Animals

On Making Life Extra-Ordinary

One of yesterday's comments...

"It might be fun to live in your head."

Well....put on your seatbelt...we're about to take a ride through my head!

Each day as I go about caring for the farm and its inhabitants,

(because I am usually alone)

I spend quite a bit of time thinking, planning, scheming, imagining, dreaming.

Lately I have been thinking about how important it is to keep magic to our lives.

Let's face it...

magic seems to be one of the things we leave behind when we become adults

as we add "can't" and "shouldn't" to our vocabularies.

For the most part we stop believing...

in fairies, and magic, and possibilities, and sometimes in ourselves.

We allow the limitations placed upon us by the world to occupy space in our heads

until we actually believe them.

Wouldn't the world be an amazing place if we retained some of the imagination of childhood!

I went to the woods yesterday to pick blackberries for jam.

It's been a wet summer here, so we have a lot of wild black raspberries (a rarity in past years)

lining the edge of the woods.

The challenge in picking black raspberries is to get to them before these fellows do.

Daddy Long-Legs love to suck the juice from the center of the blackberry...

leaving behind its desiccated carcass...dry and smooshy and not-at-all-good-for-jam!

And while we are on the subject...

are their wives "Mommy Long-Legs?"

As I high-stepped through the bracken and bramble,

(avoiding the jaggers that reached out to grab my legs)

I felt many tiny eyes on me.

The woods are full of deer and squirrels, raccoon and possums, fox and coyote,

and wee folk as well!

Walking along, searching for berries,

I caught an occasional glimpse of movement in my eyes' periphery.

I couldn't help but imagine fairies, gnomes, and elves peering out from behind tree stumps...

tiny elves with acorn hats who ride on the backs of flying squirrels in their tiny leaf saddle-

a piece of cobweb string as their reins...

and fairies who make colorful mushrooms grow from the forest floor.

I know these tiny folk exist.

I've known it all my life.

I searched for a sassafras plant...

proof enough of the presence of gnomes.

It was my mother who taught me that gnomes make their mittens from the leaves of the sassafras.

See? Perfect mitten-shaped leaves!

And so, you see, I refuse to let the magic leave my life.

I try to exercise my imagination.

I believe in the unbelievable... I believe in myself...and I believe in YOU!

I choose to see my world as a beautiful place full of possibility!

Once home, I set about to clean and cook the berries

and turn them into

"BrambleBerry Jam".

I cleaned yesterday's gooseberries and made "Gooseberry Jam" as well.

I took a few minutes to make special labels.

It's doing these extra special little touches that makes me happy

and brings another element of magic to my life.

How about you? Do you take the time to see the magic in life?

If not... take a little time to consider the possibilities...

nurture your imagination,

and forget limitations.

Add a special touch to make the ordinary extraordinary!

We are only limited by our own minds!

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