I'm thrilled to now have bees in my garden. I've wanted them for years.  A dear family friend passed away and I was very fortunate to be gifted his two beehives which I've named Barry's bees. They are strong, but very quiet hives that were both about to swarm. David, who is helping me learn how to care for them, divided both, so that we now have four hives.
I'm so enjoying having the presence of over 60,000 energetic beings in the garden who make me conscious of all the sayings we have in English relating to bees.
'A hive of activity'.
'A working bee'.
'A bee in one's bonnet'
' bee line' towards something
Can you think of others?

Scenes like this greatly distress me. The whole side of a Te Puke road killed off - no insects or life can survive Roundup - it is patented as an antibiotic or killer of life!
Scenes like this fuel my urge to get the word out about the benefits of weeds.

In contrast to this scene on the other side of the same road. Which view is kinder on the eyes and nicer to look at and which scene is pro-life?

Another plant I enjoyed seeing at Ohope beach is the sticky catchfly Selene gallica.  The flowers catch small insects and if you touch the flowers you can feel the slight stickiness.  I don't eat it but enjoy that is is another wild plant providing colour in our landscape.

We have just had the annual calendar event of Halloween meaning 'All hallows eve'.  I don't pay it much attention, but enjoy seeing children creatively dressed walking the streets out trick or treating. The association with witches has a much deeper connection to very old traditions in our cultures that are nature based.  I found this article written by Danielle Prohom Olson, Protectors Of The Earth: Remembering The Radical Legacy Of The Witch absolutely riveting and informative to read, reminding me that I with all my jars of dried plants, potions and seeds and my habit of wandering and spending time in wild places would have labelled me a witch.  This quote from Max Dashu is very powerful:

“In a world in extremity, we are searching for the wellspring, the inexhaustible Source known to all our ancient kindreds. Many of us have been cut off from our deep roots, and especially from the ancient wisdom of women, and female spiritual leadership.”

I learn so much from Venya or Wyenova Organic farm. She says she is a caretaker of a much loved and honoured piece of mother earth. She has been there nearly 33 years and during that time has focused on planting food, medicine and survival food for humans and food for bees, birds and insects. One of these survival foods is the prickly pear cactus Opuntia sp.  Vanya showed me how to pick them carefully as they have millions of fine prickles. Vanya cut a small pad off a mother plant and I have planted it under the eaves in a dry place.

To get the prickles off you can firstly rub them on the grass while you have gloves on and are holding them with tongs.  Then remove the rest of the fine prickles by holding them with tongs under a tap, brushing away the from yourself towards the sink hole.

Finally you peel the prickly pear fruit, cut it up and enjoy eating it. It is quite mucilaginous and contains lots of small, hard seeds which we also ate. It is an incredible rich, blood red colour and tastes mildly sweet.  Prickly Pear has a very unique composition of nutrients, including high levels of vitamin C, B-family vitamins, magnesium, potassium, calcium, copper, and dietary fiber.

In the raised garden behind my house there grew a small plant in a rosette that I hadn't met before. I thought I'd let it grow so I could see what it became. It kept growing and growing and then someone came and said it looked like a kind of lettuce.  A light bulbe went off in my mind and sure enough I finally discovered that it is indeed a wild lettuce Lactuca serriola. I am thrilled. Now I have both wild lettuces Lactuca virosa and Lactuca serriola. Virosa is the variety people are using for pain relief. I will be collecting the seeds of it and this one serriola. It may well have the same effect since it has a while milky sap just like virosa. I am enjoying eating my new friend serriola.

My friends the wild weeds are excellent at nourishing our existing cells, but for deep healing, repair and generating an abundance of new cells from our own bone marrow we can turn to the wild water weed,  blue/green algae.  I'm always looking for natural high quality, sustainable, pure products that work and stem enhance is the best that I have found.  I am astounded at the results people are getting with this magical algae and I'm using it to regrow cartilage (still early days), but it can regenerate any cell in our body that needs it.  Now is the time for this cutting edge technology to flourish says Christian Drapeau, the scientist who has developed this  technology. Listen to the formulator genius himself talk about regenerating lung and pancreas cells.

AUDIO CALL: TOPIC: LUNGS, PANCREAS, RENEWAL

WANT OPTIMAL RENEWAL IN YOUR BODY?

Here is the latest audio recording (call) from Cerule's Christian Drapeau... This call focusses on LUNGS, PANCREAS, RENEWAL and the Synergy of the 3 products together.

https://fccdl.in/KuHty0MmN

If you would like to know more I can invite you to a private Facebook group which is rich in testimonials and information. My website is http://juliasich.cerule.com/home-nz/