From Guide to Teacher #NamasteTuesday

I became a yoga teacher a little over a year ago. And I know that even though I am not certified, I am still a teacher. But when I tell people that I teach I sometimes use the word “guide” rather than teacher because I am not certified. I tend to get self-conscious about using the word “teacher” because I have never been formally trained. I have attended classes, but I am mostly self-taught. I have never been taught how to teach, I just gave it a try and found out I am pretty darn good at it. And while I feel confident as a teacher/guide, there are still some aspects of teaching a class that I could use a bit more confidence. Well…the time has finally arrived.

I am going to officially get my 200 hour yoga certification next month! WOOO!!!!

I have been talking about doing it for a while. Not only to be more confident when I teach, but mostly for myself. There is only so much that you can teach yourself. And there is sooooooo much more that I have to learn. But there have always been obstacles. First of course is money. It ain’t cheap to get your certification. The second obstacle has been scheduling. Although I don’t work and you would think I have all the time in the world, I don’t. Especially on the weekends. And yoga cert classes are not on YOUR schedule. Most of them are only one weekend a month; Friday evening, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday. Even though that’s only one weekend a month we have to work around, that’s a lot of work. And we only have one car and a kid. So making sure my husband is going to be home on time for me to drive for an hour and make it to class, and then if my daughter had somewhere to be on the weekend…you get it. One weekend can really mess things up. We were, of course, going to make it work, but it was going to be tough. Until the Kula Kamala Foundation popped up on our search.

One other quick thing that was going to be tough with the other classes, a lot of them required that you go to their studios at least once a week to attend a class. Again, I would have to really rework my schedule to be able to do this. Oh, another thing, it seemed to me that a lot of the classes are also geared towards getting your certification so you can turn around the find a job as a teacher. I don’t need that. Sure, in the future my certification will make it easier to get a job, but at this point I am not looking for ways to market myself. So….

There were a couple classes that I was going to settle for. We were going to make it work. And then Kula Kamala came up. I don’t even know how my husband found it because it isn’t local. But this was THE one. This one has everything I was looking for and more. First, it’s not as expensive, and let’s be honest, that is always a plus. Second, it’s all done in one month. One super long, intense month, but no big schedule changes. Including not having to find child care because my daughter is on her own vacation until school starts. Double win! Third, and this is the pretty cool part, I am going to live and be fed at the school for the entire time, and that’s part of the tuition. And four, this class seems to be more about the spiritual side of yoga, while also teaching you how to guide others. This is going to be so crazy and awesome!

I have never done something like this. I have never lived on my own. I have never done something like this where I leave the family for an extended period of time. And I’ve never imagined I’d go off to live in Pennsylvania with a bunch of other yogi weirdos (I’m definitely one of those so I am not making fun of anyone) for a month. It’s going to be fantastic. I am going to be mingling with my people. I am going to be completely immersed in yoga for a month. And I get to experience a ton of things I have never had the chance to before.

I am also going to be vegan for the month. The food served is all local or homegrown at the school and it’s all vegan or vegetarian. I am honestly not sure what there will be that is vegetarian, (milk?) so I am going to assume that it will be almost 100% vegan. I am pretty excited about this too. When I think about eating a vegan diet I always say, “That would be great…if someone else made the food for me.” You want to cook vegan for me? Perfect. I have to prepare everything and buy new things and learn new recipes? No thanks. So the fact that I will be eating this way because it’s what is being put in front of me is going to make it a helluva lot easier to try. Not like I’ll have a choice, LOL! But I am honestly excited. I have not, until now, realized that most of the yogis I know or follow online are all vegan. So it will be interesting to see what it does for my mind. I am very eager to see what it does for my skin, if anything. I suffer from acne and cannot figure out what the hell causes it. Maybe it is something in animal products. I have read about it being caused by dairy but I do not eat a ton of dairy. But you never know.

You won’t see a blog from me in a while since I’ll be very busy, but I will definitely find time to journal and blog when I return.

The next time you see me, I should will be able to say with confidence, “I am a yoga TEACHER.”

And for fun, here’s me smiling while inverted. 🙂

Summer Farmin’ #FarmlifeFriday

Happy Friday, everyone! Since my last post a lot has changed. Let’s start with Frenchie.

