Right from the start, it was important to us to give Flower Essences to the plants growing at Green Hope Farm. Plants provided with Flower Essences germinate better, grow better and remain healthier and pest free throughout their life span. For greenhouse plants, Flower Essences helps them keep free of white fly and other bugs through the long winters when they are cut off from nature in a less than ideal environment. Our greenhouse plants wait impatiently for their summer season outside with their pots sunk in mulch and their leaves and branches refreshed by rain, sun and wind. Flower Essences help them get through the wait.

As soon as we started making Flower Essences, it felt cumbersome to make up a mix each day for the plants so we created Green & Tonic. We were in a silly mood when we came up with the name ( I don’t think we had Gin & Tonics at the ready, but who knows). The mix has been a godsend. Like today. I’ll be using Green & Tonic all day. With our hoop house filled to the brim with baby plants, other plants that can handle a light frost ready to be transplanted into the ground and our greenhouse plants impatiently waiting for the frost free days of summer, I will use a lot of Green & Tonic in my watering can. This time of year I am not the only one leaning on Green & Tonic, and we’ve run low so this morning found me making up more of the mix from our inventory of mother Flower Essences.

The recipe for Green & Tonic was the creation of the Angels overlighting the farm. They really got serious here with their choice of Flower Essences for the mix. It is complex, layered in its support and full of surprising ingredients. Plants grow in amazing ways with a swiftness that astounds me. I am grateful to have Green & Tonic to offer the plants here and the plants in your care to help them be all they can be.

Green & Tonic covers so much ground that I have been uncertain how to even tackle discussing it.

Here first is a list of the Flower Essences included: Arbor Garden, Banana, Buttercup, Calendula, Cardinal de Richelieu Rose, Comfrey, Cosmos, Flee Free, French Marigold, Floripondio from Chile, Golden Armor, Graniana Rose, Healthy Coat, Home away from Home, Honeybees in the White Hawthorn, Hops, Jade, Joe Pye Weed, Larkspur, Lavender, Lilac, Mallow, Maple, Mutabilis Rose, Pink Tecoma, Self Heal, Shrimp Plant, Summer Snowflake, Sunflower, The Sunflower Spiral, Sweet William, Vetch, Vitality, Vitex, Watch Your Back.

There are Essences for protection from pests and viruses including Flee Free, Healthy Coat, Watch Your Back, French Marigold, Lavender and Golden Armor.

There are Essences to promote radiant, exuberant and healthy growth and self expression in alignment with divine purpose including Cosmos, Hops, Floripondio from Chile, Graniana Rose, Lilac, Sunflower, Vitality, Vitex and Cardinal de Richelieu Rose, Sweet William and Maple.

There are Essences to help with grounding, metabolic balance and integration including Calendula, Comfrey, Shrimp Plant, Banana, Maple and Vetch

There are Essences supporting the challenges of growing far from one’s native habitat and often in a pot and expected to thrive when weary from these complexities including Home away from Home, Pink Tecoma and Mallow. Larkspur. Self Heal and Mutabilis Rose helps turn a situation around and give confidence when a plant is ailing.

There is support for dealing with strange weather and environmental stress, now a part of every growing season everywhere including Jade and Summer Snowflake.

There are Essences to help the plants feel in community and supported including Joe Pye Weed, Honeybees in the White Hawthorn, Arbor Garden and the Sunflower Spiral.

Green & Tonic is so much more than I could possibly describe. I very much hope you give it a try with your plants if you haven’t already. They will appreciate it so much.

When I sit down in the morning to figure out what to do in the gardens for the day, I usually get clear directions from my Elemental and Angelic partners on topics that we have already discussed. Like Sunday’s instructions including, “Yes, this would be a good day to make Peach Flower Essence. Make Trillium too.” and “Keep weeding that Rose bed but first water everything in the hoop house.”

When the guidance is vague, there is usually a reason as in there is an X factor I am unaware of that is about to impact the day. Early Monday morning I stood on the front porch asking what the priorities were, and there was this sort of thick static indicative of an X factor, and the prompting to take a couple of bushel baskets down to one of the sheds, the one we call Rock Riley. Returning bushel baskets to a shed didn’t seem all that important, but I did it.

As I walked to the shed I knew why the odd direction. On my route across to Rock Riley, I saw the problem. A vibrant beehive which Jim had strapped to within an inch of its life to keep it safe from bears….well that hive was in smithereens. Every frame of honeycomb and grubs had been ripped to pieces and eaten. Broken pieces of the demolished wooden frames lay scattered on the ground, covered in what looked like dead bees.

