Barbara Lawlor
NEDERLAND

    “Aaaah,” breathed the clients in the massage chair as their sore, tired muscles were squeezed and stroked.
    “Ooooh,” said wide-eyed children as they gazed at the rounding boards featuring dolphins soaring out of the ocean, gorillas gazing wisely into their eyes, and deer drinking from a bubbly stream.
    “Mmmm,” sighed shoppers breathing in the aroma of lavender and chamomile.
    Ken Fisher of Coal Creek Canyon and his band “Rough Around the Edges,” set an old-time western mood in Nederland Community Center’s multi-purpose room at the Carousel of Happiness Massage-a-thon on Sunday. It was a totally feel-good atmosphere.
    Organizer Janette Taylor says the event brought in over $3,000 towards finishing the carousel building and everyone had a relaxing, family-affair good time.
    There were vendors sharing their natural remedies and lotions and soup and breads and tonic drinks. Julie Ikler of Gilpin County offered samples of the salves she has been mixing for the past 23 years. She says the first thing she made was skin salve for her daughter when she was a baby. She gathered comfrey, calendula and yarrow, infused them in oil and screened the plant fiber out, to make a soothing skin rub.
    Since then she has been harvesting local plants and mixing her new salve, Releaf Muscle Magic, made with arnica.
    “There is so much of it up here, but you harvest it carefully, be ethical about it. In a dry year, we don’t get many plants,” says Julie.
    She also makes bags filled with fresh herbs and seeds that can be heated as a neck or foot warmer. She has earned the nickname, “the bag lady.” Her newest creations are eye pillows, filled with flax and lavender and used for relaxation. She made them over the four-day weekend break from school.
    Rebecca Welsh came up from Boulder with her herbal products. She is also a personal chef with MamaLove Meals. Her products are all-wild crafted from her backyard and other natural places.
    “I harvest the plants in earth-centered tradition, singing to them and making offerings.” Rebecca’s sore-muscle salves are made with jojoba oil, olive oil, beeswax, St. John’s wort, calendula, chamomile and cinnamon.
    Rebecca also offered Dandelion Root Recharge, a spring tonic.
    All of the long massage therapy slots were filled for the day, but Sophia Solomonson was kept busy at her chair massage, administering soothing touch by the minute. Sophia moved to Nederland from Michigan and said the Massage-a-thon seemed like a good way to introduce herself and be a good community member at the same time.
    Adults and children alike enjoyed making fairies at the workshop table. Marybeth and her children Bella and Max from Lump Gulch, said, “When we heard it was for the Carousel and there would be fairies here, we decided to come.”
    One industrious woman, Pat Shackelford of Rollinsville, brought in a box of fairies that he she had uniquely adorned. There was Chipeta, the wife of Chief Ouray, a hippie fairy, a pansy, a Chinese Geisha, a Mardi Gras reveler and an Irish fairy.
    All proceeds went to the Carousel of Happiness. Carousel creator Scott Harrison said the event was one of the most wholesome, good-feeling fundraisers he has seen.