Well, here we are. Summertime has hit Southern Oregon and I am absolutely loving it! Newest arrivals on the homestead are lavender and kombucha, read on for more! I have been working like crazy at my new job, but honestly it has made me manage my time even better than I did before, so the…
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How to Make an Herbal Salve
Making your own all natural herbal salve is so easy! This salve is the perfect beginner herbal medicine recipe for a beginning herbalist. Use it on minor cuts, scrapes, bruises, bites, stings, rashes and dry skin. It has powerful healing benefits with all of the medicinal herbs it contains, and smells divine! Learn how to…
Updates and Recent Happenings: Sprouts and Slugs
Well how is everyone doing on this lovely Friday? We’ve had quite a cloudy and rainy week here in Ashland and it’s brought us numerous sprouts and slugs (see below), but this weekend is supposed to be sunny and warm – I can’t wait! I know that we need the rain and I appreciate any…
Growing and Foraging for Comfrey
If you’ve done any reading on the subject of permaculture, then you have for sure heard of comfrey. This plant has become the permaculturists darling for good reason, as it has a multitude of benefits including, but not limited to, natural fertilizer, dynamic accumulator, living mulch, companion plant, compost activator, and numerous medicinal uses. Unfortunately…
Tropical Permaculture
Hello! As you may have seen in my Updates and Recent Happenings: Costa Rica! post, Joel and I have recently returned from the wonderful Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. Even though we were there on our honeymoon, we still couldn’t resist the urge to learn as much as possible about all of the awesome tropical…
Updates and Recent Happenings: Normal Life
Whew! Although I absolutely love traveling, it’s so nice to come home after being away for a while. (Here’s all about our Costa Rica trip if you missed it). What’s even better is to come home to beautiful springtime! When we left over a month ago spring was juuuuust barely starting to show itself, so…
Sausage and Peppers
Ahh, classic Italian food, how I love you. You are comforting, satisfying, and above all, delicious. Now, I don’t know if most of the Italian food I make actually constitutes as classic, but I like to think that it does. Unfortunately I don’t have an Italian grandma to tell me otherwise, so I usually just…
How to Ditch Your Lawn and Grow Food
Grow Food Not Lawns! This is my new mantra. While lawns can be nice for playing soccer, rolling around on, or as a place for your dog to poop (don’t roll on it after that), all of those tasks can be done elsewhere. Beyond that, with the drought that we’re having out west, why would…
Updates and Recent Happenings: Costa Rica!
Well hello! You may have noticed a bit of an absence of yours truly in the past few weeks. I’ve only been eating, relaxing, and getting married in Costa Rica! We had such an awesome time taking in the local food and culture of the Osa Peninsula and Golfo Dulce. It really was an adventure…
How to Bottle 5 Gallons of Mead (or wine)
Hello all of you lovely fermenters! Have you made mead yet? If you haven’t, you should start with my How to Make a Gallon of Mead post. Once you do that you will probably want more… a lot more if you’re like most people! So your next step is my How to Make 5 Gallons…
