Rainbow Hearth, Continued

Our stay at Rainbow Hearth has been relaxing and healing, and we're very grateful to Mariah Wentworth, the kind proprietor, for allowing us to stay in the beautiful and luxurious  Blue Heron Suite in exchange for a comparatively small amount of work on our part. It's a really nice break from the rig, and a special treat to work alongside Mariah.

One of Mariah's passions is the growing of organic sprouts, and Mary very happily helped sort a variety of sprouts yesterday afternoon: sunflower, buckwheat and alfalfa.

In order to make an extremely healthy and nutritious sprouted bread, Mariah sprouts wheatberries and then grinds them through an ingenious hand-cranked machine invented by a brilliant acquaintance. This grinding actually creates the unleavened dough from the sprouted wheatberries. It's also an incredible upper body workout!

The bread (no photo---darn!) then sits in this custom-made oven for two-and-a-half hours. The oven was originally created to run off of a car battery while driving, a solar panel, or simply through a DC-AC converter. If only we could electronically embed the smell, texture and taste of this incredible bread for y'all to experience.

Here's a photo of the dining room at Rainbow Hearth. The porch on the left side faces the lake, of course.

This afternoon, a very happy Keith was the recipient of outstanding bodywork by Mariah, who uses retrofitted power tools (think sander and jig-saw) and hot rocks to coax the stress out of hurting muscles. Keith has been in pain for more than five years, and this bodywork actually left him pain-free, at least temporarily.

The weather here at Lake Buchanan is cold, rainy and dreary today, with temperatures hovering in the upper 30's. This weekend, temps are expected to rise into the lower 50s and the sun is forecast to make an appearance on Saturday and Sunday! The sun will be welcome, and we'll soak up as much of it as we can. It's been rather cloudy and rainy since we arrived to Texas (with the exception of a few days here and there), and that golden orb will be quite a sight for so many sun-starved Texans!

Tina is pretty content here, tolerating the resident dog and cats fairly well. She sleeps most of the time, and rarely wants to go for a walk. She's a little road weary, as well, and she told us she'd like to simply stay put for a while!

Tomorrow, we move out of the Blue Heron Suite in preparation for a long holiday weekend and many guests here at Rainbow Hearth. We'll move back into our rig which is parked on a concrete slab up the road on a neighbor's land. It's a pleasant twenty minute walk, and the property is on a hill overlooking the lake. There's no electricity or water, but we'll use our solar panels and generator to run the show as we each take shifts serving guests, preparing food, making beds, and otherwise help Rainbow Hearth hum along.