And then... Finally... Quiet.

    I come to you this morning from a place of quiet. I spent my first night last night in dear sweet Phea. I look forward to reorganizing her today, optimizing space in her is going to be high on my priority list. Over the last few days in a frenzy of packing and plans I have just kind of shoved things into random places and especially last night when I crawled in exhausted after a long day it was clear that the random shoving of objects is not going to work with this kind of lifestyle. Not that I though it would, but it's been made abundantly clear now. My main concern in all of this has been staying warm (as many of you know). I spent the night in the foothills outside of Ashland and while it was certainly chilly (a thin layer of ice on some of the smaller puddles in the morning) Annie and I stayed warm in the van. I may have shoved her under the blankets with me, I told her it was more for her benefit than mine, she happily obliged.

     Yesterday seems like a bit of a blur. Emotions ran pretty high for me, from excitement to fear to pangs of sadness. Emotional chaos however is something I have become used this year, I have worked hard to embrace it and I think more than anything I am just exhausted right now. It has taken so much energy to finally get to this point and I think a few days of rest and light work on the farm are in order. Working with the plants is a fun and new experience, and in any scenario where I have the opportunity to learn I tend to thrive so I look forward to learning.

     One of the things I have already noticed grows in abundance here is Cattails, through some reading a research I have developed a deep love of this amazingly versatile plant but have not had the opportunity to interact much with it in nature. I am very much looking forward to the chance to get to know it and introduce myself to the land here. On the trip down I stopped at a rest stop to stretch Annie's legs and my own and repack the van a little. I saw a muddy little field off the back of the rest stop and thought it might be a nice place to let her run around off leash. As I threw her sticks and wandered around the edge of the field I looked down and saw a big white crystal poking out of the ground at me. I got down and loosened the muddly dirt around it with my fingers. A little wiggle and a little more loosening and out popped this lovely chunk of quartz! Here is a (very disheveled) picture of me with it this morning:

     I took this as a good omen from the universe. I had a little piece of rose quartz in my pocket so I put that back in the earth with the brothers and sisters left from this big guy, said thank you and wandered along with this new friend. Admittedly the last thing I need in the car is more rocks, but you don't look a gift quartz in the mouth so here we are together!

     Annie is giving me the big sad "walk me" eyes so I am going to go give her a bit of a wander before repacking the car and heading out to the farm for a little while.

     Much love to you dreamers,

Alex