Ellen F. Franklin, PhD
Fall has definitely arrived, with sunny cool days, and cold nights, we've already had a frost and our mountains landscape has turned a beautiful golden color. The outside gardens have been hit by frost, so just beets and carrots, the hardy vegetables remain. Donna is working diligently to convert the dome to winter hardy crops such as lettuce, arugula, chard and many types of kale. The warm days keep the thermal mass pool fountain activated, 
and the spinach continues to thrive. We still have Meyer Lemons, cucumbers, herbs, tomatoes, and spinach, although many tomato plants and cucumbers have been taken out to provide space for new crops. Next week we will plant the fall garlic crop outside and have prepared the soil in a way that we hope will deter critters from eating our beautiful seed garlic. Donna continues to craft amazing wines and applies sound vibration at every stage to enhance the quality and character of the wine. Ellen is recovering well from hip surgery and is grateful to Susan Goldstone and Patty Warren who came to provide treatments to aid in her healing journey. She also continues to use the tuning forks daily as part of her self-care therapy.
In early fall we processed numerous tomatoes making soups, sauces, and salsas, and we also flash froze tomatoes. We also harvested pears and plums and dried and froze them as well.
We also take the opportunity of these warm fall days to assemble and dip the leg acuvators, a process that Sande, Donna and Ellen participated in. So we thought we'd share a photo of these hand crafted and hand dipped tools created to activate your tuning forks, Donna likens it to the dipping of fine chocolate.
Donna has also been working on the new gate that welcomes guests to our property. The project entitled Planetary Gateway was conceived by Donna and our nephew Nolan Bade and construction began in late summer. Donna and Max have continued to work on it adding many new details to the concept, which was conceived as a representation of string theory, oscillating strings sweeping through time and space. The Earth Day gong serves as a central focal point for the gate, severed in half, it invites us to reimagine the organization and flow of time. As time speeds up we move from linear time to fluid time. Embedded in the concept is a perspective on moving from chaos and singularity to organization and multidimensional inter connectivity. The two sides of the gate represent the different types of strings open and closed loop systems. In the image with Donna below the gate you will see the circular disks that are on the outer posts invoking the Five Elements. There is so much more to this concept. Donna has promised to blog about it in the near future.
