Merry meet all,

The invasion has begun! It is inescapable. Penny has run out of play room too! Oh my what am I to do? Did I get your attention? Ok I’m referring to the invasion of seedlings that have taken over my home, Goodness there are so many plant pots in here. Burn a candle and light some incense! Play relaxing music.

This post is about how to create your own soil mixes for your own tender seedlings. You DO have young green seedlings in your apartment right? lol

Well let’s get started. I like mixing up the soil.

Ever notice that plant pots are round in shape? I like to think of the planters and plant pots as cauldrons. They have a lot more to do with cauldrons than you think. This may just change the way you garden from now on. Grab a cup of tea and join me.

I mentioned the benefits of purchasing and using good quality soil in the last post, right? There is a good reason for that. It helps your plants get off to their best start, off to the races running. or, in this case, growing. Let’s take it a step further.

Set down newspaper on the counter or wherever you choose to work in your home. Put the plant pot or seedling plant pot on the newspaper. Be willing to get your hands dirty. I love getting my hands right into the soil but that’s just me. Place a pitcher full of cold water nearby. Open the bag of soil. Next tip: I put a cloth grocery bag (plastic bags are banned here). It keeps the bag from spilling or making a mess. Just don’t forget about it but you won’t, will you?

Mix the soil into the plant pot. As you do this, envision that you are filling the pot with the energy of the Goddess. (Use a round pot for this.) You will see why now. The pot is round, so is a cauldron. The pot is deep ( well, most of them are). So is a cauldron. The cauldron is the deep earthy womb of the Goddess. The pot is too once it is full of soil. Once it is full of soil, meditate and reflect on the earthy goodness of the soil from the Goddess and the pot too. Mix that soil up in your hands. Smell it, feel it, cradle it in your hands. Visualize the energy traveling from your hands to the soil. Feel the energy traveling from the soil to you. I always do feel the energy of the soil. That is why I never wear gardening gloves. I love feeling the connection.

Stir the soil with a wooden spoon or your own eager hands. Loosen up any clumps and remove rocks. If you want, depending on what stage of growing your seedlings you are at, you can add fertilizer. Mix in bonemeal, bloodmeal, worm castings, coffee grounds or ground eggshells. Be sure to stir thoroughly. As you do, mix well and visualize. Direct the energy of your intention into the soil.

If you choose, you can put the seedling into the plant pot THEN fill it with the soil. After that, when you have centered the seedling into the pot, and placed it in deeper than it was before in the starter pot, add the soil. Be sure to visualize, direct the energy and feel the soil in your hands. Grow with love and you will get love. The DNA of the future plant is contained within the seed. So planting a seed truly is an act of magic!

Once the seed is planted, in a matter of days a cotyledon emerges, a tiny sprout. That sprout can grow into an oak tree, parsley or a pumpkin. Don’t crowd your seedlings – their tender roots need room to grow. I watched my Mother transplant over three dozen cherry tomato plant seedlings. Some of the starter pots contained up to five seedlings! They are all growing in their own pots now, much less crowded.

A plant is a living being with feelings. Treat the plant like that and you will be rewarded many times over with a plant happy to grow and bloom and/ or bear fruit or seeds! If it is thirsty, water it. If it droops, place it in more light. If it is crowded or rootbound, repot it. I can sense when a plant is thirsty. You can also use your hair dryer to blow for a few seconds on your plants. That signals to them that they should grow strong stems. If it is warm enough where you live, leave the window open. The wind that wafts in will help them grow!

I hope this post inspires you to get growing your own plants! Let me know in the comments below.

Blessings, Spiderwitch

Merry meet all,

Here’s a spooky ghost story for Samhain!!! Enjoy.

Graveyard in the woods: Abandoned Nova Scotia logging village so spooky skeptic won’t visit alone

The scorched, leafless Inspiration tree is one of the milestones hikers can use to measure their progress when hiking to Roxbury, an abandoned logging village in Annapolis County. – Contributed

STORY CONTINUES BELOW THESE SALTWIRE VIDEOS

Leafless trees close in and choke out the midday sun as David Whitman and his daughter, Lori, tread further into the dense forest.

The two are exploring the remains of Roxbury, an abandoned Annapolis County logging and farming village described as “lost in the woods” by locals.

“At first glance, there is not much to see,” says Whitman.

Whitman, a retired schoolteacher, is now referred to as the ‘Mayor of Roxbury’ after writing his first self-published book about the area called ‘Lost in The Woods: The Lure and History of Roxbury,’ which came out in 2005.

David and his wife Paulette Whitman are both writers that aim to preserve local Nova Scotian history. - Contributed — **David and his wife Paulette Whitman are both writers that aim to preserve local Nova Scotian history. – Contributed**

His interest sparked in the once-thriving settlement destroyed by a forest fire and abandoned in 1904, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was here where he spent hours fishing at a nearby river with friends.

Related:

Ghost town of Annapolis County: Roxbury part of Land and Sea documentary

“I was always intrigued by Roxbury as a kid. The village is about four miles off the main road, in the middle of nowhere. And when I began teaching school in Halifax, I started to research the area where very little is known.”

Over the years, he went digging for facts, church and school records, deeds, newspaper reports, and interviewed descendants of those that had once called the area “home.”

Whitman discovered a mysterious and tragic past.

