Friday, June 24, 2005

Sharing Our Surroundings With Friends
We have been priviledged this summer to share our surroundings with many visitors. It has been an amazing time of New Explorations! It is a magical experience to live in the valley and be surrounded by so many orchards and fields filled with fresh produce. The magic continues as you venture out into the foothills and on up into the mountains to play among the trees, rocks, and waterfalls of Kings Canyon, the Sequoias, and Yosemite. These are the surprises awaiting us in our backyard and we are blessed to have the time to share them with so many friends and family as they venture out our way. We have had a continual stream of visitors sharing our days with us as the children are in and out of summer school. Between classes we explore the area and are blessed each time with new sights! Each time we return to one of our many favorite spots, it is exciting to see how it has changed in the few days when we were last walking among its paths! The colors, the shadows, the Falls, the meadows, the trees, the rocks, the sounds, the smells, continue to evolve as the days pass and we are greeted with yet a new surprise each time we return to these places of great beauty and power! I wonder if I will ever tire of these spots! To walk among these sacred grounds is a blessing and something I hope to never take for granted!
The Beauty of This World
It was Once Just a Seed
A Magical Place
The Power of A Waterfall

It is all over the news! Everywhere you look there are pictures of the Waterfalls at Yosemite! The biggest, most amazing Falls weyou will see in Yosemite possibly in our lifetimes! The snow has added amazing power to these beauties. What is the pull we feel and why do we venture back again and again? Can they be all that! With each new set of visitors we drive up into the mountains and each time there is the thrill and excitement to see if they really are all they are reported to be!!! As you near Bridal Veil Falls you pass by those who have ventured there before you!They come down the path soaked from top to bottom! And this begins the growing feeling of excitement that takes over you from deep inside. As you near the base, you hear the thunder, you feel the shake of the earth below your feet and you are covered with the cold mist as the winds blow against you! It is exciting and humbling all at once. To witness such power! To be surrounded by such an energy! To stand in complete awe at the base of the Fall, being soaked with a freezing spray and yet not being able to move away! This is a power one cannot explain to its fullest! These moments can only truely be experienced standing there and feeling the powerand intense energy all about you! This is Mother Nature at her greatest! It is an experience that should fill the news programs. A sight that people from all over the planet come to experience and one that keeps you coming back for more! Will I ever walk to the base of this Fall and not realize the enormity of the Universe? As the snowmelt lessens and the Falls soften, will I find their power over me lessening? I hope not. I anxiously await late summer when I can step into the base of the waterfall and feel the fresh, cold waters of the Falls! This too will bring with it a blessing I imagine that can only be understood by experiencing it firsthand! During this week of Summer Solstice, may you each look around you and venture out to see the beauty and yes the power at work all around that Mother Nature continues to shine upon us!
Father's Day was Spent In One of Wayno's Favorite Places
The Beauty Is So Very Close
The Humbling Power of Mother Nature
Peace In The Forest
We drive for hours and walk miles to see the beauty of the National Parks! We wait anxiously to catch sight of the wildlife that lives among these places so filled with tourists. There are paths to follow and often times fences to stay behind. There are signs to describe to you what awaits you up ahead. There are buses and cars. There are lodges and shops for you to spend money buying every souvenior you can imagine! These are the things we have filled our National Parks with. These are where the people flock! Carrying our maps, our tour books, our snacks, and all our bags of newly bought memories, we venture through the parks to experience Nature! In a time when tv, video games, bright lights, and shops on every corner fill our lives, is this the place to add even more of these manmade attractions? The headlines are filled with worries of fires started by the mistakes we make while camping! The articles talk of how many bear will have to be killed this summer because they have become tempted by our snacks and no longer want to eat what is all around them so they turn to the tourists to provide them with these new found treats! Must we invade and add to a beauty that was perfect before we even found it? This is a place so easy to sit in and become filled with the pure beauty of life! A place where life can be forgotten and new ideas can be created. It is uncommon however in the hustle and bustle of the tourists to see a kindred soul who has left the path behind not to destroy or add their "mark" to Nature, but to find just a quiet place to sit and take in all that is truely amazing in these parks and forests! It is warming to see those who wander off the paved path to sit and listen or those who take a moment to find a spot perfect for a bit of meditation among the trees. I found just the place to venture off the path and wander down to sit with my feet in the cold, fresh waters during our last visit to one of the nearby parks. The smells all about me were sweet and musky. The sounds were of running water and birds singing. There was scurrying of little feet and the quiet of nature! This is the gift I crave! This is what energizes my soul and keeps me going! To sit with the trees, the rocks, and the water! To have quiet in a world that is so busy! I pray you can each find a space of natural beauty to enjoy all the gifts around you! Please remember the beauty that was there before we added to it as you venture out this summer and help to make our Parks, our Forests, our Meadows, our Rivers, our Oceans and all there is...a beautiful and safe place again for all those creatures who live there! Blessings-

