The world outside has changed. Tonight I sat on the porch with my family watching the hummingbirds argue over the best spots on the feeder. Buzzing and fluttering and squeaking their protests over others who come to drink at the feeder. I swung back and forth on the hammock swing looking out over the village towards copper basin where the snow is now almost completely melted on the peaks. The deer are grazing on the lawns near the chalet, and many are pregnant and looking full and heavy. The other day we were walking out behind the chalets and saw a Mama bear and a baby. When the Baby saw us he quickly clambered up a tree up, up, into a patch of thick pine branches. Mama headed off into the brush and rolled around near a stump. We stood quietly waiting for the baby to come down and join his mama. The mama bear paid close to no attention to us she would occasionally glance up and look at us as if we were a minor annoyance in her day. We all stared on as if she were a miracle in ours. We waited for about fifteen minutes and then the baby began to make his way down the tree and began to cry for his mom. When he came out from behind the thickest branches we all sighed and cooed. He was so cute. He was black and roly-poly with a brownish gray nose and a big pink tongue. He made a gravely cry and his mom sat patiently waiting for him to come the rest of the way down. He kept glancing over at us as if trying to figure out what to do then took the plunge down to the ground. He then ran over to his mama and they turned to leave. Slowly they made their way into the forest.
It has been muggy for the last few days the air is damp and heavy and it has been raining off and on in the evening. The earth smells heavenly. Sitting on the porch in the evenings has been so nice. Many other villagers have been spending time on their porches as well and it feels nice to look across the hill and see others enjoying the evenings as well.
Having the May Youth Weekend kids in the village was fun but busy. I went out on one of the trail crews with fifteen kids and helped to clear the trails. We walked out towards Monkey Bear Falls and then started clearing brush and cutting back bushes. The kids did a great job for the first hour or so and then we took a snack break at which point many of the kids stopped working and started to complain. Some of them kept a good attitude for the whole time but there were a few who made it difficult. The trail does look a lot cleaner and is almost ready for the summer season.
The May Youth weekend kids left today and we had a group from the Chelan schools come in. A group of us volunteered to help the house keeping staff clean out and turn over the rooms in the lodges. It was a lot of fun to work on a project like that with a quick deadline and lots of people helping out. We finished with time to spare and all of the rooms ready for the new guests.
I began to batik some of the banners for the Village Center for the summer. We bought 100 yards of raw silk and I have been really nervous about ruining it (not to mention being nervous about starting that big of a project), so I have been putting off starting the project. Anyway, I finally broke ground today and I am having a lot of fun. My friend Ani helped me work out some more ideas on paper and come up with a clearer plan for the banners and now I am feeling a bit more ready to work on them.
We find out tomorrow if we will be moving into Chalet #14. I feel at peace with whatever decision is made, I only hope I don’t have to move the library in the same week. The library has been a bit neglected this week with all of the may youth weekend activities, so I have to try to catch up tomorrow. The plants in the library window are doing well. I brought up some of the sweet peas onto my porch to add some greenery to it. Every night we would block the steps of our porch so the deer wouldn’t come up and eat them, only to discover that the squirrels loved them and chewed them down. Annoying little squirrels. I think I will leave the rest of the peas in the Library window.
I love looking out my window at the other chalets with the warm yellow glow of lights and friends sitting across the way reading or playing instruments or just sitting together. I love the evenings when things are quiet and settling down. No one is in a rush and families are having their nightly rituals. Being a part of a community like this feels so good. Some people still have their Christmas lights up. Everything feels calm and familiar, like a warm fuzzy blanket.

I am a thirty five year old woman always in need of a mother, and last night I realized that at Holden I am surrounded by beautiful, amazing woman who are mothers and who have become a great source of support and friendship to me as I have been here. The Waldorf community had also offered that communion of women, and when I arrived here I was so lonely for it, but somehow that support is being built up again. I hope for my daughters that they always find themselves in the company of good woman, woman who are wiling to share and love deeply, who can reach out and share their common path, and who are willing to grow. As I get older and hopefully wiser I realize how important it is to have, and to be an example of someone who is consciously striving. I just finish reading the book The Red Tent, and it made me think of all the treasures that make up womanhood, and as I have been thinking about it for the last couple of days I have been deeply thankful for the women in my life who have walked me through so much joy and sorrow, and how lucky I have been to have deep friendships with women of all ages and walks of life. I have been shown the example of unconditional love through these women who come from all sorts of spiritual backgrounds, and are all striving in love. I am so thankful for my good fortune!

