We're out enjoying our Beltaine fire
The upside of the iPhone is sharing things without running inside for the computer. The downside- sometimes apps don't work perfectly.
Suffice it to say, I'm meditating on the beauty of the fire. And frustrated with the tech.
Hope you're enjoying the holiday weekend and Happy Mayday!
-Simbelmynë
We love our house and our yard. And I've been wanting to get patio furniture for ages. I'd walk through the stores and art fairs looking for the perfect table and chairs. I'd marvel at the prices of the things that caught my eye, and walk past.
Last week, I cut that out. I found one that was big enough and sturdy enough looking. Not perfect. No stone inlay. No hand cut wood specially treated to endure a life outdoors. Just metal frame, glass top, hole for an umbrella. I didn't need to install paving stones in the back yard, I just cleaned off the deck next to the house and removed the old lounge furniture I never used.
And it's like I added a room onto my home. One that people feel free to say "Hi!" and join us in at any time. It's fantastic.
We've been at the table together a million times a day ever since. Playing, drawing, eating, chatting, relaxing, writing, you name it.
And having spent the smaller amount of money, I'm far more motivated to put away those pennies for the perfect table, should we ever find it.
I love sharing our summer.
-Simbelmynë
Pittsburgh's in a pretty special location, right on three rivers, near the Laurel Highlands, so I might be spoiled.
An hour's drive away, through some smaller towns I don't know well at all, we found a little bit of heaven this weekend. We traveled to Perryopolis, on the Youghegheny river and visited Hazelbaker Canoes.
Two familes, three canoes. The guys had experience, one's a kayaker, he took three of the kids. Adam, son of a boyscout leader, took two more, and the moms had a boat full of "our sanity," welcome company as neither of us had paddled a canoe on our own before. We stopped about halfway through the run for lunch. The guys tried kayak tricks on the extremely mild "rapids" portions of the river. I think next time I'll bring a trashbag, because little bits of litter stand out a lot in such a beautiful place.
Canoeing I didn't bring the camera. I fear for it on the water, and all, but we had almost as much fun after we canoed!
Ill advised fun, but I was impressed with his skill.
My friend felt like a bride when the girls brought her flowers.
On the way home, near Rostraver airport, between the tempting signs that said "pilots wanted, will train," was a great vegetable stand. I'm not sure what the watermelon said, but the kids were adamant that she be quite while I took the photo.
I asked and friends answered.
That green stone, you know, the one I keep looking at?
Apatite
Articles I've found identify apatite as yellow to yellow-green usually, but most of the examples I've seen sold as gemstones is usually deep green blue. While yellows are very much in the spirit of this spring season, it's those blues that won't let us walk away from the jewelry. I'm not the only one who's confused. The stone's name comes from a Greek word meaning "to deceive" because of it's variety of colors.
The literature I've looked at attributes amazing things to these stones. It will help you realize your own strengths, integrate and balance emotions. According to some sources, it encourages psychic powers, reveal past life and karmic influences, open the mind to dreams and creative problem solving. It's a medical miracle worker-Improve declining eyesight. The blue variety has wind energy and the green water. Green can help us accept abundance and heal emotional problems with money. Golden apatite can help you figure out what you really want at a confused time and with creative effort.
Here's where my own confusion kicks in. I know I respond best to the stones when I'm most attracted to them. Apatite was not having any conversations with me this week. I gave rough chunk of dark green-blue apatite to two friends on pendants and we all wore them for an entire week. To Nytesong and I it really said little. I did have many dreams, but none of them prophetic. (I hope that I won't be seeing my, unfortunately deceased, )
But to Catharine, it spoke volumes. And, true scientist that she is, she wrote it all down for me. She felt that she was "more able to appreciate other people's perspectives, and not stuck stubbornly only in my own viewpoint. I feel less isolated in a crowd and notice things you usually don't about the environment."
My overall impression is that apatite is one of the choosier stones. You're among the fortunate if it really does it's work for you. Catharine found it to be hard to wear with other stones.
