New flute! Excited!

YAY! My Yule wish came true! I finally have a Native American Flute, crow series to boot! Even has turquise inlays! Oh it is so loverly! And it plays magnificantly! I am in LOVE...with a flute! I can see how they used to use the flute as courting tools. Plus it was 25% off AND I got what I wanted! Aw shucks...thanks Goddess! I cannot wait to go to the preserve behind where we live and play for everything. It'll echo nicely in the cold air.

Here is an auto sample of what I have learned just by playing it for a couple of hours tonight. I can't put it down! It's so easy to learn! And oh so easy to put emotion into it. The audio is not the best quality and I start to get into it just as the recorder stops recording. I am playing with my eyes closed, per the "instruction" manual suggestions so I was not keeping an eye on the recorder.

Music Sample

Until next time...

Sick bird is better and Worm Bin Update

Awwwww, the sick finch is so much better! (Picture of her on the left) She is flying! And well too! So I suppose I will compose a releasing ceremony and release her after the new year for her new lease on life. I'm gonna miss her company and her wonderfully tiny peeps and chirps.

Worm bin. I have places a peice of black trash bag slightly smaller than the bin on top of the bedding. It seems to keep the worms in, I'm thinking because it acts like a barrier, and keeps moisture in. I cut a big hole in the lid and added a piece of screening to it to keep the worms in and to allow for better air flow. The other bin is in the storage area and still wreaks so badly. PEW! The worms are still doing well and the mite population seems to be dropping because it is a cooler area.

I put in a pound of food scraps last monday and recently I placed the pit pumpkin into it because it had started to rot. The worms seem to really like pumpkin and squash scraps and they flock to it! This new bin is twice as big so I am having to spray it with a little water ever few days because the top of the bedding seems to be drying out. I guess that is the trade off in an attempt to keep anarobic (something rather, I cannot remember but it is a condition where there is not enough air flow in the bin and allows bacteria to grow and that creates foul oders)conditions from forming and keep air flow at maximum. I had to cover all the holes on the sides of the bin with panty hose because I kept finding excapees on the rug, and even found one in the kitchen, still alive. I found one last night about two feet from the bin all dried up. Must have been sick. Most of the worms stay put. I also had to put some duck tape on the holes that came with the bin in the handle recess. I think this bin will do better because A)I have some experience now with the first bin harvested and B) it's as large as the book recommends. I've ordered another pound of worms to replace those that have died in the harvest (I can smell it, dead worms have a really wierd smell) and to replinish the new bin with a fresh population of hungry wormies. Our household produces a lot more organic waste than I first anticipated.

Until next time...

Pele Meditations

Wow, that wokred really well. I put on my shaman drumming CD, put it on repeat, and wrote what I had typed out into my BOS by hand. It took three pages, back and front to get it all in there, but it's in there and it is a satisfying feeling. I bought some really nice writing pens at Staples and used that to put the information on. Nice pens! No hand gramps!

So after entering the information, I laid back on the bed (I always use the bedroom for things like this because it is the least cluttered room in the whole apartment and has a nice sacred space feel to it). By now I felt very meditative-ish (is that a word?!) and very spacey. So I lay back and tell myself out loud "I wish to meditate on Pele...Goddess Pele....Pele-Pele-Pele..."

After a few minutes of concentrating on the images I had seen of her, and my interpetation drawing of her erupting from a volcano in a fury, I began to think about what elements she could represent. Seems that she could represent all the elements. No joke! Fire (obviously) which comes from deep within the earth, and is pushed up to the surface sometimes in a violent display (air). Her lava turns into may different semi-precious materials (earth again), and her lava flows to the oceans creating clouds of steam (air and water). How about that? I actual got something productive out of my meditations!

And what about the legend of her lover Kamapua, the Pig God, who sent in his piglets or pig friends to dig up her fields of cooled lava that created soft and fertile soils for seeds to grow in. Well, that could be why she is sometimes (or most times) pictured with a crown of flowers. There were flowers seeds in there too. And what woman would not want to be decorated in such pretty things?! I love it when Mikie puts the decorative orcid flowers in my hair when we are out and about. He's even brought a couple home from work for me when they have a catered lunch.

Until next time...

Midnight Woes, worm bin harvest, sick wild bird and more

Boy howdy. No sleep for me. I took one of those perscribed pain meds and I drifted between sleep and wakefullness for four hours. No I am wide awake. Well...was. I am starting to get more tired after replying to some emails and drinking a glass of milk. Ahhhhh the power of milk!

