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Orkney Masked Ball: Velvet MacShire and Sara Devonshire attended this event held in the Kingdom of Orkney. Velvet was attired as an Amazon, leather and scrolling brass offset the body fitted suit. Bared shoulders and thighs with boots lacing up to just below the knee. Leather bracers and bands on her forearms compliment the attire. Chain hooked cape folded back over one shoulder. A black winged mask  was worn over her eyes. Sara was attired as a leaf Fae, wings of bronze and reds and the dress in petal layers of large leaves. Facial mask was of black feathers, hair done up in a wild array. The ball was filled with the revelry goers; games and riddles for all. It was concluded with the unmasking while ones tried to guess who everyone was.

Scarecrow Contest: Eddie and Joe McAndrews along with Devon Winters attended this event held in Ravenwood. This event was geared for fun, bags of acorns aplenty to use against the incoming flocks of crows. Would your scarecrow last? On top of that, Eddie carried Connie from Devonshires on his shoulders giving her a hopeful advantage. It seemed that height didn't matter so she was released to join her party. Few scarecrows were left intact by the end of the night.

Telarus Fright Night: Sir Lancely Caster and Sir Aiden Collins along with our guest Cassie Saxton, attended this affair  in Telarus. Another night of fun and games as first one had to put back together a knight. Body parts galore and gore, but few knew where to place them all. It was amazing where some of the parts were tried to be fitted and so the banter flowed as easily as the wine. Sir Lancely seemed to win the notice and attention of one of the hosts, using his lap as her seat every chance she got. Next was the waking the Frankenstein monster which both our knight were able to do. The last was seeking your fortune by having your future told. One question only. All in all everyone had a wonderful night and Lancely ended up with the most total points winning first prize.

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Healer's Touch
by Samantha Golden

ALFALFA - Hope for the Heart. Family: Leguminosae; other members include beans and peas. Parts used - Leaves. Alfalfa is an agent in the war against heart disease and stroke. Animal studies show that alfalfa leaves help reduce blood cholesterol levels and plaque deposits on the artery walls. Another intriguing possibility is that it helps to fight disease causing fungus. It might one day be used for fungal infections. It also helps bad breath on a minor scale of uses. Cancer: one study suggests that alfalfa helps neutralize carcinogens in the intestine. Another shows it binds carcinogens in the colon and helps speed their eliminations from the body.

Save the sprouts to dress up your salads; its leaves are the part used in herbal healing. When using bulk herb, prepare medicinal infusions from one to two teaspoons of dried leaves per cup of boiling water. Steep ten to twenty minutes. Enjoy up to three cups a day to take advantage of its cholesterol-reducing potential. The infusion has a haylike aroma and tastes like chamomile, with a slightly bitter aftertaste. Medicinal infusions of the leaves should not be given to children under age two. For older children and people over sixty-five, start with a low strength preparations and increase strength if necessary.

Growing your own is a snap. Alfalfa is a deep-rooting, bushy perennial that grows to three feet and resembles tall clover. The leaves are divided into three leaflets. The herb's lavender, pale blue, or yellow flowers bloom from May through October, depending on location. It grows best in loamy soil. It tolerates clay but not sand, which lacks sufficient nutrients. Seeds are usually sown in autumn in rows eighteen inches apart. Prepare soil with manure and rock phosphate. Young plants require regular watering, but once established they become fairly drought tolerant. Harvest alfalfa as the plant blooms. Cut plants back to within three inches of the ground then hang to dry.

Alfalfa should be used in medicinal amounts only in consultation with your physician. If it causes minor discomforts such as stomach upset of diarrhea, use less or stop using it. Let your doctor know if you experience unpleasant effects or if the symptoms for which the herb is used do not improve significantly in two weeks. --Taken from The Healing Herbs by Michael Castleman

Life Around Here

The month of October brought not only the changing colors, and even more changeable  weather, but another wedding for the Frasier family of Ballicastle.  Robert, Frasier, the last of the brothers gave his heart and pledge to the lovely Lisette McTiel on his brother's ship.  The newlyweds are traveling for their honeymoon.   The very colorful Birdie Northam gave away the bride.  We wish the newlyweds the very best.

The Braidy family has settled into their new homestead and are busy preparing for the upcoming winter.   The Herbal Delights Shop will be located in the Barrington Hospital.  It has closed and will reopen during the month of November once everything is relocated.

Births: None this month. Marriages: Robert Frasier to Lisette McTiel on October Eighteen. Engagements: None this Month. Deaths: None this Month. Citizenship: None this Month.

Sprites -- Dazzling in color and about the size of large insects, sprites have glistening membranous wings. In fact, they are often confused with exotic insects or flowers at first glance.

Considered by many to be the most common type of faerie, they live in deep woods and make their homes high in the branches of trees. They particularly love to live in forests inhabited by treefolk and other fey. If sprites are spotted, you can be sure you are in an area with a high concentration of faerie activity.

Sprites travel in swarms and can bite if provoked. At night their bodies give off a faint glow that can have them mistaken for fireflies. which, along with other flying insects and small birds, they are fond of riding.

