On June 1st, two years ago, we moved into Chigger Chalet. The time has gone so quickly but we have had a lot of experiences in just two years!
Two years at Chigger Chalet
Next weekend (the 20th & 21st) I am going to attend some herb remedy making classes in Springfield. I'm looking forward to meeting the teacher, Sasha Daucus. She is the director of the Golden Light Center, which is an alternative health care clinic in Doniphan, MO. I'm considering studying to become an herbalist and any local classes I can find I will do my best to attend. I can't wait to expand my knowledge and meet the other people in class.
Also in June is the fireworks show at the Finley River Park here in Ozark. The show is on Saturday June 28th and starts around 9:30pm when it gets dark. This show is put on by Lambert's Cafe and it is AWESOME! It lasts for about half an hour. Actually, that entire weekend is full of activities at the park, like the Sertoma Duck Race, live bands, a beard contest and much more. For a schedule of events click HERE. If you decide to come out for the fun, look out across the river and give us a wave -- we will be the ones hanging out on our deck with a funny looking basset hound.
And now for some pictures from June...
Below is the view from my desk. What a stark contrast from just a few months ago! It looks like a jungle out there.
Next is my new plant baby, a little aloe plant for the kitchen. I absolutely love the way aloe plants look. Very prehistoric.
A wee little icy heart. This made me smile. We do things with love here at Chigger Chalet and it shows up in everything.
I am currently reading The Body Book by Cameron Diaz. Although I am supposed to be re-reading all of the books from my personal library, I have been doing an excellent job abstaining from buying new books every other day, so I just had to treat myself to this little gem. I really like Cameron Diaz, and of course I love reading about health, nutrition, and healing modalities, so a book that is all about the basic functions of the body with a health and wellness foundation was too fun to pass up. I admit I am still struggling to finish The Earthbreakers by Ernest Haycox. Historical fiction is so out of my wheelhouse, but I am trying to read a few pages a day. I suppose I'll mention that in addition to these two books I am also reading/studying from the books Medicinal Herbs by Rosemary Gladstar and the Taos Whole Food Cook Book by Harriet Greene and Roanne Lewis. Whew! I like to keep a full curriculum going.
It's not officially summer until the 21st, but it is sizzling outside and I was ready for a shift in energy inside the house. I took down the Spring decor and moved things around a bit to make the space feel more summer-ish.
I always start with the fireplace mantle. I feel like the fireplace is the heart of the house and the major focal point in the living room.
Sunflowers and quartz crystals.
I placed a few of the miniatures my mom gave me into the terrarium.
Mini garden gnome and fawn.
The silver bowl my friend Chris gave to me looks lovely filled with the fake fruits I found at an antique store in Branson last year.
Fruit in a bowl.
Bright colors of summer.
I moved the new fluorite and calcite crystals to the top of the hutch in the dining area.
That's a lot of cookbooks!
Green fluorite and golden calcite are so summer.
Completely unrelated to my summer decorating is this awesome thrift store score that Mark spotted a few weeks ago. It is a really solid stone mortar and pestle and we nabbed it for two dollars! Pretty sweet.
I plan to plant a few things in containers in the next few days. I'm still bummed that the garden space we were working on isn't an option for planting right now but I want to plant something bright and colorful for summer and I have a few containers to play around with. I'll share photos when I've put something together.
So yesterday I went out onto the deck to take a few pictures of the river and noticed a pile of what appeared to be sawdust on the deck. What the...? I looked to the wood overhang above and see something like this...
Carpenter Bee drilling hole.
A bee of some sort was drilling its way into the wood. I have the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. All I could imagine was an army of these asshole bees turning the wooden deck into swiss cheese and my family and friends plummeting to our deaths when the structural integrity of the deck gives way. So I ran to the interwebs to find out what to do.
The first thing I found was a nice photo showcasing the damage these things do. Their name? Carpenter Bees. I had heard of them before but for some reason I thought they were the bees who nested in the ground. I was wrong, of course, those bees are just a type of bumble bee.
