Honey-cat in Autumn

Small black cat pouncing on leaves
You dance with orange
In Dragonwood's golden fall.

May Revel 2012

This year's May Revel was one of the best parties we have hosted at Dragonwood.  The day arrived warm and cloudy, but by afternoon the skies cleared.  Our guests arrived in waves, with the first group briefly landing like hummingbirds only to flit off again.  It was a great treat to see them, and supply them with the traditional May wine, herbal lemonade, and cheese tasting.  We hope the rest of their day was as beautiful as they were!  When the next wave of friends rolled in, we celebrated the season with a romp around the maypole.  I think this year's dance was our best ever, with kisses all around once the ribbons were braided.  Faerygirl's posse joined her for giggles and fun, and Squirrelboy made a new friend.  We also caught three snakes with Squirrelboy's new herpetological mentor.  Someone brought a cornhole game and kites, which delighted young and old alike.  Then the Lord of Dragonwood fired up the grill and made his luscious burgers.  We also served weenies and marshmallows toasted over the firepit.  To cap off the evening, our friends drummed as the Supermoon rose over Dragonwood, full and rosy.  We drummed and danced until the stars came out.  Later on, in the night, the Lord and Lady held hands in the moonlight, reflecting on a perfect, most beautiful day.

This foolish business of Spring

'Tis a misty moisty morning this first day of April.  O to be a fool, while spring is in the world!  (thanks, e.e.)  Dragonwood is green, looking much as it would in early May.  The early wildflowers, which usually emerge this time of year, have already bloomed and gone.  Now the trilliums open, and May apples are not far behind.  There are still fair patches of white in the woods, but those spots dwindle as new leaf growth races toward the sun.  A troop of six deer frequents our forest, going so far as to cross the driveway when the children and I were headed towards the road one morning.  We counted them as some people do the cars of a train.  Our bees have been busy already this year, making the most of the early nectar flow.  We put supers on the hives in mid-March, hoping to share in the bounty.  This very moment, outside the kitchen window, two large squirrels battle for territory.  It's so amazing to see them leap onto fragile branches.  Ah, one has lost.  It was chased too far onto a bending branch, where it could not escape.  The aggressor then backed off and climbed its chosen tree in triumph.  The winner poses, head up, but headfirst towards the ground, where I can admire his sleek body and bushy tail.  As he leaves to go about his buisiness, a robin with nest material in its beak pauses a moment to rest in the squirrel's tree.  Life bursts forth all around us. 

Early Spring in Dragonwood

     This has been a morning in which every beat of my heart throbs with gratefulness and joy.  Birds sing from every quarter of Dragonwood.  Spicebush is in bloom, making a hazy yellow layer in the understory.  Spring beauties and a few other woodland wildflowers blossom.  We find DeKay's brownsnakes, from a hand's-length red-bellied beauty on the doormat to a foot-long matriarch skimming the leafy ground.
     The bees meet the challenge of an early warm spell by gathering great amounts of pollen and honey from the budding maples and wildflowers.  Maple pollen looks like creamy pale yellow dust, while some of the wildflower pollen is bright red.  Crocuses, too, produce reddish or bright orange pollen.  So much honey is being collected that we put honey supers on two of three hives.
     Every day is a new adventure for 6-year-old Squirrelboy and me.  He earned the privilege of visiting the neighbor's woods (larger than ours) by diligently cleaning up the roadside trash.  His kindness and persistence impressed her, and she apparently values the precious gift of a childhood spent in the woods.  So now, every day after school, I must go on an adventure with my increasingly bold explorer.  I follow his long legs and tousled blond hair into the forest.  He finds paths for me across logs and around thornbushes.  Squirrelboy is a gentleman, too, pointing out hazards and picking up treasures.  We talk about the value of keeping wild places healthy, and how to show respect for our neighbors when we are on their property.  Under his shining blue eyes, the freckles darken, and I fall in love with my beautiful boy all over again.
     I discover bones, and we wonder what this animal could have been.  Sharp teeth and large, forward pointing eyesockets mean it must have been a carnivore that could hunt.  From the size of the skull, I guess it could have been a coon or opossum. 
     Indoors, we hear the voices of eight peeps!  These baby chickens will grow our flock.  Of course, the children have already named them:  Owl and America, the blue/green egg-laying Ameracaunas; Lily and Ginny, the Cherry Eggers; Silvie and Amity, the Silver-Lace Wyandottes; and Lacey and Fire Ammonite, the Gold-Lace Wyandottes.  Can you guess which ones Squirrelboy named, which I named, and which were named by Faerygirl?  We suspect Fire Ammonite is a rooster, due to his petite size, bossy attitude and extra-loud constant peep.
   We at Dragonwood look forward to a beautiful season of garden, bees, chickens, woodland adventures, and unprecedented delights.  It has already begun.

First Snow Magic

The first snow of winter is always magical. This year, the snow fell during the time of a fat full moon and soft pink sunrises. It cheered Squirrelboy even though he was kept indoors with a nasty cough. Faerygirl collected some in a bowl. Some years, November comes on gray and grumpy, but this winter has arrived gently and full of sweet promise. We are enjoying cocoa, the warmth of our woodburning stove, and the playfulness of our new kitten, Honey. She is a wee black furball full of fierceness. She intimidates our old one-eyed dog, Tabby and climbs up on my shoulders to take a nap. Faerygirl decided that the Lord of Dragonwood needed a kitten for his birthday, and so little Honey is now a part of our family. Squirrelboy was fit enough to return to school this morning, and he delighted in finding thin ice covering the driveway puddles. This morning's snow cover looked like a thin coating of powdered sugar over the florest floor, dry and granular. I'm happy for Squirrelboy, headed back to school. Yesterday he missed his teacher and his friends so much! He said, "school is the awesomest place on the planet, even better than McDonald's." Today the Lord of Dragonwood is taking a day off and I have not been called in to substitute teach, so I look forward to an enchanting day of welcoming the beautiful season of winter.