Happy Solstice, Ladybugs and Turkey Birds! Or my last few days with Amelia. Also, reality checks.

Yeah? Well, that's an accurate description of the contents (or lack thereof) of this post.

Happy Solstice everyone! I'm wishing it a little early, because this time on Solstice night, I'll be in Portland celebrating a dear friend and her honey getting hitched. So whatever you do, if you're on the Northern Hemisphere, enjoy the longest night of the year! Oh and if you're not near the Arctic Circle, know that your nights are pitifully short. Just thought you'd like to know.

I also feel like now would be a good time for a little reality check. These photos are so totally set-up. I do not ever traipse around the woods playing the uke. However, as the saying goes, every good lie contains a seed of truth, and I have in fact taken up my long forsaken little baritone ukulele, inspired in part by dear Anne. As I was setting out to get pictures of my new headband-creation, a passer-by mockingly remarked "Well, all you need is a guitar to get ready for Woodstock.". What did I do? Turned back around and re-emerged from the house with my uke. Take that random outfit commentator!

Oh and if you're wondering about my pink hair, it's not just a trick of the light, but a trick of rather excellent hair-chalk. I actually highly recommend this to anyone who's blondish. It worked awesome for my blond, frayed tips.


Speaking of photoshoots, Amelia and I had a little one of her jewelry and my vintage last sunday. The height of hay season doesn't exactly mix with having close-ups of your face taken, but we did okay and the necklaces and earrings brought the gorgeous, so keep your eye out for Amelia's creations online.

Oh summer. How you have begun. You're a parade of wild delights and barely domesticated joys. Not to mention epic sniffles and red eyes galore. Because, folks, it's not all a frolic through the fields. Not without a lot of snot, sweat and tears.

From deer and rabbits, to bachelor/gay turkeys, butterflies and vultures and Rufous hummingbirds and lady bugs, to bees in a beautiful top bar bees, creatures are afoot, awing, aswim...

 That same sunday we helped a new friend and bee-carer, to check her hive, which is just a little insight to the disparities of our lives, modeling, bee-checking, you know...

Look at the chain of Female Bees (also known as Worker Bees) building their hive together. So gorgeous. I forgot to get a shot of the hive itself, but it has a lovely little picture window on the side for observation. I can't wait to go back and check out their progress through it.

And nothing marks the start of summer like schlepping a ton of your gear, food, fishing poles and instruments from this Island to a whole different one, to celebrate Schlepstice Solstice in style.
 
After shipping off our partners to do just that this morning, Amelia and I sat down for a relaxing beverage and planned for an evening of  macaroni and cheese and some light reading/movie watching. In our separate, quiet homes. So long as they come back in good spirits, there's pretty much nothing better than a few days to yourself without your significant other.

Be merry, make magic, burn bonfires! I'm off to my mac and cheese paradise!

Island Time

This life. Is like a double rainbow. And stuff. You know. Magic.

What I'm trying to say, is that I'm really enjoying it right now.

I feel like this is the first summer in a long time I actually have energy to do the things I want to/ need to do. Likely it's a combination of not having a day job and having my body finally start moving away from the long infestation of mold. Rebuilding my immunities seems to be a long, ongoing process, with lots of backsliding. Last month I went through a bout of asthma, now suddenly my skin is breaking out.

At times I can practically feel my body struggling to cleanse itself. Some things that I took to be the effect of aging are reversing, only to be replaced by odd rashes, lung issues, strange stomach things. All in all I feel good, happy, excited and energetic, but I don't feel balanced physically.



I go through these cycles of intense physical problems that appear unexpectedly and then vanish never to return again. Things that didn't bother me last month, don't agree with me this month. Allergies, food sensitivities, skin issues, come and go.

A year ago, this would have (and did!) made me frustrated, or depressed, but this year, it seems more like an interesting puzzle, something I can and will figure out.

In the last year, I feel like I've not only made strides in recovering, but also in learning how to really do good self-care. I've expanded my herbal knowledge, delved a little into different practices, the latest of which is Ayurveda (more about that later!) and feel confident about being able to treat myself with food, herbal medicine and seek help where I need it. For the first time in a long time, I totally trust my intuition about this stuff, and weird ailments or not, it feels good.



Not only do I feel energetic, I also feel really inspired to make and create things, big and small. In the last week, I've made tinted lip balm, vegan ice cream, herbal oil, leather stuffs, birthday cards, introduced a Gua Sha practice to my daily routine, and started some exciting sewing projects. Not to mention the endless weeding.




