TracyDove.com

Today I gathered nine, fresh eggs from the chickens at my sister’s house. Her hens are laying a lot right now and the eggs are plenty! I took her a load of egg cartons and she sent me home with 18 eggs. Super exchange, if you ask me. Her gardens are in full bloom with the perfect balance, as well as many new seeds and seedlings forming the finest full circle of desert gardening. There is always something in season at her place. I also left with a bag of dried artichoke flowers, dried peppers, okra and some dried citrus slices. These are things that I will most likely use in a crafted piece of garden art for my patio or kitchen.

A short amount of time spent gathering eggs and strolling through my sister’s garden inspires me in a huge way. Currently, I am gardening in containers. No bending, weeding, or digging is required and it is body friendly in every way. Herbs, vegetables and flowers can be planted in almost anything above ground. If you are like me, you have more empty pots than you do plants. This year I aim to fill and plant every single one of mine. Then water them, love them and watch them grow. When we are ready to bring the chickens into our small corner of the world, we will have fabulous manure for the compost. I get excited just thinking about it all!

~ She’s got “eggs” and she knows how to use them ~

Home again, Home again, Jiggity Jig!

Another BEAUTIFUL morning at the Farmer’s Market in downtown Phoenix. The best place to find organic, locally grown fruits, vegetables, fresh baked artisan breads, organic fresh eggs, and everything that you could possibly need for your body and soul are all available at the Saturday Farmer’s Market. It is also a great gathering place for like minded people, as well as the best place to gather information on a wide range of topics. I love supporting local farmers and artisans. It is the healthiest choice all the way around. So much better than patronizing the big supermarkets and throwing money at mass produced items that have little nutritional value and waste resources through production and shipping. Meeting the people who grow your food and make the products that you put on your body and in your home is a much more delightful experience.

Fresh eggs are sold so quickly that you must get there as soon as it opens and in most cases you must put your name on a list for your eggs that you can pick up the following market day (Saturday). Today we were lucky to find one organic farmer who had a few eggs left. They sell for $5 a dozen and are well worth it.

Following the market, I usually visit my sister who has a small urban farm, complete with hens who recently began to lay eggs. She has been getting only one a day but soon there will be enough hens laying that I can get eggs from her. She has 10 chickens in all and is going to add to her brood very soon. That should provide us all with plenty of eggs before too long. I am in love with her rooster who we call “little Jerry”, he comes up to me whenever I visit, so I just have to pick him up and get my rooster love!

My favorite soap ever is Blackstrap Patchouli Handmade Cold Press Soap made by Emelmahae Soap Company, owned by a very lovely woman whose name is Kari Bower. Instead of a having a dope dealer I call her my “soap dealer” because I am so addicted to her soap. Patchouli is my drug of choice. Her products are organic and everything smells wonderful and is good for you.

Today is the spring equinox and on the way out of the door this morning I found a partial eggshell on my patio that apparently blew out of one of the many nests in the trees around my house, landing on my patio as a sign of the first day of spring. The air is filled with bird songs today. It is heavenly.

Life literally gave us lemons, a huge bowl full actually, and this afternoon will be spent making hand squeezed, homemade lemonade. What a perfect beginning to the new season and a great way to celebrate everything new. The flowers and trees are in full bloom, the birds are alive and well and it is time for renewal.

What a day for a daydream!

Saturday was spent with my sister who lives in central, downtown Phoenix. She has created quite the urban farm and although she is in the heart of the city, I feel miles away from everything in her gardens. These photos are only a faint view of what she has going on in her desert paradise. She has planted many gardens that surround her adorable, old, hippie home. The chickens are the latest addition to her small family farm. Most everything has been built using recycled materials. Things that were left on the property when she bought it several years ago, building supplies that were given to her as well as the many findings that she drags home after hippie tripping around town in her VW bus, “Free Spirit”.

She has also built a place to gather in the small orchard, in the back, around a one of a kind, metal, art firepit. Using split tree trunks from a fallen tree, she created a sacred circle for drumming and gathering. So, head’s up to any of you rainbow children in Phoenix that want to gather for a drum circle!!! Just let me know. We have lots of drums and didgeridoos, if you don’t.

My sister also is an artist, currently creating beautiful pieces of art ~ some are functional pieces ~ using “found objects”. I cannot tell you the places she has tricked me into going with her ~ looking in fields and by railroad tracks and obscure industrial areas, etc. searching for “treasures” like anything rusted and metal and anything odd or unusual. I honestly could have died when my 93 year old father gave her his metal detector, knowing that, for me, this meant future bizarre “walks along the beach” with my sister (ie; alleys, empty fields , demolished building lots….). Eye yi yi! She paints the most GORGEOUS watercolor paintings I have ever seen, but she loves building things and making folk art. I have tried to encourage her to paint watercolors more, if for no other reason than,  because it requires no freaky trips to lonely places! HA!

Saturday was the absolute PERFECT weather. We went to the Downtown Phoenix Farmers Market , to find it fragrant with freshness and shining with so many beautiful people. I LOVE how people bring their dogs along, there were many and it was so cool. I ran into some friends, old and new, and had such a FABULOUS morning there. They now have a new market that is open throughout the week, carrying the same things as the open market, on Saturdays, plus much more. It is called the Phoenix Public Market and includes a wine bar. They hold permaculture classes on site as well as other day seminars and such. It is SO REFRESHING to spend the morning at the farmers market taking in the whole, raw adventure. Open air markets and health food stores soothe every part of my spirit. Those are the two most sensational comforts to me, for some reason.I will post more about the market in the near future, maybe the VERY near future.

“I’m going up the country, babe don’t you wanna go
I’m going up the country, babe don’t you wanna go
I’m going to some place where I’ve never been before
I’m going, I’m going where the water tastes like wine
Well I’m going where the water tastes like wine
We can jump in the water

, stay drunk all the time
I’m gonna leave this city, got to get away
I’m gonna leave this city, got to get away”

PEACE, LOVE, DOVE