I'm never quite sure how much I tell on the blog about my personal life. The Essential Herbal blog is a combination of magazine news (like... be sure and read the free issue posted >>>> and then order a subscription on the website :-) and what goes on around here are Frog Hollow, so I really try to keep it "clean", meaning that if there are unpleasant things, they get glossed over.
For the past 3 1/2 years, one of our brothers (his blog) has been struggling with end stage liver disease. He moved in here about a year and a half ago. It has its ups and downs, to put it mildly. So some days it has been hard to find my own center, and the overflow sometimes spills onto the people around me.
I can remember when I had my first apartment "downtown" that I really, really needed to get into the country at least every 2 weeks. If that didn't happen, I got edgy and tense. Even on the trip there, as soon as the streets opened up to roads, it felt as if layers of worry and concern would fly off, one by one.
Now I live close to the woods. This past month has taken me into them almost daily. Spring is always a major siren song, and I cannot resist finding out what might be blooming, bursting through, or multiplying on the forest floor. This year is a little different though, and I find it so enchanting and calming to walk towards the woods. Even stepping outside the door... looking out the window... setting my bare feet into the grass... all of these actions start a chain of events that make me feel better. Here are some of the pictures from yesterday:
