After lunch today, I found Jim at the kitchen table with big bins of papers. He was leafing through heap after heap in a determined search for a particular farm document. He explained that he needed eight different pieces of information for a meeting he had later this week and he wanted to find at least one needed piece of information today. The rest, he said, could wait until tomorrow.

I suggested all eight documents could wait until tomorrow, noting what a strange thing it was to get worried about finding this document on a beautiful sunny afternoon. He said the things we got worried about at unusual moments was what made us individuals. He noted the weird way I had spent the morning. He had a good point.

A brush pile that had been down near the compost heap since LAST OCTOBER suddenly became my top priority. I was overcome with a BURNING NEED to move that pile. This pile had been there with more and more Ladies Bedstraw tangling it to the earth for almost ten months. It was not going anywhere and was almost invisible to all but the most observant and obsessive eye. Soon it was going to meld into the landscape so well it wouldn’t even need to be moved. But NO, I was going to move that pile this morning if it was the last thing I did. And when I clocked myself on top of the head as I heaved a big piece of brush into our truck, it looked like it might be my last moment. But it was not.

On one of my trips, I hooked William into riding shotgun. It was really fun to bounce across our hayfield in the truck to the bottom of the field where I was moving the brush. William was stellar at tossing the brush onto its final resting place without clocking himself as his mother had done.

Here he is getting ready to roll.

This thing about priorities….. I am a bit of a pinball out in the gardens. A long, long time ago I tried to be a list person. Plan. Color code with magic markers. Cross out with secondary colors. Mostly I found that I would put things on my list after I had already done the job so that it could look like I was making progress on my list.

Now its all a bit more random. I start with some idea of what needs to be done and usually this leads to other things. On Friday I decided to make Dilly Beans. I haven’t canned in about ten years. Just like that brush pile, suddenly those beans and my canning jars were calling.

I went out to pick the beans.

But I also needed garlic for the Dilly Beans. When I went to pull a head of garlic, I realized all the garlic needed to be pulled up. So I harvested the garlic with Riley at my side.

The Dilly Bean project was a success. I got a ridiculous amount of pleasure from lining jars of beans on Jim’s new pantry shelves. So today, after the brush pile activity, we did yellow Dilly Beans to compliment Friday’s green Dilly Beans. Because the water was hot and I had been leafing through my freezing and canning cookbook, I decided to can blueberries as well as yellow Dilly Beans.

This turned out to be the easiest canning ever.

While out picking blueberries, I saw our cat Mishka chase a wild turkey. This was perhaps one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Tiny toasted marshmallow colored Mishka leaping like a siberian tiger after a turkey several times her size. It took the squalking turkey a good fifty yards of running just ahead of Mishka before he remembered he could fly. He took off over me and I had the berries back to myself.

Because it was such a clear sunny day, I also made several Flower Essences. That is one area where I do make a list. I inventory all the mother Essences before the growing season and build a list of what needs to be made that season. The list is in a loose chronological order of bloom time. When we have a nice day, I look at this list and see what is blooming. Today I made Joe Pye Weed, the Fairy Rose, and Black Eyed Susan. I was lucky with the Fairy Rose because its just about to go by. But there was a beautiful branch of blossoms sitting right over the Arbor Garden pool just waiting for me today.

Did a little weeding too. After all my action shots of weed piles, I bet that surprises you!. Well here’s another one!

I also had to go over to admire the ripening peaches at frequent intervals. We have NEVER had peaches like this. I probably am asking for a hail storm the way I am so excited about the peaches.

Okay, I WAS tired after all this activity. Looking through a pile of papers at the kitchen table was sounding like a reasonable way to while away a Sunday afternoon. I decided to stop and settle down with a cup of tea and a book in the shade.

But the garden had plans of its own. One of the beehives swarmed. Suddenly about 60,000 bees were on the move. They formed an icicle of bees about 50 yards from the hive. The Angels told me to finish my cup of tea before going after the swarm. When I had finished my tea, I went down in the bee suit to move the swarm into an empty hive box, but the bees had started to move again! Lo and behold they went back to their original hive. I am so glad that they decided the grass wasn’t greener in another location and that I listened to the Angels about finishing my cup of tea. Angels move bees much better than people!

You may remember our rhino friend from an earlier blog. Rhino holds court in our kitchen where he reminds the younger children all the kids everyone under twenty five and their half zillion friends a cast of thousands from all walks of life to put their dishes in the dishwasher.

Here is our friend Rhino on the job yesterday AFTER the breakfast dishes had been dealt with (by Rhino’s friend the mother), but BEFORE the lunch rush.

And today, same time. This makes me Rhino wonder how many mid morning snacks do people need?

Let’s face it. Things are not going well for Rhino. He gets no respect. Job satisfaction is zilch.
He’d rather be….

Hiking small peaks.

Observing the Flowers.

Sunbathing in an adirondack chair with his girlfriend.

Frolicking with big game.