Another thing keeping me awake was a worry that the worms that I harvested (10 ounces worth) from the first bin and placed into a new and bigger bin were gonna escape. There are holes in the handles and the lid does not snap shut plus I drilled holes into the sides and top for ventalation. So I finally got up to check and low and behold...I think every one of the 1000 plus (approx) worms were all over the bin. I found about six of them on the carpet, going no where fast. With no contacts in and being practically blind...I patiently and gently picked all the wormies off the lid, off the carpet, out of the handle recesses and placed them on the bedding. I should have known better but I was exhausted from harvesting them. I placed some sticky drywall patches on the holes as a temperary fix. Boy what a chore!! They had been crawling all over the old bin so I figured there was too many in there and the adults were looking for less crowded pastures. Sure enough...there are literally hundreds if not thousands of babies in the old bin. I placed the old bin in our storage unit in the basement so that the babies will mature, the old garbage will get processed all the way, and I can harvest it in another couple of weeks again. This is a wonderful experience for me. I have always wanted to do this but my mother had a phobia about worms and thus never could at home. I dunno why I waited this long to try it! It's better than placing the leftovers outside in the compost can. Well my instincts AKA psychic skills score again! I'll have to sprinkle some pulverized egg shells in the new bin come morning so they have some grit and calcium to chew on.

In other news....while refilling the bird feeder outside a little female american goldfinch (I think...pretty sure) popped out from behind our little bench. I stopped to stare at her...and wonder why she was not flying away. Hummmm...so I finished filling the feeder and greesing up the poles because the old stuff was all dried out and the squirresl were able to climb up them and tear up the feeder then went over to the birdie. She sat there just a starring at me and I was only about two feet away from her. I asked why she was not flying away and my first impression was something was wrong with her wings. Her eyes were not glossy and her feathers were not matted as a sick birds would be. So I reached to pick her up. She hopped over my hand and ran into the corner area of our patio. Hummm...still not flying. So I picked her up and examined her. Nothing seemed to be wrong with her. So I brought her in and made up a sick container to place her on, and placed that on top of a heating pad. A sick bird needs warmth and quiet. After recovering from the her shock of "I'm a goner"...she was hopping all over the small container. After a couple of hours I took her out and hand feed her some water from a small 5ML serenge I had left over from raising Luna, our dove. I can't spell very well this late at night. You know what I mean. She readily took the water and gobbled it up...a whole 3 ML! Wow this is strange. I've never found a wild bird who was trusting enough to feed or drink from within my hand. So I took her to the bathroom and placed her in the tub. Her wings are so weak that she cannot fly out of our bath tub. I left her there and prepared a bigger container with some room to move. I sprinkled some food on the bottom and put some water into a jar lid for her. When she got in it and realized that there was food...she ate! She ate it all! And drank more water! Goodness! She had been in that container for three days and I decided to get another cage for her. It is big enough that she can exercise her wings and get them stronger. She was a little overwhelmed at the large space she suddenly had, but she calmed down after a bit. There are several perches, a swing, and other misc toys to hold on to while leaving enough room for her to flutter. So wierd. I cover her up when the sun goes down and uncover her when I get up along with my other birds. I suppose she was outside our patio for a reason. The universe knows that I have experience in caring for and raising birds. Not to mention I absolutely LOVE them! I hope to get her back up to par and release her back to the wild. It'll be hard because I become attached to animals very easily, especially birds. If she never regains her wing strength, then she will live out a long and productive life with us.

Before giving in and purchasing a new cage from pet world, I tried to find one used at the many second hand shops. No luck. But we did find another cannon printer, in nearly perfect shape, for $2.50 at St Vinies dig and save on park street. What a flippin deal! It works too! OOooh we've been without a printer for too long...and all because of my past anger issues. I worked on those and I rarely blow up anymore. I had taken my frustrations out on the printer when it did not work properly and it started to print nothing but gibberish...OOoops! Mikie asked me not to beat this one up...LOL! I won't. I'm better at controlling my anger. I just stop what is making me angry and do something else or take a shower. Anger gets me no where fast.

What a weekend and my week has only just begun! I have all this week off from work because of winter break. I have so much I want to get done: place labels on all my herb jars...place my loose herbs in jars, find a place for my herb jars other than the cardboard box in the closet, make more jewlery from polymer clay, need to work on flute bags for Mimosa, clean up my craft area from the holiday crafting frenzy I went into, belly dance to the new Goddess Fitness DVD's I found at half price books, work on a puzzle, clean up the leaves on the patio since the snow is melting, make a new music cd with only paganish music...all kinds of stuff I wanna do.

Tomorrow I need to do the dishes. They've stacked up over the holiday. I got a five to eight pound ham from work that I chopped up and placed in the freezer and made some Ham, cheese and potato soup. I want to make a 15 bean soup with some of the ham and split pea soup too. Mmmmmm split pea soup....I love it...Mikie hates it. Must be the green goop it turns into. LOL I think I will watch the Blade triligy tomorrow too. That is if I can get any sleep!

OH! And one of my candles developed a crow on the side from the drippings. Odd thing.

It looks like it is trying to come out of the candle, frozen in the effort. I had wished that this dis-ease in my lungs go away and allow me to heal. I know birds are messengers...and hope that it is good news and not that this is going to get worse. I get short winded very easily anymore. My lungs are so unheathly these days.

Until next time...