She was our hen that was broody, a.k.a got baby fever. Well, her attempt at motherhood failed. It could have been a number of things. It could have been that the garage was too cool. It could have been the fact that only 2 of the 5 eggs were actually fertilized. Or it could have just been how nature intended. She sat diligently on those eggs but in the end, 1 burst, 2 got stinky, the other 2 never hatched, and she ended up abandoning the nest. The good thing is that she was welcomed back into the flock just fine. And she got over the broodiness even though she never actually hatched any eggs.

And now Hagrid is broody!! I have read that it can be contagious. I don’t know if that is the case here because Frenchie wasn’t around the other birds, but in any case, Hagrid is trying her hand at motherhood now. But this time we are not going to move her. We are going to let her do her thing in the coop and hope for the best. She still comes out in the morning to eat and dust bathe, and then goes back and sits on her potential babies. She has 3 eggs, 1 is hers and the other 2 were laid the day after she turned broody, so I put them under her.

We think she’ll be a great mama so hopefully nature works in our favor this time.

Here’s a couple of the other birds this morning lounging in the tall grass…

And Carl. He is still such a purdy bird!!

I didn’t realize until just now that the last post also included a snake. Funny, this one will also include a new snake story.

I’m becoming quite the serpent master around here. And I have to do most of this on my own because my husband is constantly gone for work. Side note, he thinks it’s hot that I can handle this kind of stuff on my own, LOL! Especially because he will admit, he is not “wildery” and doesn’t care for snakes or spiders. Anyway, I was out to dinner with friends and came home around 10pm. I went to the coop to close it up and count the birds. I counted all 8 birds and 1 non-bird.

I wasn’t quite panicking, but I wasn’t very calm either. The main thing was that I was alone, it was dark, and I only have so many hands. I managed to get the snake towards outside the coop, but then I kind of stopped because one, I didn’t have my boots on, it was dark, and I didn’t have a real idea of what I was going to do after I got him out. I kept scooting him around with the rake and then he slithered out of the door towards outside. Again, no real shoes on, so I was tip-toeing around with the rake and fighting with this snake; he was pretty strong. I have a tarp around the bottom of the coop and he ended up going inside there. At this point I went inside to get my boots and reassess. It’s getting closer to 11, should I just leave him? Should I shoot him? No, not at 11pm. What to do? I got my boots on and went back out. I used the rake and felt around the tarp and realized he was inside the bottom, stuck. PERFECT! I unhooked the tarp from the coop and used the rake to drag him, inside the tarp, all the way to the other side of the yard, still holding my cell phone as a flashlight. I would just have to figure out my next course of action in the daylight.

The next morning I did not have time to deal with snake shenanigans before Reining Hope, so I made sure he wasn’t in the coop and took off. When I came back in the afternoon he was back in the coop, already digesting an egg. I started to attempt to get him out again and realized that unless I planned on grabbing him with my hand I wasn’t going to be able to hold the coop door open and get him out with the rake without another pair of hands. Luckily my friends were coming over. So I waited. When they arrived, my friend held the coop door open while I found the snake’s head. I pushed it down with the rake, switched to me holding the door, and my friend grabbed his tail and pulled him out of the coop. Once he was out of the coop, we switched it up where he held his head with the rake and I took a hold of the snake. This was intense but so awesome at the same time.  All my dreams of being like Steve Irwin came true!!

I did not plan to kill the snake for a few reasons. These guys aren’t bad. They are non-venemous, good for rodent control, and since snakes are territorial they will deter other snakes, like bad ones. But he couldn’t stay close and threaten the flock and continue to eat eggs. So my friend and I walked him about 2 acres away and set him free. He slithered in the opposite direction of the house so that’s a plus. But if/when he or one of this friends comes back, I’ll be ready!

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The garden is growing like crazy! I haven’t had to buy vegetables in forever and I am giving so much away because I just can’t eat this much. If you follow my Instagram (there’s a link on the right side of the page) you’ve seen all my zucchini selfies. They are HUGE!! And so are the cucumbers. I’ve had to start to enjoy cucumbers. I was never a fan but they aren’t that terrible. They are even better with ranch dip. They just aren’t my favorite but I love eating something that I grew.

Here’s today’s harvest. I put the cherry maters and eggs next to everything for scale. The maters are just now starting to ripen here and there. But all my plants have green tomatoes. I see a lot of salsa and sketti sauce in my future because again, I am not a mater fan. My husband is though, so as long as he is around, those will be eaten.

A friend of mine let me borrow a zucchini cookbook, so I found some recipes to try. I REALLY need to because this is getting crazy! I am very happy to share though and promote farm to table.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Happy Summer!!!!