Moving Right Along....

Sage is now seven weeks old ! The time seems to be going so fast, and though barely two months old Moss and I look at her and think she looks so old, practically a toddler. Our lives seem to be slowly reforming themselves into some semblance of their previous incarnation. I say "some semblance" as things are the same, yet quite different. Sage's birth seems to have opened my heart in so many ways. I have more patience and love now for everyone I see. I look at people, even the hardened criminals and think, "that is someones baby !". I realize that in so many ways, we are all children...


This week we managed to get a seat belt installed in the bus, and hence Sages car seat, after of course, some initial problems. The seat we had would only face one way and would not work right on our bus seats. So, we had to go out and buy a "convertible car seat". That is a car seat that goes from infant to toddler (40 lbs). We can now turn the seat facing back as is recommended for an infant, without having to rip out and redesign the bench seat. The down side is it cost 90 $, the up side is now we have a safe seat for Sage that we can keep for a long time.


This week we also added another member to our family. Her name is Palomino and she is a very dear, very sweet, brain damaged pigeon who will be joining us and the rest of the flock on the bus. My friend Jackie, a fellow rehabber, took her in a few months ago, as a fledgling. She was found almost near dead following an attack by a hungry family of crows, which resulted in severe head trauma and a badly damaged eye. Jackie nursed her back to health over several weeks and I volunteered to give her a home. The sad thing is, because of her brain damage, she has never learned to eat on her own. Their is a high likely hood that she will need to be tube fed twice a day for the rest of her life. This is no problem for me though, tube feeding a pigeon is not a difficult thing and something I have done many, many times when I was actively running my wild bird center. She is such a sweet girl and I am so happy to have her with us. She also cannot fly well,( she flies backwards sort of and cannot go very far) despite the fact that her wings are in perfect working order. This is also due to her brain damage. Besides that she is healthy and happy, though one does get the impression that there is something not quite "right" about her. She loves to snuggle on laps and have her beak and head scratched. She is very handle able and I look forward to her being a sort of ambassador for pigeons everywhere.


Anyway, now that the car seat is in, we are just waiting on our new solar charge controller to arrive from our good friends at the Mobile Homestead ( I highly reccomned these guys for all sorts of great alternative energy RV products), before we can leave. Our old one broke some time ago, leaving us with no electricity. This one , The Solar Boost 2000 is supposed to ultra efficient, to the point where it is like adding an extra panel.


The plan is still to head to Santa Barbara for a time where we will sell my sculptures and the new felt boots Moss and I have been working on. We are very excited about the boots and have been saving up money to start a business making them. I love making my felted doll sculptures, but they take so long and each one must be an individual work of art. The boots are great because we can have just a few styles, we can both make them, and they are the same every time. Moss is doing quite a bit of the boot making and is becoming quite the cobbler. He felts them, lays out the wool and shapes them. I am responsible for making the soles and surface design. We both dye the wool. When we get the first three display models done I will be posting pics and taking orders if anyone is interested.



I have some other excellent news as well. Some dear friends of our from Oregon bought some land awhile back and have recently contacted us with an interest in setting up a small commune, or intentional community, on their land ! There is already another family there and lots of children. They offered us a space for our bus, and in return ask only that we participate in building projects, help in the garden and just be part of the community ! What a wonderful way for Sage to grow up ! These are long time friends of ours near a town where we lived for quite awhile, Eugene. So, we will be heading up there probably in fall to check it out.


At present we are still enjoying our time with Moss's folks, though eager to move on, which we will do, just as soon as the part we are waiting on arrives....