Turning Thoughts to Summer

Even though the past two days have been rather windy and a wee on the chilly side, signs are pointing to the approach of Lá Bealtaine...

The honeysuckle and hedges are fragrant and blooming

Wordless Wednesday, No. 8

Wordless Wednesday, No. 7

Lá Lúnasa 2011

Ah, finally have some time to write up about my Lúnasa festivities. More than any other festival (save Oíche Shamhna that is), Lúnasa is my most lengthy celebration. I'm a child of autumn and so I bask in all the turn of the season has to offer for as long as I can. Can I just praise the weather a bit here? A couple of days this month have given us a sneak peak at October's glorious weather and I couldn't be happier. We are in such a time now. Hurricane Irene has given us here in the southeast some breezy and extremely less humid air. I am loving it! Even if it's just a tease of autumn. But back to Lúnasa...

Lá Lúnasa is fast approaching

And so my thoughts are turning towards the harvest season ... corn is growing tall in the fields of our local farmers and we've already harvested about a cup of blackberries from my grandfather's brambles but sadly the kiddies ate them before I could get a taste. Our tomato plants are finally beginning to yield fruit and though the persimmon tree (see the photo in last post) won't be ready to harvest until early autumn, fruit is steadily growing on its branches. And not to mention all the flowers in the garden, particularly the zinnias. As soon as the heat allows, I'm going to check our wild blackberries, cherries and bilberries to see how their progress is coming along. This was our first year trying strawberries but the deer are eating most (though they are turning out rather weensy anyways)...

Aside from how the garden is progressing and all the rain we've been blessed with, I've been spending lots of time with family (Fourth of July was great, despite some drama from a certain family member who looks for every opportunity to blow things out of proportion), working and writing. One book is in second draft stage with the betas and another is the entering planning/research stage. I also submitted a 12-photo digital portfolio to Written River: A Journal of Ecopoetics and I'm pondering on sending in a few poems. So overall, things are oddly quiet and busy all at the same time.

And thus I leave you with a photo I took of the absolutely stunning sunset we had here on June 9th. Moments like these almost make me forget about the humidity ... almost ;) How's summer treating everyone else?

Wordless Wednesday, No. 5

Wordless Wednesday, No. 4

wherein I prove I'm alive

So, it's been a while since anything of merit was posted here. To update you all: I moved back to Alabama from Tennessee in mid-February and since then have been buried deep in writing projects. I'm not talking about them right now but hopefully one should see publication by the end of the year. When I have downtime, I'm normally spending it with family, or behind the camera lens (okay, if I'm completely honest I do spend some of that downtime being a vegetable lol).

A good chunk of my time in late April was devoted to helping my community. I live in one of the town hit by the tornadoes. Half a mile from my home was almost completely wiped out and we were lucky to only be brushed by the outlying winds, but we still have some damage. We as a community are healing, and that's the good thing.

Outside of that, things have been happening, I'm just keeping a lot to myself (and within my group of close friends) but I hope to get back to posting here soon. Out of curiosity, what would you guys like to read here? Might give me some ideas for future posts :)

Wordless Wednesday, No. 3

Wordless Wednesday, No. 2

Wordless Wednesday, No. 1