New Years Eve

ON this last day of 2015, I resolve to let go of my preoccupations with fear, mistrust, slights imagined and real, greed and envy.  Affection, trust, compassion, respect, generosity and delight in the good fortune of experiencing this life will be my new approach.  Happy New Year....

New Gadget!

So, I have fat fingers, and I finally found a cute little gadget to let my type faster on my phone.  I am writing this on my spiffy new LogiTech Bluetooth keyboard, and it works great! 

 It's hard to tell how it works, from this pic, because I am taking the picture with my phone. The phone, or your tablet or what have you, sits in the yellow slot, so you can type with both hands. You still mouse around with your finger, but for typing larger blocks of text, like emails or this blog, this thing is great!

So, anyway Happy Holidays and a productive and loving New Year to all!

Happy trees

Life abounds and abides. For instance, trees.  The tree growing right outside our chicken coop is happy to be helping shade the chickens. The trees that give us maple sap are happy to share. The crab apple tree generously makes a wealth of apples for the ponies, the deer and me to eat. Hug a tree, and notice that most of them are happy. Join in the joyful life of this world.

Hey what's this?

Looks like this blog made an empty post without my help...I have seriously neglected this blog! So much happening...

We are all human beings

I am a human being.

You are a human being.

We are human beings together.

One or two or many, we are all human beings together.

Do what you love

Waste time and resources doing things you do not love and you will end up with nothing. Devote your time and resources to what is most vital and important.

Thought for the day

Heal through Learning....

Frederic Malle Iris Poudre 20150316

Iris and soft musk that goes on for ever.  This smells lovely, of flowers and spring time. to begin with and just gets better and better.  Adorable hubbie mostly doesn't notice my perfumes, but he remarks "You smell good" every time I wear this.

One of my perfumista friends says she thinks Iris Poudre has the best long drydown ever.

This is an expensive odor, as my ex-mother- in - law used to say, but worth it if the members of one's entourage enjoy it as much as one does!

My ex-mother -in -law was an adorable snob.  But so adorable, since she allows me to justify getting this lovely perfume...

Boiling maple syrup 20150315

Boiling first sap of the season! Too warm for much flow, so we only have about 12 gallons, but it is an excuse to fire up the sap stove! And sit around stoking the fire on this lovely day.  The foot you see in the foreground is that of my lovely sister-in-law.  The hat sits atop the head of adorable hubbie.

A fine time was had by all.

First taps of the season!

Here are the first taps of our maple sugar season. This is a big old tree. Isn't it great?  We have about 25 sugar maple trees, but we have never tapped them all at once. 

This year we don't have much wood, so we are only going to  tap 3 or 4 trees and just make a couple gallons for adorable hubbie's sister and ourselves.

The other big tree next to the sugar maple is an ash tree. So far it has resisted the emerald ash borer. I hope it survives.

Maple syrup season is starting 20150308

The weather is finally cooperating, so we pulled out our maple syrup tapping supplies. We have five gallon buckets, tubing to run from the taps to the buckets, and the handy taps we got from a great place that supplies the maple syrup industry, Leader Evaporator.

Unfortunately, the right size drill bit has run away, as those pesky drill bits have a habit of doing, so we need to go get another one that is the right size, and then we will get some trees tapped.  I'll post a picture of our setup when we have it going.

I love this time of year, when everything is starting to wake up from winter slumbers.

Guerlain Attrape-Coeur Perfume 20150306

This perfume is discontinued, but I read some glowing reviews and bought a small decant, so I am delighted I can experience this extraordinary perfume, and totally bummed that I can't buy enough of it for it to be my signature scent.

To me this is like the archetypal perfume, rich but not heavy, consistent but not linear, floral enough, green enough, musky enough, woody enough, but not too much of any one thing.  I don't really distinguish individual notes, but just a flow of good smells.

Mathilde Laurent made this for Guerlain, and then almost immediately moved to Cartier, where she has made several great perfumes, most recently Le Panthere, but I think Attrape-Coeur is her masterpiece up to this point in her career.  It certainly is my favorite perfume at the moment!  Wish I could have one of these classic Guerlain bottles of it on my dressing table.

Dharma Song

We are all love.

Know that we are one thing,
and that thing is love.

Compassion is love in action.
Let your intention be love.

Suffering is only love gone awry.
Let your actions be love.

Breathe in love.
Breathe out love.
Breathe in love.
Breathe out love.
Breathe in suffering.
Breathe out love.

Let go of all things and rest in love.

Love is the idea from which all things arise.

But ideas are just things.

And love is not a thing.

Before all things, love.
Beyond all things, love.
Inside of all things, love.

Love is no thing.
Love is, and is not.
Rest in this.

Oriza L Legrand Muguet Fleuri 20150305

Oriza L. Legrand Muguet Fleuri is a classic Lily of the Valley perfume.  It goes on rich and fresh.

This morning this opening reminded me of what I think Diorissimo used to smell like. Then my allergy nose clamped down and I couldn't smell anything for a while. After a big cup of tea I can smell again, and it is still the same nice mellow LOTV with no screechy bits. But it seems to be already fading a little, or this is just my malfunctioning nose.

Not looking good for this. Delrae Debut was far nicer yesterday, at this point in the test.

UPDATE : 4.5 hours later, Muguet Fleuri is still around, and very pleasant and mellow. I am thinking better of it now.  But I will do another test on another day before I make a final judgement.