Gathering myself, I went down to Rock Riley where the bee equipment is stored and hammered together ten new beeswax frames and slid them in an available hive box. I found an unbroken bottom board and set to work giving whatever bees had survived a new home. I put on my bee suit, but it was unnecessary. The bees were dazed and not at all in the mood to bother me. I hoped they had made things very unpleasant for the bear, but who knows.

My friend the Bear had the temerity to leave perhaps the largest poop I have every seen right at the scene of the crime. It was about the size of a bowling ball and of much interest to the little people in the neighborhood who came by to inspect it in the afternoon. I considered taking a photo of the poop to share here, but Jim had moved it on to the compost heap. Just imagine the biggest poop you have ever seen (unless you work with elephants) and you’ve got it.

The question was and still remains, did the Queen bee survive the attack? I scooped every last cluster of bees I could find into the new hive box but there weren’t many clusters. If the Queen is alive then the hive will maybe survive. If she was killed, the bees can’t make a new Queen because the bear ate all the grubs. I have been watching the hive box all week, and I can’t tell if the Queen is alive. I am certainly not going to bother them by opening the hive box to check, so I am just sending love and waiting to see.

Our other two beehives are on a small second floor shelf area of Rock Riley. Its been a challenging place to work with the bees (low ceiling, open to room below and therefore dangerous) , but its been necessary because of the bears. Our neighbors who also have beehives use an electric fence that carries a lot of voltage. We decided this was too risky for us with so many little people around the place.

Given our past experiences with bears (including a night in which I made the poor choice to throw apples at a bear attacking a hive), why was there a hive available as an appertif for a hungry bear?

This third hive was from a swarm late last summer. Since it is complicated to move a hive (you either move it many miles away before returning it to its new place or you move it a few inches at a time to its new home), we decided to leave the hive right where the swarm happened and strap it well for bear proofing. This has occasionally rarely maybe never worked and I am very sad we tried this again.

The bear took apart the hive like a toddler stomping on a Ritz cracker.

The winter was peculiar but mild. The garden is putting on a spectacular May display with Flowering trees in particularly good form. The planetary vibration is on one of its upticks right now which means more light is flooding into the planet. and when there is more light on a planet of duality this means more shadow. The bear was just doing his thing. He isn’t really a villain, and I doubt his behavior is in response to the rising vibration, but it is hard not to notice that as the vibration rises, like a soup pot coming to a boil, there is a lot of scum coming to the surface.

Monday didn’t end with the bear attack. It was a day when there was a lot of surfacing scum. Feeling overwhelmed, in the early evening I beat a retreat to my bedroom to get a quiet message. It was another rendition of an oft repeated message. Here an amalgamation of these messages.

The scum on a soup pot remains a good analogy, but just because you notice the dynamic doesn’t mean it is your job to deal with it.

Keep checking before you go anywhere and do anything to see if it’s a good idea vibrationally. It’s a volatile time. Guidance and following guidance remain vital.

Use your Golden Armor!

Vibration matters! You know this! Trust your read on situations. When you get a slight niggling feeling going somewhere or doing something is not a good idea. TRUST THE FEELING! If you get log jammed and are uncertain what to do, don’t charge in. Stop and check in with us. Don’t pursue something that feels low in vibration. That includes what you listen to, watch on tv, read, discuss or engage in.

If you stumble into a low vibration scene, get the heck out of there. If things are off or heavy, there is no point in you joining in. There is no sense in getting weighed down by low vibrations when they are not even yours and there is nothing you can do about them. We’re not advocating a closed heart. You can be kind and loving without diving into something that is not yours to fix.

Yes, we can hear your, “But but buts.” Being a born brother’s keeper, your first instinct is to think it is YOUR business to help. When you find yourself in a low vibration situation, before you dive in to “save everyone” ASK US IF IT IS YOUR BUSINESS. When confronted by difficult situations, if you get that it is NOT YOUR BUSINESS and there is nothing you can do, LET IT GO. Remember the old chestnut, “Is it my problem, is it someone else’s problem or is it Divinity’s problem?” If it is not your problem then give it to Divinity.

IT IS ALMOST ALWAYS NOT YOUR PROBLEM. Divinity can and will handle it. So let go!

This is a variation on a message I have been getting for at least four decades maybe centuries. The message comes in shorthand now with humor. My beloved dog companion Sheba sits there watching me laugh at the messages. Perhaps she is thinking, “My human is slow on the uptake, but at least she is still laughing at herself.” Perhaps she is wondering, “Will she ever get it?” I appreciate her restraint as she watches calmly, leaves me to my own problems and models love with detachment.