This is our last May Youth Weekend. We had five bus loads of kids come up the mountain today and I played the part of Little Bow Poop, who had lost her shoop and was sick to death of caring for the Holden Flock of sheep and wanted to sell them off to become a rock star. Jordyn, Nyrie and Ellie were my sheep and I sold them to various buses as they made there way up the hill. There were other pranks and shenanigans played on the buses on the way up the hill. This group seems like a great group of kids and the weekend should go pretty well.

We had such an amazing family time this weekend! Nyrie and I took the bus down to the Lucerne Dock and brought our camping gear and then went on a little hike. Jordyn and Dave came down on their bikes and got there about an hour or so after Nyrie and I had arrived. Nyrie and I walked to refrigerator harbor and played on the beach and settled our things at the A-frame near the lake. It sprinkled all day so we walked around in our rain gear, and then helped to unload food from a Holden truck which had broken down onto the Holden bus to go up to the village. It was good work.
Then Nyrie and I went to visit our friends Bob and Sue who are the ranger/caretaker for Lucerne. We had a nice time with them drinking tea and watching the rain fall. Nyrie said later that night that one of her favorite parts of the day was spending time with Bob and Sue. Dave and Jordyn Joined us soon after and then Jordyn and I went to pick mushrooms while Dave and Nyrie started a fire on the beach. It was foggy and rainy and the hike up the hill to the burn out zone was wet but beautiful. When we neared the ridge the fog disappeared just long enough to let us see out over the lake and it was beautiful! The fog clung to the sides of the lake valley and then moved back down covering the lake once more, so Jordyn and I resumed our hike and headed up the hill. It was fun to watch her reactions to things. She really takes things in deeply and would stand and look at things for long periods of time before being ready to move on. We went from a lush green forest area up through the burn out zone and she was amazed. Then we started our hunt for life in the burn area. I showed her some mushroom patches and then she was off and we filled our bucket in a short amount of time and she found perhaps the biggest morel mushroom I had yet seen. Both of us were having a good time searching and it was hard to pull ourselves away, but we wanted to get down for dinner. Little did we know that the mushrooms were going to be our dinner because we had accidentally left our cooler up at the village. Bummer. We didn’t discover that we were missing our food until we went to get the hot-dogs and there weren’t any. We did however have bread, an Indian food in a pouch and a can of soup, so we cleaned the mushrooms and added them to the soup and shared the Indian food and bread. Jordyn and I also roasted morels on sticks with Olive oil we borrowed from the ranger, and salted them with salt from the emergency food store in the A-frame. All and all it was a pretty good meal, and the mushrooms were tasty!
We did have marshmallows, so we roasted marshmallows in the rain and stayed out on the beach until about ten, watching the swallows, roasting mellows and talking. It was so nice just being together. After we put the fire out we headed back to the A-frame and set out our sleeping bags on the couch and made a fire and read our family book together. Then we went to sleep. At about midnight we had some visitors. Some people from a nearby camp were looking for a dry place to sleep and nearly scared me half to death. They came into the A-frame with flashlights and I said, in a shaky voice from my cot “whose there” they were surprised that we were there and we were surprised that they were there. They quickly went away and I spent the next two hours worrying about how wet they were, then I got over it and fell asleep. We woke up at about Nine and ate the granola bars I had packed for hiking which the children told me were too sugary then we hiked up to the ridge to show Dave and Nyrie the view. It was warm and sunny and it felt good after all of that wet. The view was amazing! You could see all the way down to Stehekin and the shiny tops of the buildings. Then we went back into the burn Zone so Nyrie could have a chance to pick as well. We spent a half an hour picking and then headed back down to the beach because the girls both wanted to have their first lake jump of the season.
The first jump for the girls was fun. Nyrie and I went in twice. Then Jordyn and Dave did really big jumps. It was cold and we stood on the dock in the sunshine shivering and laughing.
Then we ate the rest of the bread with sardines and Indian food for lunch, and we spent a couple of hours playing on the beach. Jordyn and Nyrie made an awesome teeter totter with drift wood and had a lot of fun bouncing up and down on it.
I really enjoyed being with Dave and the girls exploring and connecting. It was so much fun and relaxing! I felt that we all got good time together! When we came back to the village it felt nice to be back. It is so nice to have people notice that we were gone and welcome us back so kindly. I love the welcoming feel of Holden. It is always nice to come back.

