A Muddy Shoes Production

Love A Big Top

Went to Circus Flora last night with the 'Fugee, the other 'Fugee and a staunch supporter of 'Fugees.

The show, from begging to end, was delightful. I really enjoyed the trained cats and immediately thought of Gingerzingi.

Went to a Farm to Yoga event today. Got up to check Yoga Buzz's Twitter feed and, despite early morning rain, the event was on.

Left the house with not a minute to spare and, of course, a huge chunk of the highway was closed. When I hit Ferguson, I slowed down and called Alison who told me that everything was fine. I was only five minutes after the fact and figured that I could catch up if they had started touring. Later on Alison told that she thought about the possibility of me getting pulled over...

Of course someone arrived at the farm at the same time that I did and we were not the last ones to arrive. Plus, the start was delayed because preparations had to be made for us to practice yoga out of the elements.

Farm to Yoga was such a special event and I learned a lot. Love Molly Rockamann's EarthDance story. Molly is the one who gave us a tour of the farm. I also love the language of different industries: root zone, predator prevention...

Had no idea that a cover crops existed. Ditto for the role of legumes. As I toured the farm, I thought about my grandfather and great, great, great aunts who used to grow their own food. Some of the apprentices told us about the projects that they're working on. I was so moved by the mud that covered one of the apprentice's hands.

As we stopped by the Garlic Project segment of the farm, we all spotted what looked like white butterflies but they were cabbage moths -- never heard of them.

Liked how Molly told us that nature does not like bare soil -- ergo -- weeds. I also liked it when she said that the more diverse an ecosystem is the more resilient it is, Makes sense.

Molly was surprised to see two dead hens.  She said that the hen house is an ideal environment  and she will have to investigate to see what's going on. Got a little sad thinking that the hens would be dinner at some point but those hens are exclusively for egg production. Molly took that opportunity to tell us that they have a lot of space and how a lot of people deceptively use free range labels.

House Is Bigger Than In Picture

Ruby -- Very Interested In The Residents

I think, at first, Molly wanted to shield us from the dead hens but she went ahead and gave a solid talk about the circle of farm/life. Molly had her well-behaved two-year-old dog, Ruby, on the tour as well. Ruby suddenly became animated around the hen house.

There was also a separate Farm to Yoga event for kids and the kids had us cracking up. When they got near our group, they wanted kisses etc. from their parents. Alison's son refused to make salad dressing because he thought the ingredients were weird but one of the kids was so sweet and shared the dressing that she made.

After touring the farm, we took off our muddy shoes and retrieved our mats. Nathan, our yoga teacher, is also an apprentice at EarthDance so he juxtaposed plant life with mat life.

Our Red Carpet

View During Practice

It got really toasty at one point and Nathan acknowledged how humid it was -- Sometimes people pay extra for this type of atmosphere. So true...

We did earth salutations and, for some reason, I forget how much I enjoy them. Gotta keep that sequence on my radar...

After practicing yoga, we had lunch provided by Whole Foods. The food was "uncomplicated" but so good. And the bread? I should have followed Alison's son's lead. He had the wheat bread with hummus and nothing else. That bread was ridiculously good...

I've been looking for an organization to donate money to and I plan to make a donation to EarthDance. There's so many things to like about the farm including the fact that they employ students from the area.