It's been a long time coming, but I finally have an RN license. Now I can hopefully get back to doing stuff besides studying.

To Do List:
Prepare garden for spring
Finish raised beds
Trim raspberries
Turn compost pile
Clean house
Blog regularly

H is for Helping Others

An important part of paganism, as I understand it, is the belief that we are part of an interconnected world. From the circle of life to karma, there are many explanations of that interconnectedness.  This is why helping others with no expectations of a return is part of my personal path. It's a paradox. Helping others without expecting a return guarantees a return.
I volunteer my time with Rochester Roots. It's a community supported agriculture group that works with the Rochester Public School system to provide education to inner city children and also sells shares of their produce at an affordable cost. If you want to learn more about them, check out their website www.rochesterroots.org
Today they had a work day. Several volunteers, including my family, descended on the garden to help clean it up and get it ready for planting. We all had a blast. And we helped our community at the same time.
When people think of paganism they think of the rituals and holy days. But I find the most meaning in everyday paganism. The littlest moments seem to hold the most magic. The rituals are important, but equally as important is carrying that spirituality and meaning into your daily life and out into the world where it can do it's work.

Happy Ostara

It was Ostara yesterday here in the Northern Hemisphere. It marks the beginning of Spring. The weather is warming and the snow is finally melting. I know I am excited by the prospect of winter ending.
Soon we will be planting the spring crop, mostly leafy green vegetables. I will put a fresh layer of compost in the garden to feed this year's plants. I also have a few new raised beds that will need to be filled prior to planting.
Also new this year are the rabbits. They are mature now and both does have been bred. We will expect their litters in a few weeks in early April. We are excited and hope that this time we can keep the kits alive. Our first litter was delivered late October and they got too cold and didn't make it.
I am also still in school and starting the maternity segment of nursing school. It's only eight weeks long and is going to be a lot of work in a short amount of time.
Of course I also have my wonderful partner and our daughters. The two year old has so much energy and wants to help. The two month old just wants to be held all the time. They make any task more complicated, but I wouldn't trade them for the world.
This spring we have so much going on and so much to be thankful for. We gladly welcome in the Spring and all the blessings it will bring!

Sometimes Plans Change

Sometimes plans change. And that's ok. My plan had been to build a shed last Friday. But when I took another look at my resources I decided that a less ambitious project was more appropriate. So instead of a shed I built a rabbit hutch.
It was something I needed anyway and I had most of the materials on hand. Plus it was something that, unlike the shed, could be completed in the time available with the help that I had. So I did a little shopping, my brother and his stepson came over and the the of us built this:

Sure it could be better, but I'm not complaining. As an added bonus, this hutch cost me less than ten dollars to build. Most of the materials were recycled wood.
It's about to get very cold and windy here so I will be putting the finishing touches on to make it more homey and moving the rabbit in before the temperature starts dropping again.

Getting ready

It's February now and we are getting ready for spring. There is a foot of snow on the ground, but we know it won't be long now.
We currently have cold weather plants in the cold frames that were planted last fall that are just waiting for warmer temperatures to really take off. We also have three rabbits (one male and two females) and we are waiting for warmer weather before breeding them.
This year we are moving the compost pile. The current location is not large enough any more. Any compost that is ready will be used in the raised beds I finished before winter set in and the rest will be moved to the new location.
Also on the to do list is building a shed. It will be used to house the rabbits and chicken in cold weather and to site yard tools when the animals are in their hutches. The plan is to do that this week while the weather is above freezing. I'll post pictures when complete.
I leave you a picture of one of my daughters with a rabbit. She really is excited holding him.

What's New

It's been a really long time since I last posted. My daughter is waking up so here is a quick list of what's new.

I finally have rabbits, but, thanks to a mistake, I have two females instead of a male and a female.

I have mini hoop houses on my raised beds.

One of my dogs died.

I have another daughter on the way.

I just got a scholarship for school.

I think that covers the big things. I will make a more detailed post later.

Garden Bounty

Because I was busy with school and Dr. Feather was pregnant with our second child, we never got a proper garden put in this year. However, life goes on and we were blessed with some unexpected garden bounty. A bunch of squash type plants started growing out of our compost pile. I began to refer to them as our "mystery squash". Now some of our plants are producing fruit and they are not so mysterious anymore.

 

This is a pumpkin that is growing on one of our plants. We also have some acorn squash. This year we get to reap where we did not sow, which is great because we didn't do much sowing. We also have some tomato and swiss chard growing out of compost. 

I did get some things done in the garden. I planted some rosemary, a couple of tomato plants, and a bunch of lettuce. Which brings me to another things I did this year. Rabbits!

This is my new female New Zealand rabbit. I just got her and her mate a couple of days ago. In a few months they will be ready to breed and a few months after that the children will be big enough to eat. I know a lot of people won't be comfortable with that, but I'm taking responsibility for the meat I eat by producing some of it myself. If you aren't squeamish about killing your food, meat rabbits are a good investment. They eat weeds, their poop makes great fertilizer, and they say a female can produce up to 90 lbs of meat a year. Also, their skins can be tanned and either sold or handcrafted.

