put fencing on property lines. Whoops. The big white barn is owned by someone else now and they decided to reclaim their section of our upper pasture and this week the fence went in, pretty, straight, new, and covered in creosote so it lasts another 40 years. Our herd will have a little less space but good fences make good neighbors :-)

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Speaking of fences, this is why we chain gates, not just trust that the latch will be enough for rowdy goats:

Luckily it was chained shut since the goat's pasture was opened for the horses over night:

That would have been B. A. D. bad if the goats had gotten out. (They are in that pen at night for coyote protection.) The ponies and donkeys would have been in the goat barn eating all their hay and the goats would have had nowhere to go, gulp.

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HOW TO WORK WITH ME

Equine Partnered Coaching! With horses (early morning appointments in the summer), without horses, 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 outside, or outside in the herd (this is an early morning appointment) and of course in my office is always available :-)

And Women's Circles! I've updated my website yet again so read up and then contact me if you want to talk about joining a Women's Circle!

Wednesday Women's 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.

Tuesday Women's Circle, runs 11am—1pm, contact me if you're interested in the next group, it starts in September.

Monday online art class via Zoom. Ongoing, every Monday, 7:30-9pmET. $35 There isn't a public link for this one but you can contact me for the supply list and link here. I teach you something fun in watercolor or mixed media. It's a low key, jammies kind of class. Right now it's small so you get more one on one instruction if you want it.

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If you want the full post (with all the funnies), sign up for my Saturday morning newsletter here, it's free!

Hope you all have a great week!

Thank you for reading :-)

Healing in Dribs & Drabs

Happy Saturday friends!

This week I wanted to talk about how sometimes we get to the point with our therapists, coaches, or in our spiritual work, that we finally start cognitively understanding what has happened to us over our lives. We begin to understand our triggers and why they happen and it seems that society likes to think that this is the end of healing.

Understand what happened to you and you'll be fine.

But if you aren't addressing the body and what the body is still sensing, you're missing an important step.

We peel and peel and peel the onion. Why did this happen? Why did I react in that way? We learn who "they" were and why they did what they did. We learn who we are and why we respond in the way we do. And yet, our heart still stutters, our belly still drops, and we still, unknowingly, brace for impact. Why?

Bessel van der Kolk titled a book after that "why", it's called The Body Keeps the Score. Isn't that the perfect name? We can learn alllll the things, but our body is still keeping the score of what happened to us.

It's not just about our brain and the information we can feed it. It's also about the survival part of us, the lizard brain that still jumps when a loud sound startles us, pumps adrenaline to prep us to run.

You can't think your way into safety. You have to feel it, again and again, in pieces small enough that your body doesn't slam the door.

Here at the ranch, a mini donkey or pony doesn't explain safety to you. They offer you a small, repeatable dose—in a breath, a lean, a nuzzle, until, slowly, over time, your body starts to believe that maybe it's okay, maybe it's real, maybe it can allow itself to feel safe in the world.

And I say all this because I am continuing to learn it. Even with my three years of coaching training and ten years of practice with the herd and with clients, I'm still feeling like a babe in the woods when it comes to body literacy. And I may always be. It's not a mastery situation, it's a practice, like meditation or an art practice.

Some people who are walking through my gate are "brain fluent" from years of work but their bodies are still keeping the score. Some haven't had years of work, they are just peering down the typical therapy/coaching path wondering, "Huh, will this help?" They are learning boundaries and self compassion. This is not "behind", it's just a different starting point, not a lesser one.

Both ways have one thing in common, they have learned that connection isn't so safe—being touched, being seen, being met. Maybe they caretake in order to not have to feel it, that's a common one for women.

In 2019 I wrote a blog post called, "Connection Discomfort" where a horse actually told me, "Sit with your connection discomfort." Oh my... Check it out and see if there is anything there that you recognize. For me that was a time of grief and caretaking-as-armor, and I still struggle with both. But when I put down my phone, sit down with the herd, and allow my mind to drift, extraordinary things follow. They help me feel safe. Sweetness the mini donkey comes over and stands next to me, eyes half mast. Just to connect with me. When he eventually leaves, Blu the pony comes over and gently licks my hand, eyes soft. My pony Tori comes and stands directly in front of me, staring into my soul, and my mini donkey Jaffee stops by and drapes his head over my shoulder and blows softly. They tag team me with safety and connection. This is my practice and it helps my frazzled-from-years-of-yuck nervous system to slow, be calm, and learn to feel safe, loved, secure.

I still struggle with doing it daily. I think that's super interesting, I have so many opportunities to heal and I can still only allow the love and safety inside in dribs and drabs. But I am doing it more than I used to.

Wondering how to experience this? You can come for Equine Partnered Coaching, or Equine Partnered Reiki (I've never called it that before but that is, indeed, what it is!), or a Women's Circle. The herd doesn't differentiate, they like to be with us and help us heal. There isn't a certain way they act depending on what I'm offering. They weren't trained to do this work. This is just who they are and they are always excited to see us coming into the pasture. The herd doesn't care if your intellectual brain is fluent in therapy-speak or what happened to you. They just want you to be with them, in the moment, and allow your body to feel.