Petals and blooms missing from healthy plants may be due to sprites plucking them for clothing. Sprites can also cause plants to bloom in the middle of the winter and are the nurturers of the strange fruits and faeries delight in.

In forests with sprites, you may find the hollowed-out acorns they use as cups, dandelion-tuft mattresses and hats made from folded leaves. Some seem genderless at first glance.

  -- submitted by Kathleen Frasier - from Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide. Everyone should have one!

November - Giving Thanks

The 11th month of the year in the Gregorian calendar. The feast of Saint Martin; a quarter day in Scotland. It is the time of Beltaine for Druids, an ancient Celtic feast marked by the lighting of bonfires and the performance of various rites of purification. The finale of harvest and paying tribute to the end of the year soon to be marked by winter; considered a sleeping state for the Earth to be reborn in the spring. Many follow their own celebration. The ground now covered with the colorful leaves, leaving the trees barren. Bears hibernating symbolizing the deep sleep that will last a quarter year. Families and friends gather together laying out a feast to partake of together. A tribute to the year as a whole and those that survived. A recounting of the good instead of the negative. Breaking bread with others has always been symbolic supportive of each other in a bond between those eating together. Stores for the winter have been seen to and days with less light and abrasive weather will have most indoors than out in any long duration. Many already look forward to spring where life becomes anew. Winter holidays and sports making this time tolerable.  -submitted by Velvet MacShire

How to Observe Thanksgiving

Count your blessings instead of your crosses;
Count your gains instead of your losses.
Count your joys instead of your woes;
Count your friends instead of your foes.
Count your smiles instead of your tears;
Count your courage instead of your fears.
Count your full years instead of your lean;
Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.
Count your health instead of your wealth;
Count on God instead of yourself.

Verses 3-5
(John Greenleaf Whittier)

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South comes the pilgrim and guest;
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored;
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before;
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye,
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin,---our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who traveled like steam
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

The Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving
(Edgar Albert Guest, 1881-1959)

It may be I am getting old and like too much to dwell
Upon the days of bygone years, the days I loved so well;
But thinking of them now I wish somehow that I could know
A simple old Thanksgiving Day, like those of long ago,
When all the family gathered round a table richly spread,
With little Jamie at the foot and grandpa at the head,
The youngest of us all to greet the oldest with a smile,
With mother running in and out and laughing all the while.

It may be I'm old-fashioned, but it seems to me to-day
We're too much bent on having fun to take the time to pray;
Each little family grows up with fashions of its own;
It lives within a world itself and wants to be alone.
It has its special pleasures, its circle, too, of friends;
There are no get-together days; each one his journey wends,
Pursuing what he likes the best in his particular way,
Letting the others do the same upon Thanksgiving Day.

I like the olden way the best, when relatives were glad
To meet the way they used to do when I was but a lad;
The old home was a rendezvous for all our kith and kin,
And whether living far or near they all came trooping in
With shouts of "Hello, daddy!" as they fairly stormed the place
And made a rush for mother, who would stop to wipe her face
Upon her gingham apron before she kissed them all,
Hugging them proudly to her breast, the grownups and the small.

Then laughter rang throughout the home, and, Oh, the jokes they told;
From Boston, Frank brought new ones, but father sprang the old;
All afternoon we chatted, telling what we hoped to do,
The struggles we were making and the hardships we'd gone through;
We gathered round the fireside. How fast the hours would fly--
It seemed before we'd settled down 'twas time to say good-bye.
Those were the glad Thanksgivings, the old-time families knew
When relatives could still be friends and every heart was true.

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Did You Know?

The Power of Ancient Stones and Symbols - An ancient burial site, Newgrange in Northern Ireland is older than the pyramids. Its mysteries still to be unraveled. A unique spectacle that occurs here at dawn on the winter solstice every year is that a finger of light shines down the long passageway and hits the back wall of the end chamber. As the light falls on the back wall , it illuminates richly decorated stones across whose faces double spirals wind, clockwise to the one side and counterclockwise to the other. This amazing prehistoric light show can still be witnessed at the site today, although the sun has changed its slant by an entire degree since the burial mound was first built around 3000 BC.

Shocks have been experienced by some upon their visit there. One man trailed his fingers across the lintel stone above his head at the opening of the long low passage into the mound and received a powerful electric shock that numbed his arm. Another man received a similar shock when he touched both ends of a double spiral simultaneously. These interlinking spirals are carved across the faces of many of the stones at Newgrange. They may represent maps of other burial sites in the area, or be symbols of underground waterlines, the Celtic triple goddess Brigid, or even the life force itself. Supporters of the life force theory point to the discoveries of modern biology and physics: the double-helix structure of DNA and the spiraling galaxies of the universe whose whirling power gives birth to stars.

The molecular structure of quartz is also a spiral and the entire mound is faced with quartz stones. One peculiar feature of quartz crystal is its apparent ability to give off a significant electrical charge under certain conditions. The spiral symbol is the one found most commonly at prehistoric sites around the world. Thus it is possible to speculate that ancient peoples may have had some awareness of its significance. -- submitted by Samantha Golden (taken from Earth's Mysterious Places, Reader's Digest)

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