Herbally Healthy - Herbally Good

With the New Year shortly upon us, now is the time to begin thinking about how you will change your health and change your life. You can start by implementing all natural herbal health care products into your home, and removing those that contain harmful chemicals. You can help your body by drinking plenty of clean fresh water and by picking a healthy lifestyle of fun exercise and deliciously fresh whole foods such as local pasture fed meats, crispy deep green leafy vegetables and wild herbals such as nettles and dandelions.

May your New Year bring New Health to you!

Herb Rack

This is the herb rack that hangs in my kitchen. There is a little tiny wooden 'widget' bird hanging in the center. Each year I replenish the herbs from my garden. I have painted a folk art rendition of this rack that I will share with you, as soon as I can figure out *how* to upload it, as it is quite a large file. Happy gathering.

No More Grocery Store

The wind is whipping around this old farmhouse as the sky lightens. There is no sunrise to see this morning, but rather fat flakes of cold white snow, and whirling clouds of woodsmoke blown this way and that. We are waking up to a cold and blustery day! Monday is traditionally my one day a week where I take my grocery list and head out to get food for the whole week. After the grocery store, I drive to a local Organically Certified farm and get our weekly cow share milk, 2 gallons to drink and turn into homemade cheese. This morning is so cold and snowy I was thinking that it should be a 'No More Grocery Store' day. Really, what do we need? Tissues??? Dish soap??? I have literally baskets and baskets of homemade soap scraps and we have hankies that can be washed. There is milk still in the cooler and almost 2 bushels of organic cabbage sitting next to about 10 bushels of apples and 2 hams that were given as gifts by hunter's at Christmastime. We have wild hickory nuts waiting to be cracked, cheese ripening in the cooler and kale that is still green, though cold and icy, under the snow. There are jars of organic Rye, Wheat, and Kamut sitting next to me on my bread table as I type and barrels and barrels of our own honey sitting out in the honey house. If I had a sack of coffee beans and my own little Jersey cow in the barn, I would not need to venture to town until spring. What a lovely hermit-like thought, huh?

So, I think today will be a No More Grocery Store day. Instead we will read books out loud, practice our hand stitching skills, fill the wood stove full of split wood and brew a huge pot of homegrown herbal tea! This is just the day to stay home. Please join me in slowing down and enjoying the day.