Aloha, wild people, feral travelers, and dreamers…
This is the first dispatch of the Hygge life set I am writing from the Nest, in the beautiful Carolinian forests of southern Ontario. It’s berry season, and my mate and I have been scavenging the woods and our garden patches for our seasonal harvests of blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, gooseberry, red and black currants, and strawberries. Most of these have built in thorns and spikes to prevent overgrazing mammals, birds, and other insectoid life from getting too close to these sweet sun ripened gifts, but with a little dexterity and the right tools, we can ambidextrously pluck, pinch and pull to our hearts content, and one thing with these berries, unlike many other wild foraging species there is no lethal harvest, so we have been preserving as well, making pure blackcurrant juice, which we are using as a concentrate, as well as jam, both have xylitol for sweetnees as currants are extremely sour when raw.
We also harvested several pounds of garlic, and have trays of mugwort drying in the solar dehydrator, which I am using the leaves of this medieval plant to make a dream pillow. It is well known for it’s use as an oneirogen, a naturally occurring dream enhancer, so there is a deep epigenetic value to using this plant for sleep practice. We have been catching and fermenting the wasps that have decided to swarm and build their nests around our home, as a biodynamic way to repel further hives being built, this is perhaps a lean to Rudolf Steiners teachings of fermenting and burning agricultural pests and then spreading the ashes on the fields to deter further invasions. Our bees are thriving, and have made a new queen after swarming a month ago. Half of the racks in the hives are being filled with sweet honey from the surrounding flora. I have been learning more about apiculture, and viticulture, that is beekeeping and grape growing. There is a hidden world of plants and fauna that always impresses me just when I think I understand them
On our forays out from the land, we have already found some favorite foraging spots for milkweed, hypericum, and queen annes lace (Daucus carota), also called wild carrot. This is a plant used traditionally used by women as a contraceptive. I have been using the milkweed flowers in some tasty kangaroo burgers which we tried for the first time a short while ago. I am going to be planting a new bed of seeds to overwinter, and for late harvest this year of some herbs like stevia and anise, and increasing my vegetative diversity with yellow pear tomatoes, red russian kale, melons, romano beans, and arctic kiwis.
I have been fishing off the local waters for bass, and have been able to bring in a fair catch each time of a few fish, which we have been trying as fillet, and breaded in spelt flour. I would like to build some snares for rabbit in the coming weeks. In the meantime I am getting a lot of naked sun time and soaking the photons deep into my body, setting my base tan before the autumn comes, using the energy from the sun to thrive in this beautiful setting. It is our natural form of photosynthesis after all.
The days are hot and tropical followed by torrential downpour every other day when we stay inside the nest, lay on sheep skins, watch the fireflies at night, drink hot cacao and dandelion root teas, and eat nutritious organic meals. The cats are out hunting at night, engaging their primal biology, and turkeys have been rummaging in the forest. I have bison sausage from a local meat monger, and plenty of wild rice. Sometimes we go to liberate the wasted food behind a local whole foods store. And in our downtime, we are planning new trips, exploring our love, dreaming, and laughing. Anything to make life more hygge.
:aferalspirit: 