Colin's "Success Story: Space of Love", USA

Part 1

by Colin on the Oregon TBYM Facebook group - April 13, 2017.
Please request to the Oregon group if you live in that State.

I'm starting a little success story mini-blog here on Facebook for all my lovely co-creators and #TBYM friends! It all started in 1978 when my parents had the goal to live on a small piece of land in Oregon. They lived in a tepee and traveled picking nuts and fruit for a living in Washington State, Oregon and California. Then they found a house in Sheridan Oregon, lived there a few years, had a daughter (my sister Anya), and eventually moved to this wonderful little Space of Love (SOL) outside Dallas and Monmouth Oregon in 1985. I was one year old. So I can clearly say that their dream to find land was my dream, since this is where i'm living today and fulfilling the Kin's Domain objective to raise a family on 2.5 acres. We have 6 acres, which is fine because there are six people living here, including a baby - my dad, mom, sister, brother-in-law, newborn, and myself. OK that's it for this little dream-come-true story of love. I'll add something next week! Happy dreaming to everyone!!

  

Part 2
by Colin on the Oregon TBYM Facebook group - April 20, 2017.
Please request to the Oregon group if you live in that State.

Let me tell you a short story of a boy who grew up in a space surrounded by love. There were animals, trees, flowers and fields. I would meet my friend by the pond and we could run around in the woods and pretend to be invincible. We felt safe going to either his house or mine, as there were only friendly neighbors around our woodsy community. 

Public school was fun for the first few years. My dad would come to school and show the class what it means to graft fruit trees. My mom would be busy teaching but would pick us up to go to piano lessons. The parental examples they gave me of loving nature, cultivating a garden, and learning music gave me long lasting inspiration and goals. 

My grandparents would come visit occasionally and I remember specifically anticipating a visit from Grandma Toddie on a warm sunny day by the big leaf maple tree in our yard. What joy it is to be a child care-free and eternally young! I felt like I would never grow up. Who could imagine going to middle school or high school? I have been alive so long, and that is so far away! Looking in the mirror, time goes by so slow, and I'm only 9 years old! Make a goofy face, and forget about the future. It's time to play! When is dad going to finish that tree house? Yes, it is a joy to breathe in the air and play with the kittens.

Part 3
by Colin on the Oregon TBYM Facebook group - April 27, 2017.
Please request to the Oregon group if you live in that State.

I would like to talk a bit about grafting. My dad's profession is a tree "grafter" which is an ancient science based on taking cuttings or "scion wood" (pronounced 'sign') from a young branch, typically one or two year old wood, and inserting that cutting into an already established tree trunk or branch called "root stalk". Sometimes the root stalk is just a sapling and the new variety of scion wood is grafted onto the sapling root stalk then planted. 

In Book 5 of the Ringing Cedars Series p.95, Anastasia warns against grafting, referring to the Old Testament. (If anyone can trace that reference, I'd like to read it!) For years I helped my dad with grafting season and "wrapped" the grafts in plastic tape to seal the cut. Only this year I quit after extreme fatigue and utter boredom of the work. My soul was screaming out to me to stop butchering these trees and making clone hybrid orchards. 

Even today, my dad and I have planted up to a hundred new fruit trees in our orchards that are your popular variety. You know, "Gravenstein, Rome, Fuji, Liberty. Anastasia says there are only nine original apple trees left on the planet. I do love each one of these trees and give them personal attention, even implanting my genetic information into them through my sweat, urine, saliva... and good thoughts. 

However, my goal now is to start little saplings from seed, implant them with my information, and create new varieties that are special only to me and my offspring. I think I'll start with one apple tree seedling from my favorite variety, Jonagold, then in five years take seed from that tree, plant it a few feet away from the first, then in five years take seed from that tree, plant it next to the second, etc etc until in about four or five or maybe even twenty generations I will have something close to the original Adam's apple. Maybe by then I will be over one hundred years old, and the next generation can continue creating varieties in search of the original. Either way, in a few years I will have an apple tree from the seed of that Jonagold that will heal all my ailments.

Side note: Very few fruits grow the same 'variety' of fruit from seed, and if you were to plant a seed from the fruit it would become a "seedling" variety, which is something closer to it's original.

Editor's note:  Omg !!  That's AMAZING Colin. This also confirms a theory I hold about hybrid vegetable seed. Your comment is a real eye-opener for me!  :-o  Thank you so much!  <3 <3