Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free ‐‐ Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Rabindranath Tagore's words from 1910 and his call for peace and freedom for his beloved India resonate in my heart and my own fervent belief in our need to call out for equality and freedom and a better life for all people in our own countries, nations and our much bigger world.
We must simply and complicatedly open our hearts to one another with love for all of man and animal kind and with the deepest of true sentient caring, compassion, and most of all, mercy.
We must direct our minds and our hearts through the energies of this love and compassion to envision, create, and bring forth into reality a new and better world.
The true world of sacred communion and all encompassing community that in our hearts, minds, and souls we all dream of within our deepest dreams within a dream that we call reality.
We strive to reach across uncertainties to our own basic truths and desires for a happy, healthy cohesive family, country, nation, and most of all world.
And we have really good days filled with really good fun while still working towards our individual goals and desires manifested for all. And for one not limited by and not just through and for our own selfish egos.
And that my dear friends is not always easy to do. This is the hardest lesson, learning and truth
And for me it's always starts with hope, faith, and charity--and always, always begins with love for family.
And we all have really good days filled with really good fun while still working towards our individual goals and desires with an immediate goal of being as happy and healthy and productive in living our days and weeks and months, and lives as we can.
With all of these wishes, all of these dreams and all of the otherworldly pains and challenges we can still celebrate each blessing of a new day.
On one such lovely day, we collected apples from our apple trees in our back orchard and using nature's bounty and our eldest daughter's creative gifting a handmade by her cider press, we made homemade apple cider!
But don't worry, my chickens there's lots more where these apples came from and more again to come from other apple and fruit trees!
Our trial run with 8 adults and 3 preschoolers (plus all 7 chickens wondering where their apples were going!)
All helping, each at their own ability, interest, and energy level. The littlest ones (with occasional supervision from their parents and grandma) used their hands to clean the apples as they bobbed around in a big plastic storage bin of clean well water.
The Littles removed them when clean and placed them withing reach of a dad, granddad or uncle, or the moms and dads or grandparents and up onto a sawhorse and planks table.
The rest of us worked at this first station where we took turns feeding the grandkids' washed apples into the hand wheel cranked scratter part of the apple cider pressing process #1 as son and son-in-law took turns turning the hand crank "steering wheel".
Note: In less than a week we now have an old motor (recycled by my husband) as our new and improved motorized scrabber for our next apple cider day! Hand cranking is not easy especially with little ones wanting to help 😊
At station #2 my daughter fed that mixture into her apple pressing unit where pure clean juice poured down into clean pails. Transfered into pitchers, decanters and thermal hydro flasks with the help of all but grandma and grandkids who were now playing and trying very hard not to jump on beds with cider glasses in hand!The proceesed cider was from our own trees, organiclly grown, fresh, and quite delicious!
And now, this weekend, we are gathering one again. More apple pressing into cider, more mashing into canned appleauce or mixed with our plums or wild blackberries and dried in our homemade food drier into fruit leather. We have pears out back and even some Asian pears out to our neighbor's orchards to try in pear cider if we so choose.
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Rabindranath Tagore's words from 1910 and his call for peace and freedom for his beloved India resonate in my heart and my own fervent belief in our need to call out for equality and freedom and a better life for all people in our own countries, nations and our much bigger world.
We must simply and complicatedly open our hearts to one another with love for all of man and animal kind and with the deepest of true sentient caring, compassion, and most of all, mercy.
We must direct our minds and our hearts through the energies of this love and compassion to envision, create, and bring forth into reality a new and better world.
The true world of sacred communion and all encompassing community that in our hearts, minds, and souls we all dream of within our deepest dreams within a dream that we call reality.
We strive to reach across uncertainties to our own basic truths and desires for a happy, healthy cohesive family, country, nation, and most of all world.
And we have really good days filled with really good fun while still working towards our individual goals and desires manifested for all. And for one not limited by and not just through and for our own selfish egos.
And that my dear friends is not always easy to do. This is the hardest lesson, learning and truth
And for me it's always starts with hope, faith, and charity--and always, always begins with love for family.
And we all have really good days filled with really good fun while still working towards our individual goals and desires with an immediate goal of being as happy and healthy and productive in living our days and weeks and months, and lives as we can.
With all of these wishes, all of these dreams and all of the otherworldly pains and challenges we can still celebrate each blessing of a new day.
On one such lovely day, we collected apples from our apple trees in our back orchard and using nature's bounty and our eldest daughter's creative gifting a handmade by her cider press, we made homemade apple cider!
But don't worry, my chickens there's lots more where these apples came from and more again to come from other apple and fruit trees!
Our trial run with 8 adults and 3 preschoolers (plus all 7 chickens wondering where their apples were going!)
All helping, each at their own ability, interest, and energy level. The littlest ones (with occasional supervision from their parents and grandma) used their hands to clean the apples as they bobbed around in a big plastic storage bin of clean well water.
The Littles removed them when clean and placed them withing reach of a dad, granddad or uncle, or the moms and dads or grandparents and up onto a sawhorse and planks table.
The rest of us worked at this first station where we took turns feeding the grandkids' washed apples into the hand wheel cranked scratter part of the apple cider pressing process #1 as son and son-in-law took turns turning the hand crank "steering wheel".
Note: In less than a week we now have an old motor (recycled by my husband) as our new and improved motorized scrabber for our next apple cider day! Hand cranking is not easy especially with little ones wanting to help 😊
At station #2 my daughter fed that mixture into her apple pressing unit where pure clean juice poured down into clean pails. Transfered into pitchers, decanters and thermal hydro flasks with the help of all but grandma and grandkids who were now playing and trying very hard not to jump on beds with cider glasses in hand!The proceesed cider was from our own trees, organiclly grown, fresh, and quite delicious!
And now, this weekend, we are gathering one again. More apple pressing into cider, more mashing into canned appleauce or mixed with our plums or wild blackberries and dried in our homemade food drier into fruit leather. We have pears out back and even some Asian pears out to our neighbor's orchards to try in pear cider if we so choose.
It's all a lot of work, but working together and sharing our hard times along with our good brings forth far more laughter than tears. The gifts of Mother Nature's bounty along with our own labors of love!
Making memories to record and to treasure by doing what you can, when you can and working and having fun trying something new makes for a very good day and a very nice break from the rest of our lives of work, worry, and challenges, for all of us.
And with meaningful thoughts and words and best thoughts that others may also be blessed and free from anxiety, fear, pain and suffering and one day be free to have even one day of love and happiness¡
Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands as sharing an imaginative,magical and healing journey from Alaska to Oregon.
Creating, designing, sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting from my heart and with my hands.
Making memories to record and to treasure by doing what you can, when you can and working and having fun trying something new makes for a very good day and a very nice break from the rest of our lives of work, worry, and challenges, for all of us.
And with meaningful thoughts and words and best thoughts that others may also be blessed and free from anxiety, fear, pain and suffering and one day be free to have even one day of love and happiness¡
Michele Bilyeu Creates With Heart and Hands as sharing an imaginative,magical and healing journey from Alaska to Oregon.
Creating, designing, sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting from my heart and with my hands.
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