Carpenter Bee tunnel.
The tunnels go deep and the bees return every year making new tunnels until the wood is destroyed. Here is how it works. The female bee is the worker bee, the one who does all of the drilling, while the male circles around protecting her while she works. Looks like they got it backward though, because the male can't sting and the female is so busy working that she doesn't really pose a threat. After the female drills her tunnel, she deposits her eggs and then seals the tunnel entrance back up. A few weeks later she dies. Once the new bees hatch, they eat their way out of the tunnel and the process starts again.
Male and female carpenter bees.
To soothe my conscious about killing them, the interwebs assures me that they are poor pollinators and are even considered pollen thieves because they don't do anything useful with the pollen. As comforting as this may be and as much as these creeps make my skin crawl, I'm still not convinced they deserve to die for doing what nature intended them to.
Carpenter Bee hole and sawdust.
So how do I make them leave? The interwebs insists I spray the tunnels with toxic pesticides, and believe me, it's tempting, but there has to be a better way, right? I spent quite a bit of time researching and many people had good ideas for a natural repellent but no one had done anything that had actually worked. Well, shit. You guys have any ideas?
My poison sumac rash is FINALLY over! I haven't had to use the steroid cream for three days. Now I wait for the scars to fade ( I look like I got into a fight with a cat--and the cat won). I am so relieved to be done with the painful itch.
Today is the kind of day I LOVE. Overcast sky, rain showers, and rumbling thunder. I'm cozied up on the couch wearing jammies and my chunky socks from Tibet and sipping tea I picked up this past weekend at Phoenix Herb Co. in Kansas City. As soon as I finish this post I am going to continue reading/studying the awesome book, Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner's Guide by Rosemary Gladstar.
I took a short video of the rain shower just now.
The river looks a lot different than it did just a few weeks ago. The lily pads are thick this year. Now that the trees have all grown in we have total privacy from the people hanging out at the park, just in time for summer parties. I took a few shots late last week.
Lily pads on the water.
Curtain of trees.
The hole in the tree curtain that lets the light into my sunbathing spot.
More lily pads.
While Mark and I were away in Kansas City this weekend, Penny got to hang out with her friends at Caroline's Pampered Pet Motel. She always gets a new scarf each time she stays.
Penny wearing her new flower scarf.
I hope all of you had a nice Memorial Day weekend. I'm going to get back to my book now!
WARNING: This blog post is a collection of slightly scattered thoughts (and one video) that concern my very limited experience with adventist religious groups. I'm not sure I really reach a point anywhere in this post.
We live in the Bible Belt. No doubt about it. I've even heard people say we are the buckle of said belt. And, beside the ridiculously obnoxious occasional anti-abortion protests in Springfield and the fact that we have a church on every corner, it doesn't really change much of anything. We still have crime, we still all put our pants on one leg at a time, and plenty of non-believers call the Ozarks their home too. Almost all of my friends go to church on Sunday and they aren't actively trying to convert me...they respect my right to my opinions and I respect theirs. We are co-existing peacefully.
Only once in the two years we have lived here have religious peddlers come knocking at the door. The first time, Mark wasn't home and I was napping. The fact that I was napping was very unfortunate for the two pamphlet carrying women knocking at my door (if you know me, you know waking me from sleep is a big mistake). I answered with an unamused scowl on my face, already assuming what they were there for, and snatched the pamphlet from the woman thrusting it toward me before promptly slamming the door in their faces. Rude? Not as rude as coming to my home, unannounced, to read Bible scripture to me. I'm sure if a Satanist showed up at one of their homes unannounced, armed with literature on how Lucifer is Lord and offering free pentagram keychains, they would probably find it offensive and wrong. Hypocritical for sure.
Anyway, as Mark and I left to go to the clinic on Saturday (yes...I FINALLY got steroid cream for my sumac rash) we saw several groups of what could only be Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on neighbors doors. We proclaimed victory that we had avoided them and sped away. When we arrived home this is what we found at our front door...
A world government? Earth's new ruler? These people are delusional! Not to mention they always bring a child along with them to look up at you with innocent eyes (I suppose that is to make it harder for you to slam the door in their face). Jehovah's Witnesses are one of many Adventists groups (cults according to some). Adventists focus on the book of Revelation and the End Of Days, or the return of Christ. Some call them 'Preppers', as it would seem they spend their entire life preparing for the end. Remember David Koresh? Yeah, his group traces their roots to the same starting point as Jehovah's Witnesses do. I don't claim to know a lot about adventists or the difference in the different groups, but I did live one block away from the IHOP (international house of prayer) for the last year I was in KC (they are a HUGE prepper cult) and I was also picked up off the side of the highway once when my old Volvo broke down. The family who "rescued" me were Seventh-Day Adventists. They drove me off into the forest to a literal shack they lived in and let me use the phone to call for a ride (no, I didn't have a cell phone...believe me I got one very shortly after). We were experiencing a blizzard that day and I was traveling to Springfield from Kansas City. I was stranded in these people's home for three hours while my best friend, Alicia, struggled in her Honda Accord through the snow storm to come get me.
The first thing the little girl in this family said to me was, "Queen Jezebel wore make-up". As she stared at my fully made up face. I was 22 at the time. Had an eyebrow piercing, and a Buddha pendant hanging around my neck. I had just smoked a joint when my car completely quit running on the bridge over Truman lake. I was standing in the small space between the ledge of the bridge and my car when, like the beginning of a bad horror movie, it began to snow heavily. I felt grateful that I had been picked up by a family instead of a trucker. But at that moment, standing in the middle of these people's shack with their kids looking me up and down like I was an alien, I was starting to get nervous.
The husband had a broken leg in a cast. He sat at the table talking to me about a 10 day event coming up that was all about the End Of Days and the book of Daniel or something. I kept insisting I had a job and places to be and couldn't go to anything like that. Then his ten year old son told me that he was home schooled and hated it. And the daughter who was maybe 4, chimed in that she didn't like her dress because it used to belong to someone else. It was painfully awkward because the parents were still sitting there, so I asked to use the restroom. They only had a bucket and a roll of TP. I decided to wait until Alicia arrived.
About every half hour that I was at their home a timer over the oven went off and they stopped whatever they were doing to pray. When they were praying I was glancing out the window nervously, planning my escape if things got too weird. We were so far back in the woods and the snow was getting really deep. I was starting to panic.
The wife was making dinner and offered to feed me. Tater tots, french fries and chicken nuggets, all microwaved. She explained that they were on food stamps and running low on food. I felt terrible eating what little they had but knew better than to refuse when someone is showing you a kindness. The poor kids looked miserable. The "toys" strewn about on the floor were dated and looked like garage sale leftovers. No TV, no real bed. The husband mentioned something about not being able to work because of some religious restriction. The whole situation was self inflicted. The kids being the only victims.
Eventually Alicia reached me, and the family sent me off with several books about The Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Get it? The musical notes indicate that the title is to be sung to the theme from The Neverending Story, substituting the word sumac for story. No?
I decided to go to the clinic again yesterday. I just couldn't take the itching. The Gods must really not want me to get a prescription treatment though because this...
I couldn't wait another day in the off chance that the clinic might actually be open one day so I went to the Ozark Herbalist. I picked up a bar of calendula soap, calendula itch cream and an oral homeopathic medicine called Rhus Toxidodendron.
Goodies from the Ozark Herbalist
They are helping soothe the itch but the rash is taking its sweet time to run its course. Today is day 13 and my arms still look like I have a flesh eating disease.
Rash on right arm.
They look like burns.
I think it goes without saying that I am going to have to put the garden excavation project on hold indefinitely. I don't want to go anywhere near those sumac plants.
