July 30th - The Return!

Back from Hornby Island.  
It never ceases to be a magical place no matter how often I go.

    plugged into a perfect circuit
         a conduit     
    between ocean 
        sky and forest 
    the absoluteness 
        of peace, tranquility

    alive and electric
        I can no longer feel
    where I begin and ocean
        ends... the sky
    reflected in my eyes
    ties my spirit 
    to it's easy
        translucency

There is no sense of time on hornby Island... the days seem to go on forever yet fly by.  So many hours of sunshine.  You feel totally enveloped in paradise, you breathe it in through every part of you, it seeps into your pores.  After a few hours upon arrival, and you're floating in the ocean, and you've baptized yourself in the total serenity of the environment you feel... transcendant.

I loved.. finding treasures on the shore

shells, colonies of crabs, sea urchins,
the vertebrae of a large animal... almost
the whole spine (from a cow I think),
a child's red marble, purple starfish,
oysters (hundreds of succulent oysters)
a hideously beautiful crimson mud worm,
a circling bald eagle taunted by ravens,
hoof-prints from a doe and her fawn,
the way the water looks electric reflecting the sun in constant motion...

Twice over our visit we had an oyster bake on the beach collecting dozens and dozens of them, just laying in the tidal pools in low tide, we'd bring them up on the beach, and over a hot fire and an old grill we'd arrange them over the coals.  Sputtering and smoking, barnacles exploding in the heat, they would open.  Some, usually the smaller ones, I'd eat just after they opened, still mostly raw, bathed them in lemon juice and slide them down... drinking the juice from the shell.  Then some, usually the larger ones, I'd leave on to cook through, getting flavored by the smoke.. until they were exotically smoky and slightly chewy.. again lots of lemon juice and also mayonnaise, and then devoured with much pleasure.  Both oyster bakes I ate well over 2 dozen oysters, I didn't count the shells on the first bake (where I ate the most) but the second time we feasted on oysters.. I counted 32 pairs of shells in my 'little' pile... oysters and cold beer... <sigh>  (the following excerpts are some paragraphs of Lewis Carrol from Through the Looking Glass)

   "...'O oysters, come and walk with us!'
        The Walrus did beseech.
    'A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
        Along the briny beach:
    We cannot do with more than four,
        To give a hand to each...
                           
    ...Four other Oysters followed them, 
        and yet another four;
    And thick and fast they came at last, 
        And more, and more, and more -
    All hopping through the frothy waves,
        And scrambling to the shore...
                        
   ... 'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
        'To talk of many things:
    Of shoes- and ships - and sealing wax-
        Of cabbages - and kings-
                                                                                                                                                        And why the sea is boiling hot-
                                                                                                                                                            And whether pigs have wings.'...

 Well, I'm home again now, lightly tanned from the hornby island sun. Heavier I suspect from eating a lot of incredibly hearty camping meals, and though there are many beautiful trails to be hiked, I was minimally active this vacation. We strolled some of the local light trails, and swam a lot, which was not so much 'swimming' as lolling in the surf (with no showering facilities, scrubbing while in the ocean a couple of times a day was not only recreational it was hygienically recommended).  There is so much to share from the vacation, that I can't really do it all in one day...

so, I'll leave this long journal entry
at where it is.

We have a couple of rolls of pictures
that Wolfe took of me on the beaches 
and in the woods, and is a field of 
oregano... which was very fragrant
but full of happy bee's as the oregano 
was all in bloom... the scent from the
herbs was amazing... I'll post more over
the next couple of days...

It' was good to be away, but it's also 
very good to be home again.  It's nice to be here.. catching up.

Posted today the huge series of galleries from the other night when Butterfly did her entire body shave, and Wolfe and I helped shave her head.    I'm still trying to figure out what I want to change about the current cam and chat situation, and have decided to leave it as is while I work it out.  

I will probably do a clipper shave in the next couple of days on cam, and haven't decided whether I want to post a time for it or not (I don't want to go to the skin with the razor, but It's much much too long as it is now)....

Okay, time to run, lots of work to catch up on!... Can't wait to connect with some of you soon in the chat room.. I missed you guys!

XOXOXOXOXOX!
Katt

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