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This has been a happy week with four new people reaching out with interest in my business and three making appointments, yay! And in case that's not clear, yes, I'm always actively looking for new clients :-)

To that end, I'm offering a free neurofeedback session every time you refer me and that person comes out for an appointment!

If you have worked with me I would love for you to leave a review on my Nextdoor business page. Surprisingly, most of my clients come from Nextdoor. I would never have guessed that posting photos of the farm would have done that, but here we are :-)

Click on this link to get to my page. Then click "Fave" and that will trigger a "Recommend this business" where you can give a review. Thank you!!!

And look! I had the business web address on the back of my car, now I have ordered a big sticker with a list of my services too:

THE RANCH:

Last weekend was spent outdoors in the heat and humdity. I finally found someone selling these lovely native grasses that I've been wanting. Pink Muhly get to be about 3x3' and shoot up seed heads (like a pampas grass) that are pink, giving a cloud effect. It will be a couple of years before that happens but imagine how pretty it will be outside my office window. I had to drive 45 minutes to get them but they were only $5 each and I bought 20!:

That moment after you mow and weed eat, ahhh....:

I also continued work on the big pond bed. It was loads of fun to get that paper down:

It was a little breezy and it kept blowing away, even with rocks on top. I finally had Brad come help me. He unrolled while I watered the paper so it would stick down and then I tractored over my topsoil/compost mix as fast as I could before it could dry and blow away again:

Next time I say I have plans for a big bed, remind me two smaller connecting beds would be just fine too! Will I finally get all my baby plants into the ground this weekend? Fingers crossed!

In the beginning of the year I was worrying to Mom about the state of the world and wondering if she had any words of wisdom. She said, "Love will prevail." I decided to put have it put on a shirt:

Off my back deck is this crazy and beautiful hydrangea. I had no idea they could get so big if left alone. This one must be...12-15' tall. I wonder why the deer don't chomp this one to smithereens?:

Lizard sightings:

The lantana has so many butterflies on it now that we've had some rain:

Little Lucy, watching for deer:

Know what this is? I believe it's from a green tree frog. See the heart?:

The Crepe Myrtles are still going strong. Do I want the driveway lined in them? Will I be cursing my ambition when I'm watering them the first two years? Even with those water gator things, it might be hideous. Maybe I just do a half dozen at a time. But then I'll be watering something out there for two years, well...forever...

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The world seems to be FINALLY getting on board with horses that calm, regulate, and heal humans.

First, watch this little short, you're going to love it! A guy gets breathed on by a horse (after thinking we were all mentally challenged) and suddenly realizes that they are special. So funny and true!

Second, there is a documentary in its screening phase right now, called Rescued Hearts about healing with horses. Check it out. I'm going to order it and watch it this weekend!

I wrote about some Reiki sessions with the herd a few years ago: Reiki with a horse in attendance

And have a few photos, when the clients have agreed to be public. This was taken at my Colorado farm, with Midknight, a beautiful, wise, and elderly Arabian who really loved the work:

And this was in May of this year, the first session for the ponies who promptly looked at me as if to say, "What the hell Food Lady? Why haven't we been doing this all along?":

By the time people come to me, they've often been following me on the socials for a while, maybe reading my Saturday morning newsletter. It can take time to gather courage to try new things :-) And what I offer here usually feels very different than the norm. Sure, you can get reiki, coaching, art classes, neurofeedback, and women's circles in a strip mall but it's rare to find those paired with the calm of a beautiful, rolling hill farm, with a pond view. Even more rare to pair those things with horses. (Ok, neurofeedback doesn't have a horse component but it is in my office at the farm. For everything else—horses are an option).

Reiki: lying down, eyes closed, receiving

Coaching: seated or going for a walk, eyes open, present with the herd

Women's Circle: seated, in community, held by both horses and humans

No matter the circumstance, the herd is doing the same work. They are just meeting people where they are. This isn't taught to them, this is who they are.

Sometimes they are standing close, breathing with you, helping you regulate.

Tori often does what is called in my coaching world "leeching":

Boy that's a look isn't it? :-) It looks like a yawn but it's over and over. In this case, she was standing in front of a women's circle participant, doing this for at least 5 minutes. She helps lift off and shift energy.

And sometimes they stand a bit away and appear to the naked eye, to be doing nothing.

It's never nothing :-)

Want to give it a try?

HOW TO WORK WITH ME

Equine Partnered Coaching! With horses (early morning appointments in the summer), without horses, 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 outside, or outside in the herd (this is an early morning appointment) and of course in my office is always available :-)

And Women's Circles! I've updated my website yet again so read up and then contact me if you want to talk about joining my Women's Circles!

Wednesday Women's 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.

Tuesday Women's Circle, runs 11am—1pm, contact me if you're interested in the next group, it starts in September.

Monday online art class via Zoom. Ongoing, every Monday, 7:30-9pmET. $35 There isn't a public link for this one but you can contact me for the supply list and link here. I teach you something fun in watercolor or mixed media. It's a low key, jammies kind of class. Right now it's small so you get more one on one instruction if you want it.

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If you want the full post (with all the funnies), sign up for my Saturday morning newsletter here, it's free!

Hope you all have a great week!

Thank you for reading :-)