The dirt trail that leads to the Roxbury settlement deep in the woods. - Contributed — **The dirt trail that leads to the Roxbury settlement deep in the woods. – Contributed**

Originally, he says, Roxbury was known as Durland’s Settlement, named after Thomas Durland, the first English Loyalist settler in the early 1800s. His brother Charles followed with his family, and by 1865, there were 15 families in the settlement, with a population around 60.

But the settlement stretches further back. The Mi’kmaq were the first inhabitants, followed by French Acadians fleeing from British soldiers after refusing to pledge British allegiance – known as the Expulsion from 1755 to 1764.

“About 60 French Acadian exiles took to the river and hid on South Mountain,” Whitman says.

“The Mi’kmaq became their allies, but many Acadians did not survive the freezing winter.”

Remains of stone walls from the Loyalist days. - Contributed — **Remains of stone walls from the Loyalist days. – Contributed**

Acadian gold?

Rumours persist, says Whitman, that the Acadians, while fleeing, left stashes of gold under Mile Rock on Roxbury Road.

“There have been some treasure hunters over the years, but nothing retrieved or at least made public.”

While piecing his second book together on the area, Whitman says he interviewed many who reported “strange voices” while alone on Roxbury Road.

“Legend has it some of the French Acadians were planning to come back and get this gold, so I think it plays on the imagination which can run wild out there when no one is around,” he dismisses with a nervous laugh.

When the Loyalists arrived (1775 to 1783), they built permanent structures over the Acadian nomadic-style homes using rocks from the mountain.

Shreds of lumber remain from the former logging and farming village. - Contributed — **Shreds of lumber remain from the former logging and farming village. – Contributed**

“By 1904, most of the residents had moved out with the lumber industry depleted and the serious forest fire.”

Whitman explains to produce blueberries, they burned the land, but a fire got out of control and spread over hundreds of acres, torching Roxbury.

Today, the scorched, leafless Inspiration tree echoes this history.

“The tree is aptly named Inspiration because if you make it that far, you might as well keep going,” says Whitman.

There is an 18.7-kilometre in-and-back trail described as “difficult” on All Trails, which features a lake and cuts through the settlement.

Roxbury lay dormant for several years, attended only by nature. Then, in the 1920s, families set up homesteads, including Whitman’s father.

“Roxbury had a school, church, post office, sawmill and grist mill. The last family moved out in 1927,” notes Whitman.

Andrew Rosengren and the Thygesen family were the last homesteaders.

“Then in 1948 through to the late 1950s, lumbering activities by J. H. Hicks and Sons and Max Napthal interrupted the settlement’s slumber. And in the 2000s, forestry work from Bowater Mersey and Lafarge Canada Inc.”

Lost in The Woods: The Lure and History of Roxbury, by David Whitman, published in 2005. - Contributed — **Lost in The Woods: The Lure and History of Roxbury, by David Whitman, published in 2005. – Contributed**

Haunted woods

So, what’s left there now? Stone foundations, deep round wells, shreds of lumber.

“But people go there a lot to hike,” says Whitman.

Yet Whitman says he will “never walk there alone.”

The supernatural skeptic that claims, “there is a scientific explanation for everything” admits he has heard “through the trees,” a sound the resembles the “wailing of a man.”

Other interviewees of Whitman reported “strange noises” or “figures.”

It is not a place for the faint of heart, he says.

Roxbury: A return to a ghost town, by David Whitman, published in 2015, with a foreword by John DeMont. - Contributed — **Roxbury: A return to a ghost town, by David Whitman, published in 2015, with a foreword by John DeMont. – Contributed**

“I have not been back there for a while. Not by myself, especially to the graveyards. There was always something about them. There is one graveyard where a man lost his wife in childbirth, and he would visit and cry on their graves.”

In one cemetery, a headstone peeks through the vegetation with just one bold word, “Baby.”

“In my second book, ‘Roxbury: A return to a ghost town,’ I interviewed people that say they could feel or even see someone watching them. It gave them an intense feeling that they should not be there,” he adds.

The book, published in 2015 with a foreword by John DeMont, includes photographs by witnesses, capturing “blurred images of a young girl in a white dress” floating through the cemetery and disappearing into the trees.

“This place can stir the imagination, especially in the graveyards that are in the middle of the woods,” Whitman says.

“People that do not know the history or have not read the books go back there and treat it just as a hike or a tour, but those that know the area are reluctant to go by themselves.”

Dormant wooden cottages in the area – designated by the province as a Provincial Park Reserve – have left a ghostly imprint on many people, including former students of Whitman, who he says will “never talk about what they heard or saw” because it was so frightening.

Whitman is part of Friends of Roxbury that gathered funding for interpretative signage to preserve the lumber settlement’s history. As a result, he no longer needs to give tours in a place he describes as “isolated and creepy.”

Credit given to https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/communities/graveyard-in-the-woods-abandoned-nova-scotia-logging-village-so-spooky-skeptic-wont-visit-alone-100631334/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1Ihr9t5VZUmMwVHfwMDRr0cP4kDo-62eGGc6RiFohuTYRrY_eyUn6UkYI#Echobox=1635594565

Wow. This is a great ghost story. This is partly why I love living in Nova Scotia. For every wave that washes in, there’s a ghost story!!