I had a great time Sunday at the Armory. There was a good crowd of people, great classes and vendors. The music and raffle was a treat.

     A new Meditation and Drumming Circle started at Riverfront Park in North Charleston. This is a good time to meet new friends and visit with old ones. We learn new beats and practice, practice practice. Everyone is free to come, its open to everyone. Just make sure if you come that you bring a chair and something to beat on or some other noisemaker. 
     This is the second Sunday that I've gone drumming. It's been great,  I just wish it that I hadn't forgotten my jacket in the car. It was quite cool because of the wind blowing off the river, at least the sun was warm.
     

     Nick Tittle  gave this class on Saturday the 18th in the back room of the Charleston Horicultural Society (in the shopping center next to Earthfare). Nick was a good teacher, he covered a variety of information.
     This permaculture session included:
history and ethics
principles
sustainable design methodology
patterns in nature, culture, and society
food forests, plants guilds and polycultures

"Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system." --Bill Mollison (co-founder of permaculture).

On the way to the Community Garden I stopped at a park to watch the geese and ducks because I was too early.

I drove back for the 0930 class, there were almost 20 people there. Only a few permies, a variety of Gardeners, teachers, and others. More people came then I was expecting. After the class, we transplanted some starters. I planted some basil but had to stay away from the peppers. We weeded and learned about the different plants and the history of the Community Garden. We moved around the water storage tanks
After the finishing the work, we had a potluck lunch at around 1230. It was good, as well as the companionship. They meet up every 2nd Saturday the work on the garden, I'll have to go back and help more often.

I went to Edisto Beach State Park to go hiking with a Meetup group. I arrived late though so I walked the Spanish Mount and Big Bay Trails. It was a nice walk, I picked up a walking stick on the way to knock things off the path.
On the way back I sat at a bench facing the bay to eat lunch. It rained a lot on the drive back, I could only go about 25-35 mph depending on the road as I could barely see.

Pictures are posted in the Photo Gallery.

Today I went to a Crafting Social put on by the Charleston Craft Crew. It was at the Wando High School in Mt Pleasant, SC. It was great, I really enjoyed working on the logo for my new business {Pooka's Kreations}, I silk screened it on two t-shirts. The people were very friendly and helpful. I plan to go to the next crafting social.

I had a fun weekend at Colleton Saddle Club. Luckily I missed the road closure for the Rice Festival Parade by only about 20 minutes. Me and a group of friends had a Saturday-Sunday camp-out  and Beltane/May Day Ritual. We even danced the May Pole, a recovered tree from the ice storms earlier in the year. This was my first time and it was nice.
 We had a good time, fellowship, classes, a bonfire, even a few vendors. I did get a bit cooler than was expected, not many people were prepared for it. It was  my first camp-out with my Kammock Roo and was very comfortable.

I took the time today to travel on a Billion graves picture scavenger hunt. I drove around to 5 different cemeteries in Goose Creek and Hanahan today. 

• Beside Greater Bethel AME Church, on Foster Creek Road.
• across the road at Keyes Memorial Garden. I ran into the pastor (?) while I was taking pictures, he invited me to church on Sunday after I told him I was researching ancestors, on Foster Creek Road.
  
• Yeamans Hall Plantation Cemetery. It's a private country club but I convinced the gate guard to let me in to research at the graveyard. I took pictures and recorded in my notebook.
• Off Red Bank at Trinity Missionary Baptist Church (behind). I had to walk around some trees to get to the graveyard. A few were recently interred, and some were unreadable.
• Off Snake road at Saint James Goose Creek cemetery. I wasn't able to drive up to it because the gate was locked. I had to walk in and could only take pictures of the graves outside the walled graveyard. 

Later I will travel to more cemeteries to help update the graveyard info. This will definitely help genealogists find their ancestors.

I'm continuing to work on my raised beds. I just added dirt to my compost in place beds (leaves, pine straw, pine cones and branches). So far I have two large beds, this box, 2 potato boxes and multiple containers.

I bought composted garden  soil from Bees Ferry Landfill, Home Depot and Lowes. On Wednesday there was a huge sale and I bought 40 dollars worth of composted garden soil to help cover the rest of my first and second raised beds and most of a flower bed along the front porch.

 This weekend I planted multiple store bought and home sprouted plants. Now I have a variety of flowers and vegetables and am starting more. This is my inventory so far: dwarf tomatoes, bush tomato, cherry tomato, avocado tree, lemon tree, celery leeks, green onions, white onions, carrots, curled parsley, asparagus, cabbages, lettuce, broccoli, heirloom yellow squash, cucumber, white potatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydew melons, american dock (plantain), mint, a variety of flowers, succulents, ground cover and ornamental grasses.

Yesterday me and a friend went to an Edible Plant Nature Walk. We walked around the West Ashley Demo Garden across from the U.S. VEGETABLE LABORATORY 2700 SAVANNAH HIGHWAY
Charleston SC 29414. Vaughn, the guide, talked about many of the plants growing at the Demo Garden and the wild spaces in the fields around them.
The funny thing was that the two guides were the only men there, everyone else was women or children. After the walk, we chatted for a while and age lunch. Everything we ate was from edibles gathered at the site as well as some deer sausage that Vaughn brought. The salad was great, especially the edition of the huge thistle stalk that we found on the way back.