Ben hammered into place every last shingle of our Flower Essence building back in the summer of 2001. Over the past week, his siblings, Emily and Will, took up the charge to learn the fine art of cedar shingling.

Morning one and Will used that well positioned bike to put a bit of distance between himself and this project. It is, after all, summer.

Emily kept at it over the next few days and Jim decided to shingle the peak end of the shed because, “it was going to look shabby next to the shingle roof”. (Jim and I seem to have a harder time than Will remembering it is summer.)

Emily kept hammering away until it was all done.

One fine day, a shingling break was taken to kayak on one of New Hampshire’s many lakes an hour northeast of here.

This micro climate is much more like the woods of the Adirondacks and offered me a chance to visit with Flower friends that don’t live near the farm.

While some rested their hammering (and biking) skills, I explored the island where we had stopped.

The Wintergreen was just getting ready to bloom. When you crumple one of Wintergreen’s gorgeous shiny leaves, the lovely smell of Wintergreen oil fills the air. I love Wintergreen. Do they even make candy from it anymore?

When I was a little girl in the Adirondacks, I would pour boiling water over a jar containing Wintergreen leaves to make a lovely pink tea with that va va voom Wintergreen flavor.

In the above photograph, Wintergreen’s white Flowers are just about to open into their bell blossoms, Flowers so good at ringing in vibrational encouragement to be our zesty selves.

This is Dogberry or Clintonia borealis. It has beautiful lily like yellow blossoms in the spring and blue berries in the late summer and fall. I was a little startled to see its berries already so blue. Can it really be late summer????

Anyways, I think these berries, rising boldly and unapologetically up from the pine duff, dramatically suggest this Flowers vibrational strengths. Dogberry is an ingredient in our Separation mix and also our Outburst mix. It has a very centering, clarifying, and strengthening vibration, making it a support to animals and people to find their strength and sense of purpose amidst chaotic situations.



Bunchberry is another beloved Flower in our Animal Wellness Collection mixes. The Bunchberry where we were kayaking no longer had its symmetrical four petaled white Flowers, but I think this orderly bouquet of berries and its symmetrical leaves suggest why we use this Essence in our Outburst and Separation mixes along side Dogberry.

While the white Flowers suggest its immense loving vibration, this organized even sheltered and contained arrangement of fiery orange berries suggests how it helps us to know how to contain and manage strong emotion.

Here is another dramatic example of this principle from a new Flower Essence I made this week.

This is Kangaroo Paw (Anigozanthes) a native of down under. It has pale brown kangaroo paw shaped blossoms emerging from fiery orange calyxes. This one is going to find its way into a lot of the Animal Wellness collection including Outburst, Run & Play, and Animal Emergency Care.

Can you see how its appearance telegraphs its vibrational strengths? The swift transition from fiery orange to soft tan Flowers suggests how it can help us transmute explosive situations into benign ones, move orthopedic injuries or other wounds towards rapid healing and dramatically turn a heated up situation into one of healing and calm.
It is so wonderful that this Flower and its Essence is now available to us on this side of the world, and so wonderful that each micro climate of our dear planet offers so many gifts.