Elvin H.O.M.E. - Lothlorien Nature Sanctuary

03/20/2023

Happy Vernal Equinox & Blessed Ostara! May the winds of March blow away the debris and melancholy of winter and and leave us with a hopeful, peaceful and fruitful spring.

🌳❤️🌳
Briar Ardea Elva💚
(I saved the art without saving the source, so sadly I can't give proper credit. If you know the artist please let me know.)

03/14/2023

This coming weekend is Opening Weekend,(March 18-19) is our first Earth Steward (community& work) weekend of the season. It looks like we won't have the springiest of weather, but we'll see what we can do. Some of our staff members have already been hard at work, reclaiming areas and working on projects that were set aside during the pandemic.

Next weekend March 25 is the Welcome Back Spring Feast with egg dying, an egg hunt for the kids, an Ostara ritual by Aurora Morningstar from IPCOD and a pot luck feast. Brandon Whittis from Homestead Barbecue will be donating the labor, time and equipment to grill up some meat main courses and evreyone else is encouraged to bring something for the pitch-in. (Contact us through the event if you have any questions, want to let us know what you're bringing, etc.)

We are so excited to get back to a more normal season and see more of our members and friends on the land!

03/01/2023

Elf Fest pricing updates:
Full Fest Members: $140
Full Fest Non-Members $160
Day Passes(Members only*) $40 (includes overnight)
(*we've discussed opening day passes to non members if we still have spots left near the end of April 1-May 12 preregistration period.)
No charge for kids 12 and under.
Adults 65+ membership only
There's still an attendance cap of 500, because that's realistically what the land can handle

As always we need plenty of help from barters and presenters to make the festival happen-parking, registration, field services, (cleaning & stocking privies, hauling firewood, etc.) kids activites, entertainment, etc. If you have a problem with preregistering before the cutoff, because you won't get paid in time, etc please let us know and we will happily work with you.

Email us at: [email protected] with any questions, to ask about bartering, performing, etc.

02/01/2023

Blessed Imbolc and Feast of Brigid to you all! Plus, the Day of the Cailleach, and tomorrow Candlemas and Groundhog’s Day! We celebrate longer days, the return of warmth and the beginnings of regreening and blossoming Earth and our own emerging from the dark. It is a time to light a candle of hope and think on possibilities and ponder and start tending the seeds we’ll sow come spring. Here there have been many gloomy gray days, so it’s hard to tell if the days are getting longer, but this morning as I drove to work instead of dark, the sunrise was a fiery band across the hills on the horizon.
🌳❤️🌳
Briar Ardea Elva💚

01/22/2023

Happy Lunar New Year! Wishing you good fortune and good health in the coming year ! (Per Google translate, the test says: "Auspicious Year of the Rabbit 201TU NIAN JIXIANG Wish you prosperity and wealth")

01/21/2023

Hey elves!

Our 2023 schedule postcards are on their way to you even as you read this (ignore the typo-I reworded something and didn’t have my proofreader check again, so all my fault!) I’m a little behind in posting this update. We’re already getting questions about festival season, preregistration and so on.

As most of you know, we made a lot of changes on the fly to be able to reopen and get people back on the land and be able to have festivals again. We’ve revisited most of those things, but we’re still working out details on a few others.

Festival Related:
We’re still going to have an attendance cap, but we’re raised it to 500 people. That’s about the most the land can realistically handle.

We won’t require proof of Covid vaccine or tests for entrance, but of course we still encourage you to be as safe as possible for yourself and others. (KEOA literally!) If you have symptoms while you’re at an event, we ask you to go to the med tent and take a test. If it’s positive, we’ll give you back your registration fee and send you home to take care of yourself.

Preregistration for ELF Fest, both full festival and day passes, will be open from April 1-May 12. We haven’t decided on the final price, but we don’t plan on raising it above last year’s rate. Part of that delay is because we want to allow non-members to come to festivals, so we’re figuring out how to structure that fee scale and make sure members get their discount. We’ll get the rest of those details worked out at the February meeting.

No more $5 parking fee, except for oversized vehicles like campers. That fee was leftover from the oversized festivals that we had for a few years.

We also reviewed some non-festival specific things. Tthe number of tokens for an hour’s work has been raised to $12 ) and dropped camping fees down to $12 so that it’s back to doing an hour of work to cover a night of camping.(which is what state parks charge for primitive camping.) It will now take 2 ½ hours of work to cover a membership, which is nicer both for people who come to help and for our bookkeeping.

We’re planning lots of special community events for steward weekends, because we want to see our members back on the land working together, or -just hanging out together. Opening weekend is March 18-19 and the following weekend, IPCOD is sponsoring the return of the Welcome Back Spring Feast and fundraiser. Earth Day, April 22 is on a weekend, so some special earth care activities are in the works that weekend.