Apatite is a phosphate mineral-meaning it's primarily composed of calcium with six of PO4 groups attached. Its different colors come from the fluorine, chlorine, bromine or hydroxy ions attached to it. Hydroxylapatite is the greatest part of our bones. Apatite is with us always! When phosphate fertilizers were heavily used, apatite was a source.
It is found in in Idaho, Tennessee, and Wyoming, in the US and in Brazil, Russia and northern asia, among other places. It is mined without harmful chemicals and pollution to the environment in open cast mines. Pits and terraces are dug and can be refilled and replanted once gemstone deposits are exhausted. Mined materials are washed with powerful jets of water which separate the gemstones from the other rock materials.
-Simbelmynë
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This gemstone entry is linked in the Intentional Stones Language of Gemstones and Metals page.
Also, as we learn more and more about these beautiful pieces of the earth, we'd love to hear about your experience visiting the places where they're found. Please post your comments, links, travellogs, favorite pages, anything you like in the comments section!
Reference pages and books for today:
I always start off with the Book of Stones by Robert Simmons and Natasha Ahsian
GeoGem International Jewelers Mining information page
Wikipedia entry on ApatiteWe saw the parliament, we hiked, we enjoyed the museums of the capital. But we never walked next door to the Botanical Gardens.
One thing I've found, living in wonderful places, Like Northern Virginia, one wrong turn away from the National Mall, is that living in places that are interesting desensitizes you to the high value of your surroundings.
One place to see the widest variety of gum trees. Greenhouses full of flowers from all over the continent. Artificial ran forest, walks through the canopy, and sunlight through the leaves. And a perfect chance to share memories of the beauty of our opportunity to live abroad.
I've learned that sometimes the coolest things are right around the corner.
I'm deeply grateful for guests who make me want to show off the interesting things around my area.
You don't really realize how far away you feel until you finally get visitors. Adam's parents, luckily, could join us for one of our last weeks in Australia.
Work still needed Adam, so we decided to show them as many of the wondrous places we'd found in our time in Canberra and the areas near Sydney.
We certainly didn't have enough time at Fitzroy Falls the first time.
The creatures obliged with lots of appearances. The male lyrebird hid in the underbrush and refused to pose. But the little lizards were enjoying the nice day.
And having the grandparents around made the children especially enjoy the hike.
They just make them bigger and nastier in Australia.
These guys are really very friendly and eat the flies, still I invited her to reside in the back garden, rather than poised to jump on my head as I entered the kitchen.
Everything is poisonous in Australia- Snakes, Starfish, Ticks...
Yeah, you heard me right- Ticks.
This mom who generally avoids insect repellant because of the repelling things it contains was at the chemist finding the best, least awful product that would keep away the Paralysis Tick. 
Not generally very harmful, but the bite can be nasty if you don't find the tick immediately. Havoc got to find out. Poor guy. But they can stop a dog's heart if left alone for several days.
The snails in our garden had me fascinated. How many creatures move slowly enough that you can observe their behavior between evening chores?
For such slow creatures, they were quite busy. Each morning, there was little sign of them except for the slime trails glistening in the sun. And we had to race to get our mail before they ate whatever piece had the misfortune to be on top.
I'd hoped that the blue tongued skink who dropped in for a visit would stick around to dine on the snail buffet, but we only saw him once. If the hundreds of snails we had weren't appealing enough, what is?
I have a picture of the roach that climbed out of a brush pile and into our house, but I don't feel like showing them to you with all these friendly creatures. Ewwww.
Havoc, who's normally very cautious, was victim to the Bullants as well 
Yeah, the normal ant bite hurts, but imagine it came with a lasting sting. 
Be careful around the ants, these and another type-JackJumpers, can cause a severe allergic reaction, like a bee sting.
Ow! Listen to your Mom next time!
Havoc's favorite crawling creature of all time is the crab. So much of Australia that we visited is coastal, that we were able to find crabs on several trips- in the swamp, at the beach, in little tidal lakes. 
It was a small consolation with all his friends and his beloved pet hermit crab left behind in Pittsburgh, but it made him smile every time we found some.