All in all, it is turning out to be a decent year. I'm sure next year will be even better.

Summer plans

I have become woefully behind in my blog. I have no excuses. But I do have some plans for my summer. I have decided to get rabbits. I want to get them by August so we can have rabbit fur by Yule. So I've got to hustle on my home improvements. I promise pictures when I by build the hutch.

A is for Agriculture

I picked agriculture as my Pagan Blog Project "A" topic because growing my own food helps to keep me connected with the universe and the local spirits. It also fits in neatly with last month's "Z" post about finding magic and mystery in the mundane.
When I prepare my garden I speak to the spirits of the land. I whisper words of strength to the seeds as I plant them. I give thanks to the plants as I harvest them for the life that they give to me. It is a mystical experience and I hope it always will be.
A lot of people my age and younger have never grown food for themselves. I've been lucky to have grown up with a garden. My father was the son of a farmer and we always had at least a small garden. Now I have a daughter and I will pass along this tradition to her. Below is a picture of spinach growing in the raised bed she "helped" me build last year. Spinach is a winter crop and it grew until we got almost a foot of snow a couple of weeks shoo.
It doesn't matter who you are, if you trace your roots back far enough you will find a farmer. Creating a garden can not only help you connect to the land, but it can also help you connect to your ancestors.
I find that my garden also helps me to connect with my faith. Many pagan religions are earth religions. The major festivals and holidays revolve around agriculture. As an example, I will use festivals that most on the Pagan Blog Project will be familiar with. Planting is done around the three fertility festivals of Imbolc, Ostara, and Beltane. Fruits and vegetables will be ready for harvest around the three harvest festivals of Lammas, Mabon, and Samhain.
Aside from the spiritual benefits of having a garden, there are practical benefits as well. Growing your own food can be a lot cheaper than buying it in a store, and better for you too. Plus there are the additional health benefits of being outside working in your garden getting fresh air and sunlight.
Even if you don't live where you can plant a garden in the ground, you can still grow things. I've seen gardens grown on rooftops, balconies, and window sills. If you are new to gardening, start small and with something easy, like garden herbs.
I really enjoy my garden and I hope I inspire you to start your own. Remember to always find the magick in the little things.

Countdown to Nursing School

The big news is that I have been accepted into the nursing program. With that comes the frantic scramble to get all of the paperwork in order before classes start. A lot if it is done already, but there are a couple of things I still have to finish before class starts on the 23rd.
I have a mini class that begins tomorrow that is supposed to help prepare me to be the best nursing student I can be. I'm taking it mainly to bring me up to twelve credit hours so I can get the most out of my financial aid. It will probably be helpful though.
We want to get chickens this year and the city allows ownership of up to six hens (no roosters) as long as we have a coop and run that is approved by a city inspector. I want to build one from as much recycled and scavenged material as possible to see how cheaply I can build it. Also for the challenge. My original goal was to complete the coop before school starts, so we will see how it goes.
I am going to build the coop primarily out of wooden pallets. I also have a piece of roofing left over from the patch job we did on the roof a few months ago. I don't have any chicken wire yet, but I'm hoping some will show up on Craigslist. Of course I will blog about it and post pictures of my progress. I got an off brand reciprocating saw from Harbor Freight  Tools for $20 with a coupon to help dismantle the pallets faster.
My daughter is as cute and adorable as ever. My wife and I both got an avalanche of contact work, so we are set financially. Things are good, if busy.

We'll see how the next couple of weeks go. Hopefully I'll have the coop done on time.

Healthy Food Cheap

Fall semester is almost over with. I only have this last week of finals left. Wrapping up my Introduction to Sociology class, I was asked to write a paper about poverty. I learned a lot while writing that paper. Did you know that an individual that is considered impoverished is expected to feed themselves for only ten dollars a day? There are a lot of people that spend more than that on a single meal. For my paper I kept track of the cost of my food and I was surprised by my results. Here is an excerpt from my paper.

"I have attempted to learn more about the link between poverty and food. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty threshold for a single person was $11,702; the amount for my family, two adults and one child, $18,106 (Poverty Thresholds for 2011 by Size of Family and Number of Related Children Under 18 Years). This means that if I were living by myself I would be expected to spend about ten dollars a day on food, and the amount allotted for my whole family is about sixteen dollars and fifty cents.

Because my family lives near the poverty threshold, we eat cheaply whenever we can by buying local whole food. It is much cheaper and healthier than purchasing processed food. For the purpose of this assignment I kept track of what I personally ate for one day.

I belong to Rochester Roots, a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). I pay twenty-one dollars a week for fresh farm produce grown locally. Some of it comes from the small garden right across the street from my house. Last week I received parsnips, carrots, broccoli, potatoes, butternut squash, apples, beets, Swiss chard and celery root.

