Kallikratis february...

Well, its not all and only herbs.. There also is time for getting together, playing music, eating and drinking and sharing time with friends..

We had a few days of party in Kallikratis, shared a wonderful time..

Lampis Xilouris and Giangos Chairetis from Anogia played the lutes, drums were played by Charis and Antonis..and many others were singing, clapping hands.. Dimitri joined the next day on bouzouki and mandolin, Panagiotis brought his guitar..

For two days, the house and our hearts resounded with music and rythms, and the singing of 'mantinades', 15-syllable rhyming couplets in Cretan dialect, often improvised..





Here Lampis Xilouris playing with heart and soul..

Giangos Chairetis

We all had a wonderful time.. I wish I could post some soundtracks here, which we recorded.. but it doesn't seem possible.. To get a feeling of some of the music played, you could visit the website of Lampis' brother Giorgis Xilouris, there are some videos and especially the latest one, where he plays with Giangos at http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=270962486382&share_id=320900997552&comments=1#!/video/video.php?v=367422154337

visiting cypress

Well, its been some time that I have contributed anything new.. These first months of the year are low key, no real collection going on, no distillation.... However, its time for visiting.. human and plant friends.. We set out to visit the cypress trees, in the Sfakian mountains above Anopoli one nice day...admiring the way these trees survive...

The cypress trees here on Crete in the mountains are of the original variety, called horizontalis.. full name is Cupressus sempervirens var. horizontalis.. Cypress is mostly known in its age-long cultivated form, called C. sempervirens var. pyramidalis... the pyramide shaped Cypress so well known from Italian paintings, so well known as a typical tree in graveyards...

I love this above picture a lot.. when we passed by, the sky and the light was dramatic, and somehow the sun seemed to embrace this cypress tree..

And this is how they live as apopulation.. growing just out of the rocks, side by side...

Here we can see their cones....

Their kids...