New learning

I love learning new things!  I've always believed that if you're not growing, you're dying, so I try to continue to 'grow' even if slowly and in sometimes strange ways.

This past weekend I did something that I've wanted to do for quite a long time, I learned how to mushroom forage and identify. While this is strange to most people, it is amazing to me.  The forests around our world have prizes, like an easter egg hunt, for us to explore and find.

We arrived on Friday at Evans Lake Camp in Squamish and settled in to our cabin. On Saturday morning we met the rest of our group that made up 25 in total. We spent the morning doing class time (so thankful for handouts to refer to!!) and then we headed out for a gorgeous hike in the woods in the afternoon to collect Golden Chanterelles, Winter Chanterelles, Angels Wings and Elfin Saddles.  We learned so many great ID procedures and checked our books and programs for our others mushrooms we'd picked for those purposes.   On Sunday, we picked more Winter Chanterelles and pickled them to take home.

We were also fortunate enough to find an AMAZING Lobster Mushroom.  This is a crazy non-mushroom actually.  It starts as an inedible white mushroom called Russula Brevipes and then this mushroom is infected with a mold that turns it into an edible Lobster Mushroom.  It's got a slight lobster smell and flavour and when it's cut it looks like lobster meat.  Very cool!!  We also found numerous Matsutake Mushrooms (Pine Mushroom) on our way out of camp.

Needless to say, dinner last night was steak and mushrooms!! All sorts of great mushrooms, sauteed only with butter so that their flavours could be tasted fully. I LOVE MUSHROOMS!

I'm headed out today to our forest behind our home to see what I can find. I'm sure there are some great prizes. Now I know how to do some ID and what could be deadly or inedible, I'll be sure to be careful.

My friend and I sure had a great time!  Our adventures are going to continue!

Love to all!
Di
xo

What a crazy 8 weeks....2 year brain-aversary

On Aug 3rd 2015, Dwayne breezed into the family room and casually asked "what about a beer festival celebrating wet hopped beer?".  I starred at him.  Computing.  Thinking.  Then with enthusiasm answered with "why not!".  Well, you don't know what you don't know!!

We'd never been to a beer festival, ever. Never been to a festival that included going booth to booth like this (except for a farmers market).  We got ahold of Donna Dixson, who as it turned out would be our fairy godmother, and the 3 of us embarked on what would be less than 60 days of planning.  We thought we had it all under control and were totally confident....until we attended the GCBF in Victoria on Sept 11.  We had NO idea!  We snuck 'back stage', questioned volunteers, asked security, took copious pictures and realized, we hadn't really scratched the surface. GAH!   With less than a month to go, I began to panic internally.

We had amazing sponsors, vendors and support for our very first year.  Ticket sales were lagging, we thought but we were told to be patient. Volunteers were pouring in with friends offering help and strangers coming forward. I was thrilled.

Donna, Dwayne and I met constantly to ensure we were covering everything.  The Province did a story with BC Hop Company on the cover (THE COVER!!) on Sept 7th, which helped start a month of free media. CFOX picked that up and came out for an interview.  Donna was amazing with media releases and we were everywhere!

Fast forward to Oct 3rd, the day of the event.  It was a beautiful day on the farm.  Windy but sunny.  I was so great.  WE WERE SOLD OUT!!!   Brewers were thrilled with the event, patrons loved it, food trucks sold out, bands were great.  Can't wait for next year!

Now, a week later, I'm sleeping constantly.  I loved being needed, engaged and useful. I've never been so tired after a project though. Dwayne is away this week and I'm secretly thankful as I can nap whenever I need to and sleep until later in the morning :)  The project was an amazing thing for me to witness from a place of awareness (does that make sense?). I was very aware of the fits of anger or tears that overcame me when I least expected them. I knew when I needed to put the computer down and go lay down.  It was like seeing myself from outside of my own body on occasion.

Okay now I'm not even making sense to me.  Clearly I need to put the computer down.....

Thank you to everyone for your support, love, notes and reminders of self care.  Oct 3rd (event day) was my 2 year brain-aversary, we celebrated BIG!

With Love,
Di
xo