Visiting or napping with Riley.

Rhino has gone AWOL since I took these photos. He packed his bags and blew town to an undisclosed location. I may join him. No one will notice I am gone until all the clean dishes are used up. That should give me a good ten hour three hour forty minute head start!

It is very hot today. Part of the crew has settled into the Arbor Garden for the day to sort Red Shiso. This time of year we need to finish sorting the rest of the Red Shiso from last season so the building where we hang the Red Shiso is empty and ready for this year’s crop.

When we sort, we pluck and save only the most purple leaves from each stalk of the plant. It takes a long time to do but it’s the reason why our Flower Essences are pink. I just went out there to take this photo. Everyone was laughing. There was a bit of a breeze and it was nice and shady under the grape vines. The dogs, of course, were out there supervising.

Speaking of Red Shiso, so far, so good. The leaves look a nice deep maroon. We are hopeful that the crop will dry a deeper purple than last year’s crop which dried mostly green.

William, Jim, and Lizzy took a day last week to climb Mt. Liberty and Mt. Flume in the White Mountains. Will and Jim have decided to try and climb all 48 of the peaks over 4,000 feet tall. Here they are resting at the top of Mt. Liberty.

Here they are on Mt. Flume. Guess what number Mt. Flume is for the boys? Only 45 to go!

Back at the ranch, we are enjoying our new 3 bottle boxes. They look like Skittles and we love ’em.

In the office we do not climb mountains, we make them! Here is a small mountain of orders ready to fly out the door to you!

And because it is the summer of 2006, when it rains ( and it rains most every day) it pours and everything is about two feet taller than normal and sooooooo green!

Not enough can be said about the Animal Wellness Collection remedy Abandonment & Abuse. As we answer questions about Flower Essences on the phone and on e-mail, this is one of the remedies that crops up most frequently as a possible solution to animals and people’s difficulties.

WHO CAN BENEFIT?
If you are the caretaker of a rescue animal or any animal that has been through a traumatic experience at some time during his or her life, consider giving this animal Abandonment & Abuse. Even if you have not noticed any signs of stress in the animal, this may be a remedy that could serve this animal. And certainly, if you have noticed any kind of anxiety or stress related issues, this is a remedy I suggest you consider.

We have seen this remedy serve many different kinds of animals recovering from many different kinds of trauma. We have come to believe all rescue animals would benefit from Abandonment & Abuse. We only wish we could get this remedy to every needy animal on Earth! Hundreds and hundreds of bottles went to rescue organizations serving the animals that were traumatized by hurricane Katrina. That is just one situation in which this remedy has been helpful.

This is a wonderful remedy for people too. If you or someone you know has been through a traumatic experience, either in childhood or later in life, this is a remedy that can offer extremely helpful healing information. It is sometimes hard for people to identify with the name of this remedy or connect that a beloved animal in their care might benefit from a remedy named Abandonment & Abuse. This remedy is for situations post abandonment and abuse. It is for any person or animal whose behaviors or emotional state in the present are affected by traumatic experiences in the past.

WHY WOULD AN ANIMAL NEED THIS REMEDY AFTER HIS RESCUE WHEN HE IS IN A GOOD LIFE?
Animals who have been rescued suffer from the same kind of post traumatic stress reactions as people. Like a soldier home from battle, a rescue animal is well away in time and space from their pre-rescue life, but often even very small shifts in routine or tiny stresses in his present life can trigger a full blown anxiety response in which the animal experiences himself as back in the pre-rescue life. In this situation, he will respond with the survival behaviors from his pre-rescue world. The animal truly thinks he is back in the old life. The new life does not feel real. It is not a willful response but simply where his electrical system takes him.

It can be hard for people who are providing such a wonderful home to a rescue animal not to feel in some way remiss because their rescue animal is still experiencing difficulties. Sometimes people are puzzled when I suggest Abandonment & Abuse for an animal who has been in a marvelous home for all but a few months of his or her life. How could this animal need Abandonment & Abuse when his traumatic time in a puppy mill or experience in another home is so far in the distant past?

This is not a reflection on you or the love you are providing. It it is a reflection of the way all our electrical systems, animals and people alike, process experiences.
WHY ABANDONMENT & ABUSE?
These earlier experiences leave electrical patterns that are not addressed or healed by most healing modalities. Often they are not healed, even in the face of the most steady love.

With traumatized animals or people, the precise electrical pattern releasing information offered by the Flower Essences can help release the person or animal from the patterned responses formed by the early traumas. Abandonment & Abuse offers information to help an animal or person unbind and dissolve the electrical bindings and patterning that is keeping him in the past, reacting with past responses.

WHY DO YOU SAY THIS REMEDY TAKES TIME TO DO ITS WORK?
It is a very complicated process for animals and people to unwind and dissolve post traumatic stress disorder responses from their electrical system. People can spend a lifetime on this process. This remedy makes the process a much more efficient one because it offers the animal or person very specific electrical information from Flowers that have problem solved on these issues during their own evolution.

