Summer Solstice and Supermoon

Ok, haven't posted in a bit... We lost power last week into the weekend, lost several more tree limbs, particularly off the Chinese chestnut. Been casting more stones, started working on a set of the zodiac in the round knotwork mold. Things are just growing like they should, cept the Long Island Cheese Pumpkin, :(

Anywho, today is a holiday, at least for my faith it is. The Summer Solstice, longest day of the year. After today, the days will start shortening again. Also known as mid-summer, Litha, Alban Hefin, Sun Blessing, Gathering Day, Feill-Sheathain, Whit Sunday, Whitsuntide, Vestalia, Thing-tide, and St. John's Day. Probably a bunch of other days too from all over the globe.  In the southern hemisphere it's the Winter Solstice, or shortest day of the year. Mama N is pretty neat like that.

It's a celebration of the sun, bounty of the fields starting to come to fruit. A time to celebrate life, both our own and that on the other side of the veil. Everything that is good about summer is to be enjoyed today.

Bonfires are a big tradition. Cutting or making divination rods and wands is well done on this day. Today is one of the days traditionally for handfasting and weddings.

Food of course is part of any holiday. Today is a day of bright citrius fruits, yellow and orange squashes, and other yellow or orange foods to represent the sun. Grilling to represent bonfires- and pork and chicken are best suited meats for the holiday. Ale, mead, fruit juices, and herbal teas are the drinks of the day.

Of course we will be having some celebrations going on here, but probably tomorrow. I have a lovely pork butt roast that we are going to smoke up all day tomorrow for dinner, yum! I picked up some portabellos on clearance and got them marinating with lime, soy, garlic, some white wine, sesame oil and seeds, parsley, onion, and pepper. Those will get tossed on the smoker some time. Some red bell peppers, yellow squash, and zuchinni to saute up for dinner. And Gonna make some crock pot scalloped potatoes. We feasting good tomorrow!
Picked up a bunch of fresh fruit for eating and more pitchers of lemonaid. If today is any indication, we will be drinking a lot of it!

And time to log off for the moment, we got a nasty storm coming in fast, and might lose power... Maybe no bonfire tonight after all!

Ok, now it's Saturday. We did get in some stormy rain- just enough to put a nix on any celebrating yesterday, shit. But no power outage or lost limbs, yay! We did get in a tiny smidge of solstice yesterday- picking a ton of mullberries :) Now today is really warm and humid, enough so that I was sweating bullets making up the next set of stones this morning. I made a ton of rainbow flash glass cabs yesterday to make a special hex stone- a seven pointed star with another seven pointed star in it, using 77 cabs in total.  I set the stone today, keeping my fingers crossed that I did a good job.
I started out with my thin paper and pencil for the design, and realized, duh, when you put it onto a black plastic mold, the design completely disappears. So I made a second one using a copper sharpie, and that worked out quite well- even after matting down and greasing over it, I was able to still see the design clear as day- makes for much easier cab setting.

And ok, I know it's a pretty short post for not having posted in a while, but I guess I better publish this while the publishing is good and I let it sit for another few days...