Exciting Times

Where do I start! ?

1. I’ve bought a fabulous, height adjustable, portable massage table, with fitted sheets, boulster cushions a few other goodies thrown in, for an incredibly low price.
2. I’m looking to do my Reiki II training at the end of July
3. I’m investigating, and will hopefully attend Frans Kromhout’s Quantum Energetix course in August
4. I’m very excited about how things are progressing!
5. What this space to find out how things are going……

Update to flower bed

Yesterday I spent a lovely afternoon planting some great new additions I picked up at the Botanical Society’s plant sale, as well as Stodels nursery last weekend.

From Botsoc – a  Nemesia ‘Snow White’  and a Nemesia ‘True Blue’, as well as a “dyschoriste thunbergiifolia” (still trying to find out what its friendly name is. )

Dyschoriste thunbergiifolia

Nemesia "Snow White"

Nemesia "True Blue"

I also planted the beginnings of what will hopefully become a little Rosemary hedge.  I planted six small Rosemarinus Officinalis (Barbeque Rosemary), and will trim their tops every few days, to encourage them to fill out from the bottom.  It’s very exciting.. the hedge won’t be much taller than 20 centimeters high – so should be very quaint.

Tough cookies!

Okay..  even with all my fencing off, and deterring, an distraction attempts, my kitty Jinx has done some serious damage to part of my new veggie/flower garden!!

So.. I decided my only option was to fill that section with indestructible, hardy, indigenous (to South Africa) succulents.

So I popped off to my new favourite nursery - Hart – in Ottery, and, after MUCH deliberating, I chose one of each of these:

• Ornithogalum thyrosoides (Star of  Bethlehem)
• Crassula Spathhulata
• Bulbine Frutescens
• Kalanchoe (with gorgeous grey leaves and pink flowers)
• And two yellow daisies – Argyranthemum – lemon queen)

I moved a few of the cerise coloured Ddanthus in amongst them, as well as a  young blueberry I’m hoping to establish. Planted all together, with the daisies at the back, they certainly look unusual, but I like their quirkiness, and the best part is that so far, they’ve been untouched by the likes of kitty feet! (Touch wood!)

Spring Bulbs

This April, I popped the following bulbs in our garden. 35 Dutch Irises (mixed colours), 5 Tritonia, and 25 Caen Anemones (Large). I tried planting them in tight clusters of the same bulb – hopefully this will give lots of impact in spring.

The anemones and iris’s have already grown lots of leaves at almost full height. I seem to have lost track of where I put the Trotonia (eeek!) . Hopefully they will surprise me one day!

Can’t wait!

Veggie/Flower Garden Project

What was previously our chilli bed became bare and barren due to our kitty taking it over has her favourite toilet spot!

But I decided we couldn’t be defeated.. this bed is the sunniest spot in our garden, and I wasn’t going to lose out on yummy veg, gorgeous flowers, and tasty chillies this coming spring – So I decided to plant the whole bed up as a decorative veggie garden.

I started off with potting the surviving herbs, chilli plants and fruit plants.  Then I removed the surface mulch of peach pits, and bagged that.  Next, I dug in a whole bunch of rotted leaf mulch, and Bounce Bag. I left the bed to mellow for a week.

I had already picked up some of my seedlings and seeds I planned to plant, but had still to decided how to lay out the bed, and how to demarcate each section.  But by the time the next weekend came along, I had finally settled on a plan:

I would plant broccoli and red cabbbage seedlings, interspersed with beets (grown from seed), and three fennel plants.  According to Margaret Roberts, all these are great companion plants! (what luck !)  I was initially going to demarcate the separate parts with some wood edging or something, but decided to rather go the colour route – I picked up 3 punnets of marigolds (great to protecting other plants from pests), a couple of punnets of Dianthus (gorgeous cerese and pink), as well as a large punnet of white allyssum.  Added to that, my great weekness, lillies.  I picked up a pack of 5 yellow Asilforum (Royal justice), and 3 of my favourite Stargazers.

I created three individual mini-beds, one mostly brocolli, the other mostly cabbage, and the middle a mix.  and all dotted with beet seeds.  I used the flowers, fennels, thyme, sage and berry plants as borders.   I covered each bed with green ‘chicken wire’ mesh, to protect from kitties, and greedy birds!