However, these stress related patterned responses built up over time and must be taken apart and released layer by layer as well. Abandonment & Abuse is a remedy that takes time to assimilate. This is because frequent exposures to the remedy over time will dismantle layer upon layer of counter productive patterned responses and emotional scars. Early exposure to the remedy will unwind the most recently laid down traumatic responses. Further exposures will work on deeper layers. When present day stress triggers counter productive responses, this remedy can offer problem solving information in the flow of the situation.

We see many animals who shift after relatively short exposures to other Animal Wellness Collection remedies and no longer need this information because they have integrated the Essences’ wisdom and made it their own. We frequently note how amazingly well animals copy and assimilate the healing data of Flower Essences, but traumatized animals and people need a bit more time to learn all they can learn from this remedy.

Because traumatized people and animals often have a post traumatic symptom of having difficulty processing information, they often need to be given information frequently to copy and integrate it. Consequently, frequent exposures to Abandonment & Abuse help. We also have noticed that offering Anxiety along with Abandonment & Abuse can help the animal or person calm down enough to better copy the healing information offered by the Abandonment & Abuse.

Even an animal that has had what would appear to be only a short traumatic experience may need this remedy for a long time. Our cat Jake taught me how this remedy can be needed for a long time well after entry into a safe new life.

Jake came to us as a tiny kitten. His feral mother had abandoned him and his siblings in a hollow maple tree. We think she got hit by a car which is why she did not return to her kittens. When Jake was found, his sister Bella was still alive, but another sibling had died. Jake came to us from a loving foster care situation when he had just been weaned from a dropper and was beginning to be able to eat for himself. His sister Bella came with Jake and we lavished love upon them both. He was one of the most regal animals we had ever met. He was also extremely mellow and seemed to show no signs of his early trauma YET Jake as Jake grew up, he would routinely go to our greenhouse and eat Red Hibiscus blossoms.

When Jake was still a young turk, we assembled the Abandonment & Abuse remedy for the first time. The Angels included Red Hibiscus and described it as a key ingredient in this mix, so we decided for this and other reasons, Jake was a good candidate for this remedy. I gave Jake the remedy for a couple of months during which time he left the Red Hibiscus alone. When I stopped giving him this remedy, Jake resumed eating the Red Hibiscus Flowers. This made me realize he needed this remedy for longer than I imagined necessary. I resumed giving him this remedy for another year or so. At this point, he no longer showed any interest in this Flower. I felt more confident that he had learned what he needed from this remedy to heal the wounds of his traumatic early childhood.

I learned a great deal about this remedy thanks to Jake. He opened me to the idea that animals and people could need to work with this remedy for a long time and could need this remedy long after the traumatic event. Everything I have learned since in talking with all of you has confirmed this understanding.

As I was writing this blog this morning, several people emailed with issues of spraying and indiscriminate peeing by rescue cats and a rescue dog frightened to go outside. It is important to note that present day stresses will trigger whatever adaptive responses the rescue animal took on during the initial trauma. Fierce defending of food, extreme submission, marking, fighting, and fear of strangers are just some of the different responses a rescue animal may take into his present life. The Abandonment & Abuse will help unwind these responses by healing the underlying electrical damage triggering the response. What a blessing when an animal finally knows, as you do, that he or she is safely in a new life of love.

And please, I cannot say it enough! All the Animal Wellness Collection are for people!!! A woman in her fifties called just a few moments ago. She felt she was still dealing with her parents emotional distancing of her as a small child. These are complicated traumas that can be challenging to resolve, but what a blessing and a help this remedy can be to the process!

It’s been a lovely hot week here. Lots of swimming and badminton. Then when we come in at night, there’s been the wildly exciting Tour de France to watch. Viva Floyd Landis!

The gardens seem to be enjoying the heat as much as the people. Blueberries are sweetening up in the sunshine and the raspberries have been abundant and juicy. The peaches are getting rosy. With all the rain we have had, I have never seen such a lush July. Nary a brown spot on the lawn.

The Red Shiso is doing beautifully. The Angels asked us to leave the self seeding Calendulas around the Red Shiso. I don’t know why they had us weed out everything else, but then leave so many Calendulas. It works for me! Not only do the Calendulas make for a gorgeous garden but they bring such a grounded but uplifting energy to the Red Shiso and the whole farm.

We have had some good news on the web site overhaul. As you may recall, Ben and I had thought that his job at the ceramics studio was going to leave time for him to work on the web site to create a splashy and frequently updated site. This turned out to be optimistic thinking as the long hours welding, heaving rocks, mixing enormous batches of clay, loading the gigantic kilns and generally using his back every moment of every day left him, well, toasted most nights. Buff but toasted. However, this fall he has a different job working at his alma mater Kimball Union Academy. And at least to begin with, it looks like there will be time for the web site work!
Building in cyber space is looking more and more appealing! Here he is getting ready.