Fredgie Fantasy Character For Kids of All Ages

12/22/2023

Next year Dan Tana’s will be celebrating 60 years in business! Here’s a vintage postcard from 1965. We believe in staying true to our original roots! Some things should never change.

12/04/2023

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. - Albert Schweitzer
Welcome Yule! Light a candle, string lights on a tree, & make time to share light amidst these long dark nights! The Heirloom Gardener - John Forti (...and thanks to all of you who light the flame within me) 🌟🧙🐱🐁✨Artist: Lennart Helje

12/03/2023

Happy Saturday 🫶

12/03/2023

This picture reminds me of my childhood in so many ways. Us kids were always playing outside whether it was summer or winter. Oh the memories ~

*Photo from Pinterest

11/19/2023

Right now there are Tibetan Buddhist monks in a temple in the Himalayas endlessly reciting mantras for the cessation of your suffering and for the flourishing of your happiness.

Someone you haven't met yet is already dreaming of adoring you.

Someone is writing a book that you will read in the next two years that will change how you look at life.

Nuns in the Alps are in endless vigil, praying for the Holy Spirit to alight the hearts of all of God's children.

A farmer is looking at his organic crops and whispering, "nourish them."

Someone wants to kiss you, to hold you, to make tea for you.

Someone is willing to lend you money, wants to know what your favorite food is, and treat you to a movie.
Someone in your orbit has something immensely valuable to give you — for free.

Something is being invented this year that will change how your generation lives, communicates, heals and passes on.

The next great song is being rehearsed.

Thousands of people are in yoga classes right now intentionally sending light out from their heart chakras and wrapping it around the earth.

Millions of children are assuming that everything is amazing and will always be that way.

Someone is in profound pain, and a few months from now, they'll be thriving like never before. From where they are, they just can't see it.

Someone who is craving to be partnered, to be acknowledged, to arrive, will get precisely what they want — and even more. And because that gift will be so fantastical in its reach and sweetness, it will quite magically alter their memory of angsty longing and render it all "So worth the wait."

Someone has recently cracked open their joyous, genuine nature because they did the hard work of hauling years of oppression off of their psyche — this luminous juju is floating in the ether, and is accessible to you.

Someone just this second wished for world peace, in earnest.

Some civil servant is making sure that you get your mail, and your garbage is picked up, that the trains are running on time, and that you are generally safe.

Someone is dedicating their days to protecting your civil liberties and clean drinking water.

Someone is regaining their sanity.
Someone is coming back from the dead.
Someone is genuinely forgiving the seemingly unforgivable.
Someone is curing the incurable.

You. Me. Some. One. Now.

~ Danielle LaPorte via Mary Standing Otter
Artwork by Painting Woodland

11/18/2023

There was a time when almost every rural British family who kept bees followed a strange tradition.

Whenever there was a death in the family, someone had to go out to the hives and tell the bees of the terrible loss that had befallen the family.

Failing to do so often resulted in further losses such as the bees leaving the hive, or not producing enough honey or even dying.

Traditionally, the bees were kept abreast of not only deaths but all important family matters including births, marriages, and long absence due to journeys. If the bees were not told, all sorts of calamities were thought to happen. This peculiar custom is known as “telling the bees”.

The practice of telling the bees may have its origins in Celtic mythology that held that bees were the link between our world and the spirit world. So if you had any message that you wished to pass to someone who was dead, all you had to do was tell the bees and they would pass along the message.

The typical way to tell the bees was for the head of the household, or “goodwife of the house” to go out to the hives, knock gently to get the attention of the bees, and then softly murmur in a doleful tune the solemn news.

Little rhymes developed over the centuries specific to a particular region. In Nottinghamshire, the wife of the dead was heard singing quietly in front of the hive,

“The master's dead, but don't you go; Your mistress will be a good mistress to you.”

In Germany, a similar couplet was heard,

“Little bee, our lord is dead; Leave me not in my distress”.

But the relationship between bees and humans goes beyond superstition. It’s a fact, that bees help humans survive. 70 of the top 100 crop species that feed 90% of the human population rely on bees for pollination.

Without them, these plants would cease to exist and with it all animals that eat those plants. This can have a cascading effect that would ripple catastrophically up the food chain.

Losing a beehive is much worse than losing a supply of honey. The consequences are life threatening.

The act of telling the bees emphasizes this deep connection humans share with the insect.

Art: The Bee Friend, a painting by Hans Thoma (1839–1924)

11/16/2023

And, one day
We shall look back and see
It was always those little moments
That mattered the most
Those little fleeting moments
Of innocence
Of happiness
Of laughter and dance.

A little poem written by Athey Thompson
Picture is of Tasha Tudor, American Author & illustrator. Photograph taken by Nell Dorr.

11/13/2023

‘The thinner tree was cut years ago and the big one has been holding and feeding it since then. They "wake up" together in the spring and "go to sleep" together in the autumn’

Inosculation is a natural phenomenon in which parts of two different trees, commonly but not exclusively the same species, grow together, self grafting and sharing nutrients

The term emanates from latin- ōsculārī, to kiss

📸 Rebecca Herbert - Environmental Journalist, Tired Earth

11/13/2023

11/13/2023

"The magic thing about home is that it feels good to leave it, and it feels even better to come back." ~ Wendy Wunder 🧡 📖🔥🍷

Artwork by Chiara Franceschetti. 🍁