Lets hope everything survives the torrents of rain the Cape has been experiencing lately.  Well, if it doesn’t kill them, it’ll make them fantastic!!

Happy B’day to my newest Bro-in-law!

My brand-spanking new, and absolutely fabulous brother-in-law was birthdaying yesterday!!

Hope you had a brilliant day Alexis!! Presents are on their way!!

Oh..  and here are a few of your favourite things.. to make happy !! Enjoy

Lotsaluv

Ally

Birthday wishes!

On Saturday is the birthday of one of my brother’s in law!! It would be lovely to clink glasses with him, but he’s very far away. So – Happy birthday from us, Duncan – have a good one!!

My gorgeous man’s birthday!

He’s awesome!!

He makes me, and everyone he meets, happy!

I’m so privileged to be married to him, and really hope he enjoys his birthday on Friday!!

These are for you babes! LAZERS!!

Love you!! Happy Birthday!!

‘True Purpose Club’

I’ve been spiraling in circles, in my own head, over what I can do to explore my true purpose. It occurred to me though that I’m surely not the only one on such a personal quest!

Well wouldn’t it be a great idea to have a ‘True Purpose Club’ (preferably with a catchier name)?

Just like a garden club, where people explore aspects of their interest, share their discoveries and lessons learnt, exchange skills and services, and have a forum to express their passion while being able to ask and answer questions with the help of experts.

The first step, of course, would be getting together enough people to make the idea viable. So how does one spread this kind of idea?

• Well, this blog is my first attempt at that. So please, feel free to comment if you like the concept.
• Secondly, planting the idea with your yoga or pilates teacher, reiki practitioner or other therapist. I know my Reiki practitioner already arranges ‘healing exchange’ evenings, so this idea is not far off.

Next, we’d need some content for the meetings.

• Books: I’d suggest to the members if they had any books they’d like to bring along to swap with each other. Also, if we started collecting minimal subs, we could start a budget to buy books for the club.
• Speakers: Initially, I think these would comprise any therapists etc who we’ve mananged to encourage to join the group, or simply participate. Hopefully they’d be willing to talk about their experiences, and allow members to question and lean from them. Eventually, the group could specifically invite other practitioners etc to speak that they would like to learn from.
• Gift exchange: Either during the meetings themselves, or at separate meetings dedicated to the purpose – this would involve people offering to exchanging any healing or therapeutic skill they might have – this could, for instance, mean one person gives Reiki, and the recipient later facilitates the first through a brief life counseling session. Or perhaps one person would be able to provide readings for a member’s dog or cat, and that person could reciprocate with a lovely colour therapy consultation!!
• Refreshments: I’d imagine the best thing would be for there to be tea, coffee, wine etc available, with light snacks (crisps, crudités) – all for people to just help themselves, so that the focus of the meeting doesn’t shift every time tea is brought out.
• Time of day: personally I’m more open to discussing such emotive topics in the afternoon or evening.. Ideally, a week night/ afternoon, but that would depend on the members involved.

Well, that’s just a start of an idea. I’m really hoping to receive a few inspiring comments on this article.. Ideas are welcome. Thanks!!

Worm Farm

A bunch of my family got together and gave me my very own Worm Farm for my birthday.

I’ve been wanting one for a while.. so was thrilled! We went off to buy the worms from the shop, which are sold in an innocuous cardboard box! Shame.. poor things.. Anyway.. we assembled everything, popped the worms in, together with a whole lot of coconut fibre, soaked in water, and got them started with a couple of kitchen scraps.

It’s been about a month now.. I’ve been very careful about not adding too many scraps, as the farm started to smell a little. There is a healthy community of fruit flies etc, which I believe is normal.

But the most important thing is that I can see little speckles of worm castings starting to build-up, which means the worms are starting to make their compost!! yay!!

I think it’ll take a couple of months for a true balance to settle in, so I’ll just be patient.

i’ve managed to tap off a couple of 100 mls of ‘worm tea’, so I’ll be intrigued to see how the plants I put it onto grow.

Very exciting – can’t wait for the first harvest of compost!! THANKS LITTLE WORMS!