You picked me up and carried me across the river, your arms encircling me as you laughed. You stepped through the freezing water navigating displaced rocks and current and hoisted me up, backpack and all onto the snowy shore on the other side. I felt love in your hands as you let me go, and caught the sparkle of joy in your eye as you came out of the water with pink feet against snowy white and stone.
We made our way down to the patch of thawed beach where the ice cover on the lake backed away from the beach thirty feet or so from the shore and deep blue water invited more thaw to come its way. The sun poured down hard, so hard that all I could think of for the last few miles of hiking was jumping in the lake as soon as we reached it. What a surprise to find it still covered in a foot or more of ice, but you knew just where to go... You had your eye on a spot and led me down with confident steps. Then it took courage to jump. Standing on the edge filled in warming scilence and watched black birds hopping across the lake ice and listened to the movement of the water rolling stones. Together we savored this precious moment beside the frigid blue.

Do not waste time
Walking idly down these halls of broken promises
Why do you spend so much energy
in this strange weep and wail,
as if the whole world revolves around you
And might come to a screeching halt
If only you ask it to
Do not waste time
fretting about your past
Things done, things left undone
Quit the wasteful worry about the things of yesterday
Step into today boldly with your head held high
Open your arms to embrace light
For the light dances where time can not go
Be present and cast your fear away like a stone
And love will open before you as a mouth of a canyon
Inviting you to sit awhile at God’s feet
Don’t waste time in anger
Holding grudges, and looking for something to be amiss
Or waiting for the moment when something will go wrong
Stop looking to be misunderstood
Instead proclaim this moment joyous
AND LIVE!
Live in the unseen and unspoken
Live in the here and now,
where not every moment can be planned or predicted,
but love can surprise you with a steady hand
Why do you want to dwell in disappointment, when the world around you is swelling with potential
Write the play in this moment
Join in the movement of the dance
Savor each note as it floats across this valley,
from your flute
Drink in each color from the bushes, trees, and flowers
When you are so caught up in yourself you miss the essential glimpses of God
Glimmering from each drop of water
Moving in the treetops
Bursting forth in laughter from the lips of a child
These are the things worth savoring, worth spending time on
They, are truth
Don’t waste time

And Finally Ny's Haircut

Okay so much is going on that I hardly know where to start. Last Friday Ang and I hiked up to Hart Lake, about nine miles round trip, and had a picnic lunch. The snow has melted on about half of the trail there so it was hard work on the snowy parts without snowshoes, especially on the way back when the snow had warmed up and was sloppy. There is a gorgeous waterfall that comes out of the lake as you are just about there. Unfortunately neither of us brought a camera along. The last slope up to the lake is long, steep, and totally exposed without a bit of shade. The whole way up it Ang and I were thinking about jumping in the lake when we got there. It sounded so nice after getting all hot and sweaty; little did we know that the lake was still mostly frozen over. We made our way down to one of the open areas near a stream running in, and jumped in anyway. It was so cold that it knocked your breath out and gave you an immediate head ache. The effects faded fast in the warm sun as we ate our picnic. We had to rush on the way home to get back in time for me to go to a meeting, it was quite a work out. We were both careful to put on sunscreen, every where except our legs, I burnt the heck out of my legs and had to wear long pants all weekend after that. Ang’s legs got burnt as well but not nearly as bad as mine.
The meeting that I had to rush back for was for the first response team. We had a scenario, where I was a patient, and was well cared for by my fellow first responders. Then we talked about communications in the village, and then went to the first aid station to talk about the oxygen systems here.
I have also been driving the busses quite a lot. I drove one of the busses picking up the May Youth Weekenders on Saturday, there were six busses, 200 kids, and I drove them back out on Monday. I have been driving two or three runs a week since I got trained in on the busses up here. They’re all manual transmissions and it reminds me of driving the switch tractors for RPS.
I also have a new carpenter, one of the young guys up for the summer, and he has been helping with the walk-in cooler project. I finally can see the light at the end of the tunnel on that project. It seems like every time I get into a rhythm on that project; something comes up and pulls me in a different direction. It’s been nice to have Chris working on it while I attend to all of the other crises that crop up.
I have also found time to ride my bike a few times a week as well, I pretty much just go down to the top of the switchbacks, and come back up. It’s about 15 miles round trip with an elevation loss and gain of about 1000 feet. Today I found more morel mushrooms for Ang where the fire made it up to the road.

Nyrie decided to chop her hair off yesterday and once she had made the decision she didn't want to wait. I was working most of the day and she kept finding me and asking "can we do it now?" Finally after dinner I made some time and she washed it and we braided it, and cut fourteen inches off to send to Locks of Love. I cut it into a bob, super short in the back and long in the front with no bangs. It turned out really cute. when I had finished the cut Nyrie disappeared for awhile and I thought she might be crying so I went to find her and she came bouncing down the stairs in a red sailors dress saying "This is the best haircut I have ever had!" I was relieved! She then wanted to show all of her friends her new style so we walked around the village o show people. She was so happy and positively glowing! We will post some pictures.

We had an amazing group of youth up here this week end. There were 250 kids and they really worked hard and with a great attitude on the work projects! My project was cleaning Koinania, washing windows, vacuuming cleaning the old Library space and preparing the new one. I had fifteen kids working for two hours and they were diligent and fun. We got more done in those two hours than I could have gotten done in two weeks! The attitude of the group as a whole was really good, really respectful and kind. I watched many of the kids going out of their way for each other. Many of us opened our homes as a meeting space for the groups and It was fun to have them there. It was strange to have that many people in the village but have it still feel like a tight knit community. Some of the kids in the group last week were struggling with how to respect their leaders and the village as a whole and it made it difficult for others.
The weather was amazing this weekend! It was sunny and beautiful and we ate most of our meals out doors! The dear are fully present in the village right now and it was strange to see them walk so close to that many people without fear.
We saw our first bear yesterday. It was a cub right out behind the chalets. It was about the size of Bella and very cute. It was really close to the village, and we didn't know where the Mama was so Chuck chased it off into the woods trying to make a clear boundary so the cub would not get comfortable hanging out near the village.
The village kids helped to clean out the hot tub yesterday and so as a reward Abby opened it up as a cool pool for them to play in for a couple of hours. The water temperature was at about 38 degrees so the kids played a game to see who could stay in the longest. They had a lot of fun!
Dave and I worked the afternoon shift in the pool hall/bowling alley with the youth kids. All of the kids were kind and respectful and we didn't really need to do any monitoring, so Dave and I played a game of cribbage and ate ice cream with Nyrie.
Jordyn and Nyrie and the rest of the village kids have been having a blast playing in the drainage ditch. They have been building dams and making makeshift boats in the center of the village. They have played there almost all weekend and it has been a fun thing to watch! Yesterday they were joined by a little squirrel who rolled around in th dirt on the side of the ditch and watched everything they were doing. They have been coming home very dirty covered in remnants of mud and sap, with smiles on their faces and sometimes tears from exhaustion from playing so hard all day.
We have been taking walks out to the falls in the evenings and the ten mile falls are raging! It is amazing to see the sheer power of the water pushing its way down the valley knocking down trees and moving huge boulders. The sound is deafening. It has been a lot of fun to get that time together in the evening. On Saturday Dave and Jordyn walked together and Nyrie and I got some time. We had great conversation about all sorts of things. Both of the girls are growing up so beautifully!