More Mantis and Marmot Magic

After last week’s unusual animal sightings and interactions, the bizarre fun continues. The praying mantis who “reported for duty” last week is the friendliest insect I’ve come across. He (and it does seem to be a he, judging by size) landed on David’s arm on Sunday, and yesterday, I felt someone looking at me, only to discover it was my little mantis friend, hanging out on the cosmos! He said hi and then continued on his way. Today, he landed on my arm while I was planting strawberries and thyme. We both startled each other when I jumped, but after I apologized for flailing my arm, he turned his head and nodded at me.

David took down the dog run wire that had created a no-fly zone for hawks and eagles,

Garden Update: Calling, Planting and Growing an Ecosystem

I’ve had an interesting week in and around the garden! The groundhog “training” continues, with one of the groundhogs content to munch on clover and behave in a very respectful manner. The other groundhog has behaved more like a teenager: “You’re not the boss of me! I’ll eat whatever I want and like it!” Opening and closing the dining room window startles him back into his hidey hole, but this guy was determined to get into the backyard bed.

On Wednesday just past dusk, really too late for a groundhog

Shamanic Gardening

I’m making up for very sparse blogging the past month in otherwise unusable time chunks set aside for various repairs and upgrades. Today it was five new, matching locks on three doors. Because we bought an older house, the locksmith wasn’t sure how long it would take, but now I have some extra time before I get busy again with sessions.

As the locksmith left, I felt called to plant some of the potted up strawberries into the existing groundcover in front of our porch. After watering them in, I second guessed myself, wondering if that would encourage mice too close to the house. I had in my Amazon queue another 100 gallon Big Bag Bed and some fake snakes that supposedly help to repel mice and possibly groundhogs. I put some veggie burgers in our air fryer, went outside to harvest a little lettuce, and what suddenly appeared at our threshold?!

A garter snake: “Reporting for duty.” This was similar to when a praying mantis

Death of the Old: Let it Go and Embrace the New!

Just a very quick note today between sessions. I’ll start with an email reply I made to someone today:

This must be the time of many deaths. I think every session this week has been about people processing someone’s death or needing to deal with their own mortality. That is not to minimize your own losses, for which I’m sorry. It’s just bordering bizarre how many clients have had death as their session topic this week.

Life is good here, but I’m also having a kind of death of a version of myself in that we have so much wildlife here — very cool, but also such an abundance of it — that gardening will be extremely different for me. There’s not much point in planting most of the things I had planned to put in, as even with fences, there are tunnels, there are climbers, flyers, it’s kind of a free for all. I wanted a more manageable garden, so this transition is forcing that upon me. I can either fight all the critters full time and still lose or plan accordingly and not even build things up too big to begin with. Choose plants they notoriously don’t eat.

Sync Winks and the New Garden

As I await a Sears delivery, I thought I’d take this otherwise unusable block of time to answer FAQ’s about the new garden and our move in general. Sorry, I still cannot reveal the exact city — that will come in time — but based on the number of sync winks and perfect heads up’s and interventions, Divine Timing is obviously in effect!

On Saturday, we were running errands and needed some information from our friend Ingrid, who loves orchids. Just as I made contact with her via text, guess what we passed in the store? A random display of orchids. I had set aside yesterday to begin filling raised beds for all my transported container plants. Knowing we had a groundhog issue

7 Photos and 7 Days Left at Faery Hof!

A countdown is in effect. We have exactly one week left before the movers take us away from the house and yards we’ve nurtured the past almost five years. Yesterday afternoon, David and I hosted some yard lessons on how to operate his parents’ old lawn mower we’re leaving here, plus I gave a tour of the various herbs, perennials and fruit trees for easier ID. I’m also leaving each house with the map I made for my Permaculture Design Certificate — but with individual fruit and nut trees and shrubs labeled.

Last week, we already moved about half of what we’re taking to the new place, but now it’s crunch time for packing, sorting and figuring how the heck I’m going to get my container garden to the new yard without needing to rent a separate truck just for plants. You can see just some of them below:

Most of the indoor plants moved last week, since they can survive without daily care. On these hot days, containers need frequent attention, though, and many of my containers not pictured are too large for cars. Here’s hoping the movers work some magic, since I convinced them to move my garden if we have room. “Normally, we don’t move living things.” I’m not sure they know what they just agreed to! We’ve got another truck reserved for later in the week just in case … but, goodness, it would be so nice to be done!

Meanwhile, here are six more photos of the yards at Faery Hof and Haus Am See. I’m so relieved all the new renters get along and have already developed some sense of community even beyond the gardens. It turns out

Some Announcements

Just a note to say that while I am still doing sessions for the rest of this month, with all the relocation tasks, I likely will not be blogging much, if at all. Perhaps a few quick photos or announcements as I have time or feel led. We moved the first half of our stuff this past weekend, including 2/3 of the houseplants, and it was a full weekend event. Whew! Lots of work and lots more to come. Thanks again to our superhero friend Tim, aka T-Bird, for all the above and beyond help this weekend. Also, a special shout out to Heather, who helped us on a very hot Saturday morning and got in a great visit, too.

Given the emails I continue to receive, I do want to remind people of the June Special and alternate option/add-on, described here. I don’t know if I will keep email sessions on the menu after June or July; however, they are much easier for me to fit in and around moving tasks, so this popular item is available for now anyway.

The renovations at the new house are