My favorite little creation so far have been these little Icelandic Houses/ Mountain Range hair clips, that I made on a whim the other night, when I was feeling bored with feathers. I was really pleased by how they turned out.

Oh, and in other exciting and inspired news, I had a bit of a breakthrough in writing my clothes post, so hopefully I can get that up soon too. The longest night of the year is almost on us, so there should be no end to projects I can finish. Right? 'Cos magic. And stuff. You know...

So, what are you working on?

Wild Strawberries

Are my favorite summer treat. And my favorite Bergman movie.


Are wild strawberries a viable summertime food source? Not as such, but they're a delectable treat while you ramble. If you happen upon a mega patch of them, you can always dehydrate them and add a small sprinkling to your granola, (vegan! more about ice-cream alternatives later, but let's just say that after nauseating trial and error, I've perfected a few recipes) ice-cream, oatmeal. These little guys have much flavor to give.

In classic Scandinavian manner you collect them on a stalk of grass.

As for PNWs very own delicacy, salmonberry, it definitely can exist in quantity big enough to make jelly or jam from. 

This year we've just been snacking, but I also like to utilize the leaves in a delicious tea-mix, with raspberry and blackberry.


Delicious, if diuretic. Don't drink too much of it.


My friend Kristiina wrote the following comment on my last wild food post, explaining how to make the syrup RAW without cooking! Epic. Make this stuff guys. I'll try to find more tips before the season's over and hope for sun. Thanks Kitti!

"Even better! We just did our syrup RAW, without cooking! Meaning: place a layer of fir tips in a glass jar, then a layer of sugar (we used organic brown cane sugar), then a layer of tips, then sugar....until the jar is full (we had a huge 3 liter jar). Then you simply place the whole jar in the sun and turn it around about once a day, so that the sun reaches all the corners of the jar. Very quickly you will perceive a miracle: suryp starts forming at the bottom of the jar. Then you just sieve the suryp out into small jars for storing! It isn't super thick stuff, but very tasty and this way all the vitamin C etc is saved as well! Very good as cough medicine!"

So what's coming up in your neck of the woods?

disclaimer: If you're planning to poison yourself by eating the wrong stuff, I'll be so sad, but I won't be held accountable. Okay? Good. You're a grown-up. Whee!

Small Town Moon

I won't bore you by waxing lyrical about the joys of home. It's a well-worn subject around here. And that sometimes you gotta leave it for a while to love it even more. But, as I exhaled deeply, walking off the ferry, I never wanna leave again, I remembered that summers are for adventures, for sleeping in the mountains, for cities and rivers and roads.

For now though, I couldn't be happier digging into the earth, digging into work, marveling at the flora and fauna.

Huge welcome-home bouquet.

Farmhanding.

Less words. More photos of birds.

Hanging out with my buds.

Taking pictures of my feet.

Parties.




Motley crew.

Leaving parties early to read a new book on Sylvia Plath and craft while I watch West Wing.

Summer.



Unharmed.



This is why there's no pictures of cats.


Delicious hippie snackfoods.

Hanging out with my darling.

New friends and shocking surprises. Like that this lady artist/farmer/brand new Island Next Door-er, Brooke took the same train home from Cali as me. I was rather shocked and delighted to see this gal, who's banjo playing I admired all the way over the mountains, sitting on Nitsan's lawn.

Connections. Right?


Shop days.


Wearing clothes.

Charms from Sadie and Nicole.

Marimekko shirt gifted by Ms. Mindy.

Stocking free weather.

Pressing flowers and drying herbs.

And laundry.

Beach life.


I have so many ideas for posts, but right now I'm back to work tackling and fishing and baiting my two last pieces about clothes, doing research and clarifying concepts.

There's so much summer life waiting outside the door, weeds growing, wildcrafting, wedding decorations, leather crafting, making cosmetics and concoctions, friends. Is sleep optional, guys?

How's your summer?

Despise Rules & See Through Fools

...or a few nights in Reykjavik. The long-awaited (?) second part of my Icelandic adventures.

If you were to ask me what are the main things etched into my memory of Iceland's capital, I'd have to state the following order: cats, graffiti and Bonus. 

After you read this post, you'll be like "Uum...what's Bonus?". So just to get it out of the way: Bonus is some kind of  Icelandic supermarket institution. You can barely walk a few feet on its streets without falling over some cute hipster carrying a yellow Bonus bag with picture of a pink piggybank on it. And yet I have not a single picture of said bag, or a Bonus shop, which in my observations seems like a cross between an Asian market and a Grossout. Moving on.