For breakfast I had a large filling breakfast. I used two potatoes from last week’s CSA, an onion from the week before, and two eggs from Wegman’s. Eighteen eggs from Wegman’s cost $2.68. I diced and boiled the potatoes, then fried them in a skillet with Rooster Sauce. I added diced onions, and when they were done cooking, I scrambled the eggs. I estimate this breakfast cost me less than fifty cents.

I also had a cup of healthy coffee from Organo Gold. Because I have just started an Organo Gold business, I got my latte wholesale for eighty-seven cents. After shipping costs, it probably works out to about one dollar.

For lunch I had a delicious venison stew. I went hunting this year and shot the deer myself. It cost sixty dollars to butcher it and I got back forty pounds of meat, so it cost a dollar fifty per pound. We used about two pounds of venison in the stew. We also used Swiss chard, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onion, celery root, beets, and broccoli. We put about half the vegetables we got from the CSA last week in the stew. We also added some herbs from our garden last year. We estimate that we made about three gallons of soup for about fifteen dollars. Since I ate two cups, my lunch cost about seventy-five cents.

A few days ago, we made butternut squash apple soup. We used four butternut squash and a dozen apples from the CSA, some chopped ginger, and two quarts of organic chicken stock. The chicken stock costs two quarts for five dollars from Wegman’s. The result was approximately a gallon of soup for less than ten dollars. My leftovers cost about a dollar fifty.

That was a whole day’s worth of food for less than five dollars! Because we made large batches, I can continue to eat like this for the rest of the week. You will notice that the only processed foods that were consumed were the coffee and the stock. Those items also had the highest cost.

Since we eat like this most of the time, it was pretty easy for me to stay within the budget. The most exciting thing about this project was finding out how cheaply we were able to feed our family. A lot of people eat heavily processed food which has a higher cost and less nutrition. Our food was cheap and nutritious. Eating locally grown, whole foods is better for the environment, your health, and your wallet."

"Works Cited:

“Poverty Thresholds for 2011 by Size of Family and Number of Related Children Under 18 Years”. United States’ Census Bureau. 8 December 2012. <http://www.census.gov>"

The moral of this story? Support your local farmers. Go to farmers' markets, find local CSAs, grow a garden. The food you find will be cheaper and healthier.

Raised Garden Beds

Last week I decided to take on the project of creating a raised bed for my garden before the fall semester started. I have never made or worked with a raised bed, so this is an experiment of sorts.

I began by searching Craigslist. You can usually find listings for free shipping pallets wherever you are. Businesses receive goods on them all the time and then have to figure out how to get rid of them. They can be a good source of free wood for any home project. I found a listing that said wooden shipping pallets were being given away to anyone who could come get them. I cleaned out the car and drove to the location in Fairport (a twenty minute drive from my house). There was a small mix up with directions, but I was able to find free pallets. I loaded up as many as I could carry and returned home.

Once I got the pallets unloaded, I looked up instructions online. These were the instructions I followed. I spent most of my time taking the pallet apart and removing all the nails. I was able to construct four walls and attach them together to form a box using only a tape measure, skill saw, hammer and nails. My daughter helped.

Avalon really enjoyed our first project together

After I finished the box, I weeded the area it would occupy. Then I dug a small trench to set the walls into. The final step was to fill it. The finished raised bed was approximately 4x4x1ft for a total of 16 cubic feet that I needed to fill. I was able to fill most of it from our compost pile, but I did need to borrow some from a friend to top it off. This is what it looked like when I was done:

My first raised bed

The following day (Aug 29) I planted spinach, carrots, beets and parsnips. They are cool weather crops and should do well in the fall and hopefully be harvested before winter sets in.

Update: As of Sept 3, we have our first sprout, a parsnip!

Fertility and Sex Magick

WARNING: this post contains descriptions of sex and sex magick. It also contains pictures. If you are not legally old enough in your country or find such things offensive, please check out my other posts. By continuing to read you acknowledge that you are old enough to legally view this post.



For today's post I am writing about a ritual that Heather and I did last full moon.

Every year we plant a garden in our yard. It's not very large, maybe 500 square feet. In it we plant a variety of vegetables and kitchen herbs. This year we decided to use sex magick in our seed blessing ritual. I was exited about this because I had never used sex magick before.

We began by setting up the altar. The main thing was putting all the seeds we had just purchased on the altar. We chose a time when the baby was napping so that she wouldn't interrupt the ritual.

We called the corners and the god and goddess. We work with Brigid and Cernunnos. We stated our intent for the spell, then we invited the god and goddess into our bodies. In some traditions this is called Calling Down the Sun and Moon. It's not a full possession, but I could feel the difference when Cernunnos entered me.

We had very intense sex. We channeled the energy from the sex into the blessing for the seeds. When we had finished, we thanked Brigid and Cernunnos and dismissed the corners.

The ritual and blessing were done on Thursday, March 8. We planted the seeds on Sunday, March 11. By Tuesday the 13th, we already had sprouts. A week later on the 19th our plants looked like this: