work trading

Since I am not working much yet, and I am not living in a community yet, I have been work trading. It has been nice reaching out and offering to help at a few places around eugene. I worked in the gardens at Eggcentric farm. Today I thinned the carrot patch at Heartaculture and helped leaf mulch an area. Tomorrow I am helping at the tine house. One of the best parts of community living for me is working with people. Its like the tribes who dont even have a word for 'work' because ... well, its just life, and it can be fun.
I hope to work with Blessed Bee pretty soon and I cant wait until I get to milk the cow at heartaculture!

o wow

What a great trip we had! It morphed into something I wasnt expecting. I thought we were going to visit a whole new list of farms and communities, work trading. Instead, we focused on visiting friends and family from seattle to hollywood. We ....
canoed with jay
planted beans with matt
ate cupcakes with carly
saw dino bones with chris
held bunnies with another chris
cracked eggs with jennifer
played skeeball with didi
ziplined with jessi
chased waves with zoryana
collected crabs with rachel

rode ponies, sled in a trashbag, visited the dawson house, played in arcades, saw Hermione's hand prints, skinny dipped in willow lake, soaked in hot springs, spelunked, hiked to see waterfalls, sat in a covered wagon, and joined every library summer reading program along the way !

to the top

We are on the road...
so far we visited Dicentra farm in Monmouth, Heartaculture in Eugene, and Lost Valley. Our visits have been great! Aside from the farm places, we also visited friends and family in Seattle. Ama's number 1 request was to go to the top of the space needle, so we did.
We played at some of the most amazing playgrounds too. Lincoln Park has this zip line swing that most kids would dream of - at least I did when I was little. A park at the high point in west seattle is where we got to watch fireworks. Meridian park is where I fell of 'death by tongue slide' - our name given to a slide that looks like a tongue. We didnt go to Carkeek park this time, but it is hard to forget a slide that shoots you out of a salmon butt.
Seattle treated us well, and so has eugene... despite the weather. Rain seems to be here to stay for the summer.
Next we will be exploring Bend and sleeping in a tipi there..
then Umpqua Hot springs for a night of camping and soaking
then Medford to help with a friends farm
then off to explore some volcanoes!
other plans include going to the top of LA and the top of the redwoods

relevant

Finally, a relevant post. I am in the midst of planning a summer adventure! Just like the title of my blog... watch out communities , here we come!
Here is my brief letter I am sending out to farms...

Adventure with a purpose (or 2)

My name is Leslie. I have an 8year old daughter named Ama and we are ready to go on another adventure. We have two objectives in mind.

1. to visit farm communities in the hopes to find a great match for a long term commitment

2. to learn more hands on skills ( a sort of unschooling summer trip)

We have lived and worked in other communities such as Lost Valley in Oregon and the Ecohood in Phoenix. We have experience teaching permaculture classes... yes, Ama has helped her dad teach the backyard chicken classes for the Phoenix Permaculture Guild! I developed and taught a class called “Kids in Community” for the PDC in Phoenix and at Lost Valley. I also have experience Wwoofing on a blueberry farm, where I learned everything from mulching, to picking, to packing and selling at the Newport farmers market.

We would like to visit for a few days in July or August.

Please let me know your availability, and I will let you know more specific times when my plan comes together more.

Thank you!
Leslie and Ama

prplwmn@gmail.com

I am signed up to wwoof again this year (thats a work trade program), so I have the book and I am sending this email out to a few places every day. There are a ton of great looking places, but with differing schedules and needs of each place I am guessing if I sent out 20 emails it is possible only a handful will work out.
by the way... YAY I am taking 2 months off to explore!
I have 2 months to visit everyone from Bellingham down to Sacramento and maybe even all the way to phx --that might take some convincing in 120 degree heat-- but, go ahead and convince me! If you want us to visit, let me know soon, so I can plan it in.
also, if you know any cool communities or farms for us to visit, let me know, or pass on my letter to them.
thank you!
hope to see you soon!

about time

I need to write! It's been over a month and I feel the need to write. I know hardly anyone reads my extremely amateur writing, but I like to do it.
I dont like this feeling of... not having enough time, franticness, stressed... whatever it is. I can be a little grateful for having such a full life... and its also hard to not have 15 minutes to sit down and check the job listings. In the long run I know I need to schedule in this time and make it a priority so I can eventually have a more fulfilling job or even a career.
I hope I sounded ok telling the new seasons deli manager that I havent had 5 minutes to look at other jobs in the company yet. This is the guy that interviewed me recently for a job I thought i would get for sure. And I didnt. And I'm sure there is a good reason in the big scheme of things... but it turns out I was REALLY looking forward to not continuing a few of my cleaning jobs. Now I know that for sure. And, it was a weekend only job, so not getting it meant working more than full time while easing out of my current job, and not getting weekends off for the next 3 months. so, whatever. But the security in working for a company was sounding sooooo nice. benefits are sounding sooo nice. nice and normal.
For now I am manifesting a perfect job at the sellwood new seasons. perfect hours, perfect days, perfect location, perfect job.
I am also grateful for my weekends free
I am grateful I have this nice flexible job in the meantime
I am grateful that I can ride my bike to a few of my jobs (when it stops raining)
I am grateful that my work doesnt even feel like work sometimes and I am usually pleasantly surprised when I get a paycheck
I am also grateful for....
crashing the laughing party
tom kha
circus classes
breaks in the rain
the cayzers
healing times and mystical mysteries
DUP
buddha church
free estate sales
netflix
a lovely midweek day spent with my Ama- even if it included a doctor visit and a few hours at work
an agreeable Ama at the doctor's office
our trip to froyo
and pizzacato
white chocolate croissants and mint mochas
dreams
peoples co-op
kids' apologies and make up hugs
costco guys who have to check my tires every month
dinners with friends
partially lazy weekends

it's all connected

bathrooms, aliens, fear, protector, Lost Valley, dreams, people....

I finally heard her dream. Her 'bad dream' that she has been mentioning for 3 years, but never wanted to tell me. She said it was too bad to tell me. It is too scary.
She still didnt tell me, but I overheard her story when she pulled her friend aside to tell him. She walked round the corner about 10 feet away and proceeded to tell her story, quite loudly.
I think she may have wanted me to hear.
I hope that she is getting the healing she needs from finally sharing her dream with me.
I can only guess what it all means, but it seems pretty clear. It is all coming together. Her strong desire to protect me, her fear of people and bathrooms...
I have done my best to make different healing options available... I let her know she can tell me or tell someone else her dreams, I gave her space to not tell me, I offered for her to explore painting it out, I had a healer to come do reiki with her, I brought in some Taras to protect her, my friend Tara :) brought in some angels to help her, I give her fish oils in her juice, I buy her healing stones, we light candles...
and on and on
I guess that day that she told me she had a bad dream and I held her and listened to what she would share with me, I had no idea we would still be working through it 3 years later.
I guess that's life
at least today

on hold

Sometimes it seems like I am living the wrong life. Or like my life is on hold. Maybe I will get to do all the things I want to do, but for some reason it seems unlikely that I can do what I want to do. It is possible I just need to be patient and work on getting to where I want to be. Its possible. Maybe it's weird that I feel this way. I have done alot of cool things. It just seems like Ama is at an age that she needs to have more stability and I actually want that too, but I also want to travel. I dont see a way to get both of our needs met with the resources I have right now. That frustrates me and then I feel stuck. I want to be able to have a seasonal job, or work a month in an ashram, then work a month on a farm, then work a month in Ireland... or whatever.
I also think I may have made some mistakes. I used to make 8times what I make now. I am extemely low income and dont really see myself getting out of that. I cant travel with a child, with no income. I cant just be a traveling gypsy in a covered wagon in this day and age... although that is something else I would really like to do as well.
I feel stuck in the middle.