Thursday, June 16, 2005

We played at the foot of Bridal Veil Falls and Survived!!!
We were blessed this week to have Wayno's parents travel out to stay with us! This was their first visit to our new home and we had fun sharing our new surroundings with them! They enjoyed a beautiful trip out on Amtrak. It was fun to hear the stories of their travels to our home by train! We had fun showing them our new life! The days were warm while they were here and so water seemed to be our theme! It was hard to drag Wayne and his Mom away from their afternoon of searching for Gold in a nearby lake!!!! They had so much fun collecting all the glittery pieces! The rest of us spent the time searching for just the right rocks! Green rocks, striped rocks, polka dotted rocks and MORE!!!! Of course most of the rocks we found were in the lake so we kept cooled off as we played. We journeyed up to Yosemite one day! The drive there through the foothills is amazing! The wildflowers are covering the sides of the hills and mountains yet and the color is awesome. The national news has been covering the events at Yosemite with the Falls being so amazing this year because of the extra snow the mountains received! It is however an experience beyond words!!! To stand at the base of Bridal Veil Fall and hear the roar, feel the cold of the air, and to be saturated by the mist is an experience that one can only truely understand if they have ventured there. The powere of Nature is awesome and quite humbling! El Capitan stands tall and proud beyond the meadow and it is a gift to stand at his feet. Half Dome stands there in the distance and captures your attention without a care! It dominates the park and blesses all that enter its surroundings! This is a place you cannot leave the same person as when you arrived. And yet the blessings continued as their time with us crept to an end. We spent an afternoon in the foothills having lunch and talking in a beautiful little outdoor cafe on the side of a hill next to a stream. The sun was warm and the wildflowers were in bloom all about! We spent time traveling the area showing them local orchards, the children's school, introducing them to the friends Wayne works with as well as some of my favorite vendors at the market. I have spoken often of my amazement of the fruits we are blessed with here and was excited to share this with them during their visit. The markets were full and they were able to try many types of fresh picked fruits during their stay! They were amazed with the choices as well as the flavor!!! All in all, we were blessed once again by memory making moments to cherish and hold with us as they travel over the many miles back to their home!
We had fun Searching for Gold and Beautiful Rocks!!!!
We spent a Hot Day Cooling off in the Lake
We Traveled through Yosemite in Awe
Wayno Enjoyed Sharing his New Home and his Surroundings with his Parents
The Children Loved Having the Attention of their Grandparents!!!
We were Humbled by Mother Nature
We Climbed Among the Rocks

Monday, June 06, 2005

The Farmers' Market In All its Glory!
AHHH! My favorite blessings surround me! I have grown to wait anxiously for Saturday morning when I can climb out of bed, pour my coffee, scan over the paper, then head to the Farmers' Market to take in all the amazing gifts this valley has provided. Each week has new surprises waiting for me. The smells are like none other. I know I have spoken of this previously but to walk through filtered light under a vine covered arbor and smell the fresh coffee, the dusty breads, the sweet syrup of the fruits and the comfort of tamales steaming, is one the most romantic settings of all! I live for Saturday mornings!!! This one was equally amazing. I however enticed my husband to join me so he could enjoy as well as take some pics this weekend. The people! The earthy smell of the plants!!! The brothers who have spent all night baking breads and now take turns sleeping in the car while one spends time sharing their breads with us all! The secrets shared about life, medicinal remedies, and the pure delight of tasting these many treasures! I have my favorites as we do in all of life and it is always fun to stop and talk a bit with theses vendors. They always have new bits of information to pass on to me. I have learned among many things, how to prepare and serve prickly pear cactus, also that a teaspoon of local honey a day will lessen your allergies, and that the soft patches on the outer side of the figs is the sugar coming through! I love sharing with these amazing people as well as just sitting back with a veggie tamale and watching the dance of life as it goes on all around me. This is how my husband and I ended our morning at the market this Saturday and it was truely an amazing visit once again to a land of AWE!!!
Even the Structure of this Setting Brings with it Gifts!
I love the way this structure wraps around the market and allow us to each escape the outside world for just a bit! To walk under this arbor is amazing! To smell the sweet flowers in bloom as they hang above our heads!!!
Our first taste of Apriums!
Wow! Who would have know the sweet taste of this fruit would be so exciting? To mix an Apricot and a Plum! What a beautiful gift!!!
The Vendors Bring Many Beautiful Items!
Amazing!
Pure Beauty!
Is This Almost Over?

Sunday, June 05, 2005

The Bounty of the Valley