Reykjavik's city council, police department (I saw like one cop the whole time I was in the country. An unarmed traffic cop. I love Scandinavia.), citizens, whomever is in charge, don't seem to mind graffiti, and appear to encourage all forms of street art, which is everywhere, in many shapes.

They do however regulate dogs. Really, I'm not joking. There's some sort of old law in the books, that prohibits  folks from having dogs in densely populated areas (a rather relative term in a country 200 000). The end result? A city of kitties.

Cats that look like orange lynxes, cats stalking each other awkwardly, cats in the windows of seemingly empty houses, cats walking the seemingly empty streets, cats ambling around like in some strange, surreal dream where there's no humans, only cats, or maybe some fun post-apocalyptic cat society. Cats, cats, cats.

They're no stray cats either, they're fat and well-cared-for-looking, just wild and free to roam, with no dogs or cars to fear.

If you're not a cat person, or are a cat person that doesn't love blurry shots of random cats from distant lands, now would be a good time to stop reading. This blog.

Just kidding. Some of my best friends don't like cats.

I plan to murder them in their sleep. Wait! Did I just say that out blog? Moving on. About that street art...

From your average tags, to all-out amazing murals, to weird pieces of three-dimensional artworks, there's no end to puzzling and mesmerizing art. From collages to painted electrical boxes, to pieces of astroturf glued to the pavement, nary a street corner doesn't have some form of it.


It's hard to tell how much of Reykjavik's tolerance for outsider art in its streets has to do with a love of art and freedom and how much of it with simply not caring too much. I say this with all the love in the world for graffiti, tags and stickers. It wouldn't even have occurred to me, if it wasn't for the fact that Reykjavik is also a kind of a dirty city. Buildings look dirty, there's trash flying around all over the streets, many public places, though not decrepit, look a little uncared for.

 
Perhaps it's simply because Icelanders are a rather irreverent bunch. A nation of rebels. Certainly I was amused by a statue of Leifur Eiriksson, who's inscription simply stated: Son of Iceland Discoverer of Vinland. You know, the Americas. I love the casual tone of it. Like "Oh you know, everyone's so over the fact that Columbus wasn't the first European to get there."

No wonder his statue is surrounded with a city full of wild art. Or Despise rules & see through fools, as one mural stated.

Personally, I prefer an abundance of free expression to a neat and orderly city. I mean just look at Seattle. It's so tidy you barely even notice it's there.


Whereas in Reykjavik anyone can sow their own seeds of quiet revolution, beauty, confusion, new ideas.


If you've ever wondered what a city with less rules about commercial and personal space might look like the answer is all over Reykjavik's walls.
 
Like this.

Or like this.

 
Or like this.


Or like this.



A culture that doesn't differentiate between high and low brow, is okay by me.


And how could it, when its traditional wooden Scandahuvian houses are actually made of corrugated metal?





Perhaps the slightly worn look simply comes from weather; many of these lovely homes have rust on them and no wonder.


Oh and speaking of despising rules, the anxious law-abiding American in me was a little timid about taking an early evening walk with beer in hand. "Is it okay drink on the streets?'' I asked in a quivering voice, only to be met with a rather withering look. "Of course." The tone conveyed that I was either from Mars or inherently stupid. Did I mention yet how much I love Scandinavia?



The walk, of course, involved a little thrifting action at the local Red Cross store (the equivalent of Goodwill).

The vintage selection was pretty, but also pitifully small and while I would have loved to have found an Icelandic prairie dress, I was content with the huge rack of Nordic Sweaters at very cheap prices.




No tourist sight left unseen, no geothermal magic available unexplored, I didn't limit my hot springs experience to the skin healing (got rid of my two-year-long eczema problem!), sulphur-smelling, eternally hot showers at the hostel, or even swimming in the frozen Atlantic with a little hot-spring bubbling up right in it,  but dove into the waters of the famed Blue Lagoon spa on the way to the airport.


There's certainly nothing more Scandinavian than diving into the waters while the air temperatures are less than lukewarm, but it was nice to really lollygag in it for a change.

The healing silica may mess up your hair (someone was in a rush to catch a plane and didn't rinse properly!), but it makes your skin baby smooth.

And being immersed in hot waters just hours before your flight is both relaxing and slightly surreal.

Arriving at SeaTac that night, I could scarcely believe mere few hours before I was soaking in volcanic heat, but the evidence was apparent in my hair.



Iceland. Magic. Did I already mention that before?