A week or so ago I won a giveaway over on Natural Kids for a wool felt crown made by Kat’s in the Belfry . I was going to save it for Ivy’s birthday but it screamed Damian. I am pretty sure he agrees as he hasn’t taken it off since I gave it to him. (I forget how blue his eyes are sometimes, oh my gosh so handsome *Mommy gush*.)

Aside from wanting to share pictures of my blue eyed little devil, I just wanted to say how lovely the crown is. Though I won the crown in a contest, I would certainly buy from Kat in the future because of how well crafted it is (in fact I will probably buy a crown come November for Ivy’s birthday.) I also simply adored Kat’s shipping envelope. She cut a paper grocery store bag to size, packaged everything inside (the crown and a short note) and used a zigzag stitch to sew it shut. So ingenious! I will definitely be borrowing that idea.

I kind of want a crown now too…

When bees hum in the linden tree
and roses bloom in cottage plots.
Along the brookside banks we see
the blue wild forget-me-nots.
– Patience Strong

I spotted this lovely little thing was growing in the sandy gravel at the edge of Priest Lake. I am not sure what it is, but I think it is Forget-Me-Nots are just beautiful.

Taken while gathering reeds on Oimelc for Brighid’s crosses.

A juniper berry is the female seed cone produced by the various species of junipers. It is not a true berry but a cone with merged scales giving it a berry-like appearance.

(With the changing seasons flowers are not in abundance anymore, but their fruits are. Perhaps I should have fruit or foliage Fridays, in keeping with the alliteration.)

Last night I had a dream in which I was a bystander, watching myself, or someone who looked exactly like me. The “I” referred to in this post is the person I am watching.

I was standing in the middle of a very flat desolate landscape, with hard white ground as far as the eye could see, perhaps it was a salt flat. I am standing looking towards the pale blue sky with my arms raised, palms up, the wind is blowing my skirt behind me. I am wearing a blue ground length skirt, almost exactly like this one and a fuchsia peasant blouse, similar to this one. I am also wearing Damian in my Maya wrap, except its fuchsia rather then grey.

(Yep, I said fuchsia, as in electric pink. Totally not my color, I do not even own anything remotely pink. In fact I avoid pink like the plague… but I do have to say, fuchsia didn’t look half bad on me in the dream. Dreams can make anything look good I guess!)

I was calling out some kind of invocation, I don’t remember the words, but as I spoke them everything around me turned every shades of pink imaginable. The sky, the ground, all pink, even the air seemed to take on a hazy fuchsia tint. The pink seemed to emanate from me. Gradually as my invocation came to an end the pink faded. The bright white ground and blue sky returned.

A few moments after my invocation ended, there was a rumbling, one that I felt more then heard, and suddenly it was as if the world around me was fast forwarding. Water flooded the ground, swirling up to my knees and then receding. As it receded, low growing plant life grew in its wake and insects buzzed. Small bushes grew, then shrubs, then small trees, the towering ones. Soon I was in a dense forest, not unlike Colville National Forest (that photo is taken in them.)

A huge tree grew around me and I stood in a hollow alcove within it. Ivy climbed up its trunk, draping in front of me like a curtain. The seasons changed and the ivy turned red and its leaves fell. A little boy, Damian I assume, came running out of the tree and I followed. Michael followed too (where the heck did he come from?) and snow began to fall. Spring came and the little boy brought me a (pink) daisy chain and smiled up at me.

I woke up.

The dream was very chaotic but felt powerful. I don’t know about all the pink but in a general way it represents love doesn’t it? From love life comes forth perhaps? Any thoughts?

Silky lupine is a perennial wildflower native to the drier areas of the Pacific Northwest. It has one to several erect stems that can range from 20 to 70 cm in high. The leaves are palmately-compound with 7 to 9 oblanceolate leaflets. The leaves are a silvery/rust color and covered in small velvety hairs. It is generally found in well drained soils in grasslands but also among ponderosa pine.

Lupine in a summer bloom that flowers from May to August locally, and the blooms are very striking. They grow in whorls up an erect spike 10 to 15cm long. The flowers are peaflower shaped and about 1cm long. They are generally lavender or blue but in rare cases can be yellow or white.

Lupine contain toxic alkaloids which can cause death in large amounts. It’s seeds however can be made edible though by soaking and boiling them in several changes of water, they must be processed until no bitter taste is left. If not done properly you could easily poison yourself though, so I doubt this a wild food I will ever be eating…

• Eastern Washington Wildflowers
• Montana Plant Life
• Wikipedia