There’s much more going on. Council has worked through a lot and we’re still working through some things, but the overall picture is getting brighter. We have several new and returning council members to share the workload and introduce you to. We’re exploring lots of ways to use all this new technology stuff to help us better organize the work that needs to be done and share the load more efficiently, to communicate better, to keep members better informed, to further streamline registration and recording tokens, etc. There will be more information about all those things later, but I know that anticipating the festival season and spring on the land is what helps get many of you through the long gray winter. And we are so excited to be able to welcome more of you back

KEOA 🌳❤️🌳

Briar Ardea Elva 💚

01/18/2023

Hey folks! I'm missing you all, and I know this winter has been tough for all of us, but there are big plans in the works, and I can't wait to see you all again as we progress into the new year!

Over the next few years, I would like to help members who show interest acquire education and training in a variety of environmental topics. Depending on the responses and involvement I receive in my initial trial of this education/training, I would ideally like to choose 2-3 members annually to attend professional courses, which will get them certifications related to the topics at hand, providing them with environmental job opportunities outside of the land. I believe this will increase the beneficial environmental impact of Lothlorien and support a portion of our mission, not only within the borders of the land, but throughout the state and wherever you all may originate.

I know I have already spoken to many of you about this, but as the environmental coordinator at Lothlorien, I am working on a comprehensive conservation plan to help us pave a path forward in how we manage our living relationship with the land. As a portion of this plan, I would like to work toward using regular prescribed burns on small parts of the land, which will support overall ecological health, help us deal with invasive species in those areas burned, and keep some areas in an early stage of ecological succession. I will have a far more detailed explanation on this moving forward. I assure you that these plans WILL NOT be implemented hastily, without careful planning, or without the consideration of the membership's input.

That being said, I'll get back to my original point on training. Regardless of whether we do eventually use prescribed fire or not, I would like to put some free federal training courses on prescribed burns and wildland firefighting out there for those who are interested. Knowledge is invaluable, and we could always use more folks who know how to manage fires, especially if one ever manages to escape our firepits!

These online courses are online prerequisites for anyone who would like to become a wildland firefighter, and they will also be a prerequisites for anyone wishing to assist with burns, should we move forward with those plans. Please follow the below instructions for the online courses, provided by the National Wildfire Coordination Group:

NWCG – National Wildfire Coordinating Group – www.nwcg.gov
1. Register for username and password
2. Enroll in and complete S190 training
3. Enroll in and complete S130 training
4. Enroll in and complete L180 training

Notes: When signing up, note your agency as "Private". If you need additional help in signing up for these courses, feel free to comment with any questions you may have below. Please note that you will not receive any certifications from these courses, but you will receive certificates of completion, which you can send to me upon completion.

Thank you,

-Josh
Your Local Lothlorien Botanist/Environmental Coordinator

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group provides national leadership to enable interoperable wildland fire operations among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial partners.  Primary objectives include:

01/01/2023

.
Happy New Year to you all!

"Fullness of vision
Healing of schism
Wholeness of fusion
Facets of prism
Grace within friction
Blossoming wisdom
Fruition, inclusion
Divine benediction"

copyright Rebekah Myers

We've has a collective rough time these last few years, but as we look forward to a happier and more productive 2023 connecting with nature and one another, as we celebrate our 40th anniversary, this New Year Blessing seemed appropriate.

🌳❤🌳
Briar Ardea Elva

12/21/2022

Solstice Blessings! Happy Hannukah! Merry Christmas! Io Saturnalia! Natalis Solis Invicti and Alban Arthan greetings! It is the shortest day and longest night of the year (At least here in the Northern Hemisphere.)

However you celebrate the rebirth of the Sun and turning toward the light, may it be the happiest of Holy Days to all that is sacred in your heart!

🎄❤️🎄
Briar Ardea Elva
💚

12/21/2022

SOLSTICE GATHERING UPDATE: Because weather forecasts are all over the place about when snow, freezing rain and other bad stuff might be coming, and travel home might be a problem, the firetenders have decided to move their Long Night vigil to Pali's house south of Bloomington (message him for location.)

You are still welcome (as members always are) to come to Lothlorien to observe the Solstice. Whether there is a fire in the Dome depends on whether someone volunteers to build one.

Sorry for any confusion!

12/16/2022

Important announcement: We're designating the northern cardinal as the best holiday season bird. It just makes sense and we won't be taking any questions at this time. Thank you.

After a male cardinal's early fall molt, many of his new feathers still have greyish highlights. In northern climates, once the temperatures drop and the winter snow sets in, those dusky grey tips wear away to reveal a vibrant red color. A male northern cardinal against the backdrop of fresh white snow is perfection.

Photo: N. Lewis/NPS