-Simbelmynë
ps. The final 6 weeks in Australia were spent almost entirely in travel. At the rate of one travel entry per week, this will go on forever. And not that I'm reluctant to draw out my memories, I'm really enjoying that, actually, but I'm thinking in terms of keeping the trips coherent. So, I think I will write up each trip over a weekend, break it into the appropriate number of posts, and deluge you with lots and lot of blog entries during the week-travel, jewelry, love sharing... How do yinz feel about that?
Enjoy the ride!
Our trip into the Daintree Rainforest on our third day in Cairns was full of beauty, fun and adventure. It's hard to find a topic amidst it all. According to a list I saw recently, Australia is the 10th most bio-diverse country in the world. I wonder where Cairns and it's surrounding regions would fall on a similar list of places.
In one day, we explored the rainforest, a mangrove swamp and then went downtown to swim by the ocean.
We very much wanted to see a Cassowary but we only saw signs warning drivers not to hit them. Workers at the rainforest park told us that people working and living in the Daintree could go years without seeing one, so at least we weren't alone. Cassowaries are in the same family of flightless birds as emus and ostriches, but they have a bony crest on their heads, like a dinosaur.
At the end of our walk through the layers of the canopy, I had the worst hankering for ice cream. Time didn't allow lingering, but a little shop along the way let me grab some- Chocolatefruit flavored!
Adam loves Mangroves, probably an artifact of visiting his grandparents while they lived in Florida. I was excited about the possibility of seeing crocodiles from protected walkway. Locals warned us not to even think about looking for crocs outside of the protected areas, as we wouldn't see one from the ground unless they were about to eat us. Yikes!
All in all, the rainforest of Australia from the beaten path is a relaxing place of wonder, beauty and the potential for infinite adventure.
This flower was in a garden, so I'm not sure where it's native. I just loved it's complexity. Things grow everywhere, and you'd never need to bring things in, with all the amazing things that grow naturally, but I'm sure people do sometimes.
Climbing palm is the only palm I've seen with wicked spikes. I believe this one has a nickname "Wait awhile" plant. If you walk unwitting into a branch, the barbed thorns will tear your skin if you pull them out too quickly.
Wouldn't this look lovely as a bracelet or armlet?
Magrove roots, staying above the water for air but below for support, make miniature cathedrals in the swamp.
-Simbelmynë
Fish, that is.
I couldn't believe it when I saw one at the Sydney Aquarium, but by the time we got off the boat onto a pontoon permanently anchored on the Great Barrier Reef, I was a believer.
Another thing I couldn't believe? We were there.
Swimming in unbelievably dorky stinger suits. (one can rent a lycra suit to keep deadly little jellyfish from ruining your GBR vacation. Yes, we were almost the only ones. Another American family with small children were our only reassurance that we weren't completely crazy. Just because they weren't in season. And yes, my loving spouse proudly wore his just so I would relax and enjoy this unique and wondrous experience without constantly worrying about my children and husband drowning.) Little did he know that my chief happiness in the ugly blue suits was the fact that we didn't need any sunscreen while we played in the sunlit waters. I was so happy we weren't contributing to that particular threat to this astonishing ecosystem. Thank you Sunlover Reef Tours.
With a camera encased in plastic so we could take pictures like this:
of a giant clam amidst the coral
Watch a Cleaner Rass with customers lined up for the best cleaning the ocean can offer.
or try to avoid touching these guys, as we were instructed to, even though they swarmed around us
Not to mention all the coral.
The kids didn't feel comfortable swimming in the open ocean water, even though the water was relatively still and the bottom only 3 meters down. Swimming lessons need to happen before we do this again. However, on the pontoon, there was a protected, fenced off area on the edge where they could sit with a mask and snorkel and play under the water. Watching the yellow tailed fusiliers and zebra fish and enjoying the miniature giant clam who took up living on a windowsill under the pontoon in the coral garden there.
I think I want to go back, more, even, than I wanted to go in the first place.
To snorkel again. Something I'd never done.
To take more pictures. I wasn't ready to dive with my snorkel, so Adam got all the close-ups.
And to see more of the incredible beauty of this place. Possibly in a place less visited by everyone. I can only imagine, or take from nature documentaries, what a truly wild and undisturbed part of the reef is like.
